Our Beliefs

As a traditional United Methodist congregation, we place Christ foremost. We believe in one God in three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each one is equally God. God the Son became a human two-thousand years ago in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus lived, taught, preached, healed, called for social justice, and died on the cross on our behalf. Dead three days, Jesus was resurrected (brought back to life) on a Sunday. His resurrection proved that Jesus Christ overcame sin and death. He opened the way for all to have the possibility of eternal life.

We stress the grace of God. Grace means that God loves us, not because we earned God’s love, but because our God loves us. Our denomination’s founder—Reverend John Wesley of England (1703-91)—taught that Christ offers grace to everyone. Such “prevenient grace” allows us to know that God exists and enables us to respond. God offers “justifying grace” to everyone, but it is too bad that not everyone accepts it. God loves us humans enough to give us the free will to decide whether or not we want to accept Christ’s grace. Everyone who accepts Christ’s grace will receive eternal life, which begins upon acceptance and continues in heaven after death. A Wesleyan emphasis is that God does not leave us as spiritual newborns; rather, God gives us “sanctifying grace” to empower us to grow in our love of God and other people.

Because we cannot and do not have to earn God’s love for us, we offer Holy Communion to visitors and members of all ages. Because Christian baptism is one of the tangible ways that we receive God’s grace, it makes sense that we would want to receive it as soon as possible; therefore, we baptize infants (as well as older children, youth, and adults). If someone wants to join our church who was baptized in another denomination, we gladly recognize their baptism because Christians are baptized into Christ’s universal Church rather than into a particular congregation or denomination.

Our congregation’s mission statement reflects that of The United Methodist Church. We are “to make disciples of Jesus Christ.” We want to reach out to those who do not know Christ, receive them into the life of the church, help them to grow in the faith, and equip them to go out and serve others in Christ’s name.