What We Believe
Stony Creek is known for being a Christ-focused and Bible-centered church. This page serves as a summary of our core beliefs and doctrines.
Core Beliefs
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We believe in one true and living God, the sovereign Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, and Ruler of all things. He is unchangeable, infinite, eternal, and perfect in all of His attributes. He is all-powerful, and all-knowing, His perfect knowledge extending to all things past, present, and future. He is the loving and gracious, showing us great mercy, yet He is holy, set apart and special above all others. He is revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience - indeed, we owe Him our all.
The Father is the head of the Godhead, and into his hands the kingdom shall be delivered. The Son is the eternal Son of God, the Promised Messiah of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. He is fully God and became fully man, hence the God-man. He lived a sinless life,. He died a substitutionary death on the cross to provide redemption for man, was buried, and physically rose again from the dead. He has ascended to the right hand of God where He intercedes for us, and in the Father’s own time will return literally, visibly, and personally to overthrow sin and judge the world. He is our Wonderful Master, Savior, and Friend. The Holy Spirit is sent from God to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgement, as well as regenerate and cleanse from sin. He is the resident guide, teacher, and strengthener of the believer. The Holy Spirit indwells the child of God at the moment of conversion and the fruit of the Spirit becomes the evidence of His presence in a person’s life. He also seals all secures all believers until the day of redemption. The Spirit gifts all believers to serve the Lord, but in many different ways.
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We believe that mankind is the special creation of God, made in God’s own image. God created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. Through the temptation of Satan, and by man’s free choice, man chose to go his own way instead of God’s, and sinned against God. Mankind fell from the original innocence, and became separated from God, bringing sin to the human race.
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We believe that because of sin, all are separated from God and are utterly unable to remedy their lost condition. Our only hope is Jesus Christ. Salvation is a gift of God received by grace when a person repents of sin and puts their faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is not based on human merit or works. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Christ Jesus. Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man and is offered freely to all who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, who by his own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. All who are truly saved are eternally secure in Christ and their salvation is complete, requiring no additional experience. The evidence of salvation is progressively revealed by the fruit of the Spirit, holiness in life, and obedience to our Lord, for which a continual filling with the Holy Spirit is necessary. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration/justification, sanctification, and glorification.
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We believe that the Bible, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testament, was written by men inspired by God and is the record of God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is the perfect treasure of divine instruction, the sole authority for life and faith. It has God for its author, Christ as its focus, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It is inerrant and infallible in its manuscripts, totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christain union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions are to be tried. We believe that the Bible has the power to change lives when people are exposed to its message. We deny that other books are inspired by God in the same way as the Bible, God’s Word.
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We believe that, in this age of history, though there are many other God-called ministries that assist God’s people in fulfilling His mission for us, the church is God’s primary and chosen instrument through which He does His work in this world. A New Testament church is a voluntary, autonomous, local gathering of baptized believers in Christ who have covenanted together to follow the teachings of the Bible and spread the Good News to all peoples lead by the head of the church, Jesus Christ.
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We believe that the primary mission that God has given His people, the church, to accomplish is to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ in our local area and throughout the world. This is both a calling of each individual Christian, and the church as a whole.
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We believe that the two ordinances of the church are baptism and communion (The Lord’s Supper).
Baptism > We believe that baptism is an act of obedience by those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, demonstrating outwardly what happened in their life when they surrendered to Christ. It does not wash away sin or make one a child of God. It is a powerful picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and one’s identification with Christ. We believe that only those who who have personally trusted in Christ are ready for baptism and that the biblical pattern for baptism is immersion in water.
Communion > We believe that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial to the Lord’s death, celebrated by those who have accepted Him as their Lord and Savior. It reminds us of His sacrifice for us on the cross, causes us to examine our lives, and points us forward to His promised return. The bread symbolizes His body which was given for us. The cup symbolizes His blood which was shed for us.
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We believe that we are totally dependent on God and that God’s purpose is for us to seek Him with all of our hearts in His Word and through prayer and to intercede on behalf of others to Him. We believe that God’s people should be known as a house of prayer for all the nations.
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We believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in the final bodily resurrection of all men, just and unjust. The bodies of men after death return to dust, but their spirits return immediately to God - the righteous to rest with Him, the wicked to be reserved for judgement.
We believe that those who die with their sins forgiven through Jesus Christ will be resurrected to the everlasting life and will spend eternity separated from God in hell. Therefore, we make it our endeavor to share with every person how they can have eternal life in Jesus Christ.
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We believe that God is the source of all blessing, temporal and spiritual. All that we have we owe to Him. Christians are therefore under obligation to serve Him with their time, talents, and material possessions and should recognize all these as entrusted to them by God to use for His glory and for the good of others.
We believe that God’s method for financing His earthly work of spreading the Gospel to all nations and supporting the work of the ministry is by the tithes and offerings of His people. The tithe is to be given to the Lord through the local church, or storehouse, and is to be distributed as directed by the leadership of the Spirit as the need arises.