We believe and practice these essentials:

We believe in one God, creator, redeemer and sustainer of all things. God exists in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe that God loves all that God has created. God desires relationship with us and invites us into a relationship of trust and commitment.

We believe in God’s son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was truly and fully God and human. Although he lived a sinless life, he experienced human pain and estrangement. While alive, Jesus taught us how to live. He showed us what truly matters in this life, loving God and our neighbors. When he died on the cross, he became a sacrifice for our sins and when he arose from the dead to new life he became our hope for salvation. Jesus is the way for us to fully know God and enjoy eternal life.

We believe in God’s Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives new and abundant life to all who believe in Jesus Christ. The gifts of the Spirit are diverse and are given differently for the good of the church. All are needed, yet none are demanded or required. The Holy Spirit binds God’s people together in unity and grows them in Christ-like character. God accepts us as we are, but doesn’t leave us as we are.

On the Bible and how we understand it:

We believe the Bible to be the inspired, essential and trustworthy word of God. It is our rule for faith and life. When we read and proclaim the scriptures, Jesus Christ, who is the living word of God, is present through the witness of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, the scriptures must be interpreted in reverent obedience to the Lord who speaks through them.

Our Lord cautions us against misplacing our faith in a book. To the “religious” people, Jesus said, “You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. There are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5: 39-40) At the center of the Bible we find the living Christ. Our life is to be found in the saving and gracious love of Jesus Christ alone. The Word of God is alive!

There will be times when believers disagree with one another about how to interpret the Bible. Often times, issues about scripture and its interpretation are not “black and white”. We are all sinners, which means that we see even the truth of scripture “through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We look forward to the day when we shall see God “face to face” and fully know God’s grace and truth. Until that day, gentleness of spirit may be the gift that allows us to hear God’s voice more clearly.

We understand that those who differ from us on a matter of interpretation take the scriptures as seriously as we do. We should be prepared to explain to those who disagree how God is speaking to us through the scriptures. But we must also be prepared to listen to others. This does not mean that we need to accept all points of view as valid, or even faithful. God, alone, must be Lord of conscience in such matters.

Ultimately, scripture is to be the interpreter of scripture. When there is a dispute about particular verses, we will look to the whole of scripture for clarification. We must consider the whole witness of scripture and not just those verses which support what we already believe to be true.

At CCHK, we are committed to hearing and speaking the Word of God in all of our ministry. If we do disagree with one another, scripture itself guides us on this matter. We will respect the integrity of convictions “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4: 2-3

At Community Church we take seriously the idea of holding together apparently contrasting elements that make up the fullness of the gospel. In John 4:24 Jesus says, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” Christians are easily tempted to lift up either truth or spirit at the expense of the other. The term “spirit” fully embraces the heart and the experiential while “truth” embraces the head, or the cognitive. They are complementary expressions of the essence. To deny either one is to rob the gospel of its life-changing power.

Similarly, there is the example of law and grace. As Dr. Tim Keller and others have noted, “We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe and we are more accepted and loved than we ever dared hope.” To lift up either law or grace at the expense of the other distorts the gospel.

The leadership of Community Church regularly discerns where God is leading us by using any number of “opposites that are not contradictions”; at all times with Christ at the center of our vision and mission.