We are Confessional

The Second London Confession of Faith (1677/1689) is our congregational confession and statement of faith. Elders and deacons subscribe fully; members subscribe with greater allowance for good-faith exceptions. As a church we also affirm the ancient ecumenical creeds—the Apostles’, Nicene, Athanasian, and Chalcedonian. We place strong corporate emphasis on a common catechesis for both adults and children, consciously within a tradition we did not invent but have inherited, and which we have a duty to steward and promulgate.

We are Evangelical and Catholic

We aim to be generous and joyful ambassadors for Christ, bearing witness to His Kingdom corporately and personally. While remaining self-consciously Protestant, Reformed, and Baptist, we also recognize our connection to the historic, catholic Church. We practice “close” communion, welcoming to Table fellowship all true disciples of Christ who are members of evangelical churches–or are earnestly seeking to join with a gospel church as soon as possible. We will pursue goodwill and cooperation with other true churches as far as conscience allows, and prefer association with like-minded confessional congregations

Our Worship is Catholic and Reformed

We are convinced of the Reformed regulative principle of worship, and we aim for a timeless and catholic liturgy—forms of worship arising from the Scriptures, by which God is honored, through which God speaks and nourishes us, and which guide us to express joy, piety, and gratitude to the God who has saved us. Our worship follows a covenant-renewal structure and reflects a sacramental understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as means of grace. We are convinced that the regular means of grace—the Word, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer—are the God-ordained instruments of spiritual nourishment and communion with Christ.

We are Covenanted, Familial, and Human-Scaled

We are a covenanted, familial fellowship committed to mutual love, candor, peacemaking, and reconciliation. We will seek to build up one another’s marriages and families, and seek to be a witness and a blessing in our community. Our pastors will embrace their calling as spiritual shepherds and fathers, knowing and nurturing the flock with joy. We reject modernist managerial models of church life, seeking instead a family-like community that is warm but not frenetic.

We aim to multiply congregations rather than expand indefinitely. Our ministries are family-integrated and intentionally limited in number, avoiding the programmatic excesses that distract from the church’s essential callings.

We are Congregational

We affirm plurality-of-elder-led congregationalism. Our constitution clearly defines the expectations, rules, and bylaws for the church, its members, and its officers. It provides recourse for members, accountability for elders, and transparency in all matters in which the congregation has legitimate interest.

We Affirm Biblical and Natural Anthropology and Christian Households

We confess that man was created male and female in the image of God and commissioned to exercise dominion over the earth under His authority. We gladly affirm the goodness of God’s design for human sexuality, including the exclusive design of two biological sexes, male and female, and the exclusive design for one-flesh marriage between one man and one woman.

We affirm the exclusive design of household headship of the husband and father as established in creation. Further, this father-ruled order applies across the spheres of family, church, and society. We affirm a Christian and Baptist understanding of the Christian household as a divinely ordained common-kingdom sphere under the authority of the believing father, who has a duty to orient his household for both the temporal and eternal happiness of his family, endeavoring to order the home domain under the rule of Christ and His moral law, showing forth the beauty and freedom of the Gospel, the father and mother adorning the grace of God by the example of a holy life, regular family worship, and through Christian education, training the next generation of Believers in the faith, duties, habits, and norms of a life of trusting and obeying Christ.

We are cheerful and of good hope that in God's wisdom and mercy the children of faithful believers are ordinarily brought by the Holy Ghost into redeemed lives of true repentance and faith in Christ. We do not conflate the Church and the household, and affirm that none are members of the New Covenant people of God except by personal faith, yet we also understand the Christian household as a temporal but totally indispensable "table" at which the excellences of Christ's sanctifying grace and His redemptive rule are tasted and seen. We will support and hold to account heads of household in this high calling of stewardship for the physical and spiritual welfare of their households.

We are Contra-Mundum, Kingdom-Advance-Minded

We will remain steadfastly committed to preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God without fear of what man may do to us. We aim to confidently confront the idols of our time, and we will be unafraid to take risks to see Christ’s Kingdom advanced.

We are a Local Church

In the tradition of our Protestant forebears, we will be a truly local church—rooted and committed to a geographical place, seeking its temporal good for the purpose of pointing sinners toward Christ’s eternal Kingdom. We will bear witness to the authority of Christ over the earthly governments of man, calling the magistrate to submit to God's will in establishing justice conformed to the standard of the Word of God. We will encourage one another to community engagement, including education, civics, politics, and economics, flowing out of the Protestant doctrines of the cultural mandate and secular vocation. We will plan and labor with a multigenerational institution-building hope, with a conscious and intentional goal of rearing many generations of faithful sons and daughters who know God and bless their neighbors. We will co-labor with neighbors who share a desire to see Christ’s righteous rule reflected in the civic life of our community, as far as conscience allows.