Our Beliefs

Doctrine

Our beliefs, in brief:

  • The inerrancy and infallibility of the Holy Scriptures in the Old and New Testaments
  • The sovereignty of God
  • A Biblical, God-centered worship
  • The atoning nature of Jesus’ death and His resurrection
  • Justification by grace alone, through faith alone
  • The necessity of an obedient life of thankfulness
  • The second coming of Jesus and the physical resurrection of all men, the righteous to life eternal with God and the wicked to eternal punishment in hell

These beliefs are all described in much greater detail in our doctrinal standards, the Three Forms of Unity.

Why Do We Have Creeds?

All churches have creeds, or in other words common understandings of what they believe the Bible teaches.  Almost all Christian churches will say that they believe the Bible, but they vary widely as to what they think the Bible actually says.  A creed or a confession is simply an agreement that church has about what that church believes the Bible teaches.  A church may deny that it has a creed or confession, but every church will have doctrines or beliefs that to them are essential and others that are unacceptable to them.  This is all that a creed is- an explicit statement of what the church believes.  We in the Reformed faith believe it is much better and more transparent to let everyone know what our creed is, so that we can all be accountable to one another to support and defend those beliefs and so newcomers will have a clear idea what we believe and teach from the beginning.

The Reformed churches hold to the Three Forms of Unity.  The Three Forms are the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dordt.  The Heidelberg Catechism is an instructional tool, written in question and answer form, that has been used for 450 years to introduce people to the Reformed Faith.  The Belgic Confession is a summary of all our major doctrines that is widely used by the Dutch and German Reformed Churches as a standard of faith, and the Canons of Dordt are a set of doctrinal standards produced by the Synod of Dordt about 400 years ago addressing the issue of predestination and the nature of our salvation.  These three forms have been used by the Reformed churches of Europe for centuries to teach the faith, to hold each other accountable to that faith and to spread that faith to the world.  These documents can all be found on our resources page.