Beliefs

We are a church that draws our identity as a particular people of God from the reformed understanding of Scripture and the traditions of practice as expressed through the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. As such, our chief end as a church is simply to glorify the triune God and enjoy Him forever (WSC Q.1). Our mission as the visible church is to be the body of Christ, which is the fullness of God. This mission is summarized in Jesus’ ‘great commission’ to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to observe all the commandments of God (Matthew 28:19-20). We at Grace PCA understand ourselves as one local congregation of the great visible church, which is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the house and family of God. We believe the church to be the ark without which people cannot ordinarily be saved from the judgement of God. We know that in order to gather and perfect the saints in this life, God gives His church the holy scriptures and the ordinances of God—which are His means of grace. There is no head of the church or of Grace PCA other than Jesus. (WCF 25.2-6)

These ordinances of God are the preaching of the Word, by which we receive it, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives; the sacraments; and prayer. We rely on these means of grace within the church as the effectual ways of building us in holiness, through faith, to salvation. We desire to attend to these means with diligence and preparation. (WSC Q.88-90)

We know that through these practices, we receive the benefits of union with Christ, having been joined with Him by the saving work of God. And having this privilege, we are under God’s special care and government, preserved and protected from all enemies. We have fellowship among God’s people, receive the ministry of the gospel, testify to an unbelieving world of the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and exclude no one from fellowship who desires to come to Christ. (WLC Q.62-66)

These are the historic beliefs and practices we have received from our fathers in the faith and pass on to our children. It is our mission to embody these truths as fully as we are able, by grace through faith. We understand that to a perishing world the visible church, including Grace PCA, ought to stand as a prophetic rebuke to sin—and as a welcoming refuge to those who might be saved, a fragrance of life to life, and death to death. (2 Cor 2:16)