What We Believe

As United Methodist we affirm these truths about the God we worship and serve:

We affirm God as the creator of the universe. God is loving, compassionate, just and kind. The Creator desires that we live in  a loving relationship with all people and with God.

Because of God’s desire to live in relationship with us, God, in Jesus Christ, has come among us, born among the poor of his people.  Jesus taught and lived an exemplary life and calls us to follow his example and teachings. Jesus died because the religious leaders rejected his way of love and forgiveness. God raised Jesus to new life that we might believe in the power of that love. We believe Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life . By having a faith like that of Jesus we believe we belong to the family of God.

The Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus Christ alive and at work in our world. It is this Spirit of Christ that calls the Church into existence and empowers its members with gifts of ministry. It is this Spirit that comforts us in hard times and reminds us that we are never without the presence of God.

The Bible is a source for how God speaks to us through the history of Israel’s relationship with God, through the Gospel stories of Jesus’ life and through the letters to the early Churches that were deemed sacred by the Church. The Bible is sufficient for us to know God, to know how God wants us to live, and to find in these words a means for redeeming us in the midst of life.

The Church is the community of people called by God to be a fellowship of believers who represent Jesus Christ to the world. The church is the Body of Christ living in the world. The Church is called to worship God in Christ and to serve God and one another.

As United Methodist we observe two sacraments, Holy Communion and Baptism. Both Sacraments are a means of grace and symbolize to us the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace of God working in us. Baptism is God’s gift to us. Baptism is something that God does for us through the Church. Baptism is first and foremost a symbol of God’s love that declares the truth that we belong to the family of God.

Holy Communion is also the outward and visible sign of God’s love and forgiveness. Communion reminds us that we belong to God and that nothing in life will ever separate us from God.

We affirm the sacred worth of all people for we are created in the image of God. Our worth is not fixed by what we accomplish in life but rather by who we are: God’s children. In Jesus Christ we see how God values us in that Christ died as a representation of God’s love for us.

Though we affirm human value we also acknowledge that our human efforts fall short of what God has created and called us to be. It is only because of God’s forgiveness made visible in the life of Jesus Christ that we are restored to life in God.

In Jesus Christ God has triumphed over everything that takes away from life, both now and in that life that is yet to come. Therefore we believe that God intends this life to be full and complete and will keep us in this life and will bless us with eternal life.