Embrace God, Encourage Others, & Engage the World
At Church in the Falls, we believe that the deepest longings of the human heart can be satisfied only in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. A fully developing follower of Jesus will consistently Embrace God, Encourage Others, & Engage the World.
We use three key activities to do this:
- We Embrace God through Sunday Worship that is culturally relevant and grounded in scripture.
- We Encourage Others through Weekly Life Groups where we enjoy authentic Christian community.
- We Engage the World through ministry as God calls & equips us by his Holy Spirit. We work with God to bring about His will on earth “just as it is in Heaven.”
Our Core Beliefs
A note from the leadership…
- At Church in the Falls, we work towards unity in essential beliefs and foster liberty in non-essential beliefs, but we show love & grace in all beliefs. We love hearty discussions that lead to deeper understandings & closer relationships, but never to division.
- We know that all Christians will never agree on every detail of teaching. Our unity with the church universal is based solely on the person & work of Jesus Christ and not on absolute agreement of all teachings.
- We at Church in the Falls hold to the following core beliefs and ask that those who join us, understand & embrace them as well.
• There is one God, creator & ruler of the universe, who has eternally existed in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, & God the Holy Spirit. (Genesis 1:1, 26-27; John 1:1-4, 14; Psalm 90:2; Matthew 28:19; Romans 1:2-4; Galatians 4:4-7; 1 Peter 1:2; Romans 8:1-16; Ephesians 1:13-14)
Eternity flows FROM and back TO the Father.
• He is both the Origin & Destination of all things. (Job 2:10; John 13:3; 1 Corinthians 11:12; Philippians 3:9; James 1:17; Luke 20:25; Acts 4:24; Acts 20:21)
• He is perfectly loving & completely right in all things (Deuteronomy 32:3-4) – “in Him we live & move & have our being!” (Acts 17:28)
• His first name is the ‘to be’ verb: I AM! (Exodus 3:14)
Eternity flows THROUGH the Son.
• Everything that has been created was created through him (John 1:3)
• We see God through the Son: He was fully God & fully man – both human & divine. “He is the exact representation of God’s being (Hebrews 1:3) “the image of the invisible God…the fullness of deity in a body (Colossians 1:15,19; 2:9)
• Even though our sin has separated us from the Father, we may return to him through the Son (John 10:9; 14:6; Romans 5:17-21)
• He died on the cross after ‘becoming sin’ for us (Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21) so we could re-unite with God (1 Peter 3:18)
Eternity flows BY the Holy Spirit
• The word translated Spirit means ‘breath of God.’ He activated God’s voice & spoke creation into existance (Genesis 1:2). He is the very Power of God
• Jesus was led by, taught by & did miracles by the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:1-2; 14-15)
• The Spirit was responsible for “breathing out” the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21)
• Because of the work of the Son, the Holy Spirit has now come to physically live inside of us (John 14:16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:14, 19; 2 Corinthians 6:16)
• He empowers us (Ephesians 3:20)
• He makes us look like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Galatians 5:25)
• He convinces the world that they are guilty of sin & teaches us what the truth is (John 16:7-15)
• The Bible is the inspired Word of God, and therefore the final authority in our understanding of God & life (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21; Psalm 119:105, 160)
• God created human beings as male & female, both in His image, for the purpose of living in an intimate relationship with Him (Acts 17:24-28; Genesis 1:26-27)
• Adam & Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that is the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men & women (Mark 10:6-9)
• In God’s wise purposes, men & women are not simply interchangeable, but rather complement each other in mutually enriching ways – ultimately representing Christ & His Church (Ephesians 5:25-33)
• We were created for union with God but we have separated ourselves from God through our sin (Isaiah 59:1-2; Romans 3:23)
• God sent His son, Jesus Christ, to bring us back to God (1 Peter 3:18, 21).
• He offered His righteous life as payment for our sin. This process was accomplished through his Death, Burial & Resurrection which is called the Gospel or the ‘good news’ (1 Corinthians 15:1-8; Romans 1:16-17).
• Salvation is a free gift of God grounded in the sacrifice of Jesus, received through an active faith and expressed through confession, repentance, & baptism (Romans 6:3-4; 10:9; Acts 2:36-41; Ephesians 2:8-9).
• God not only wants to save us, but also to transform us into the image of His Son (1 John 2:5-6)
• Transformation is initiated by salvation, sustained by God’s grace, and gathers momentum as our will is brought into ever-increasing alignment with God’s will (Philippians 2:12; Romans 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:16-18)
• The church is the body of Christ on earth, empowered by the Holy Spirit to restore back to God those who have been separated by sin. They introduce them to Jesus (1 Corinthians 14:23-25)
• The church is also is the primary instrument that God uses to bring to maturity those who have already been saved (Ephesians 4:1-16)
• Jesus will one day return, final judgment will be given, all creation will be made new, the image of God will be completely restored within us & we will reign with Christ forever (Matthew 19:28, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Romans 8:18-23, Revelation 21:1-22:7, 1 John 3:2)