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We seek to fulfill this vision through 

• the multiplying of disciples who grow to be like Jesus,
  • the multiplying of gospel communities,
    • and through the planting of more gospel churches in country places.

Believing it to be of first importance, we seek to be a church that is centred on the good news of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and is permeated by this in every part. Whether it be the individual parts of a Sunday service, the activities we do together as a Church, or the day to day living of our lives, we want the truth of the gospel to be seen and declared in all we say and do. Gospel is the overarching title, from which we draw:

We seek to be an authentic community of believers who are involved in each others’ lives and personally experience the implications of the gospel together. In this context we desire to live out:

We seek to grow under the word of the gospel, revealed in Scripture and expressed through intentional relationships. We believe this growth occurs as the gospel truth is applied to our everyday lives so that each person grows up into the likeness of Christ, as a disciple of Jesus who makes disciples for Jesus. We want to live on the:

We seek to be living the reality that God’s people are called to be the witnesses of Jesus, who boldly carry the good news of Jesus to a dying world, and who long to see many more come to glorify His name.

That there is one God, infinitely great and good, the creator and sustainer of all things visible and invisible, the one true source of light and life, who has life in himself and lives eternally in glorious light and sovereign love in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14) – co-equal in nature, majesty, and glory. Everything God does in creating, sustaining, judging, and redeeming the world reflects who God is, the one whose perfections, including love, holiness, knowledge, wisdom, power, and righteousness, have been revealed in the history of salvation. God has freely purposed from before the foundation of the world to elect and form a people for himself to be his treasured possession (Deut. 7:6), to the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:3-14).

That God has spoken and continues to speak in and through Scripture, the only infallible and sufficiently clear rule and authority for Christian faith, thought, and life (sola scriptura). Scripture is God’s inspired and illuminating Word in the words of his servants (Psa. 119:105), the prophets and apostles, a gracious self-communication of God’s own light and life, a means of grace for growing in knowledge and holiness. The Bible is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it commands, trusted in all that it promises, and revered in all that it reveals (2 Tim 3:16).

That God communicates his goodness to all creatures, but in particular to human beings, whom he has made in his own image, both male and female (Gen. 1:26-27), and accordingly that all men, women, and children have been graciously bestowed with inherent dignity (rights) and creaturely vocation (responsibilities).

That the original goodness of creation and the human creature has been corrupted by sin, namely, the self-defeating choice of the first human beings to deny the Creator and the created order by going their own way, breaking God’s law for life (Rom. 3:23). Through disobedience to the law-giver, Adam and Eve incurred disorder instead of order (Rom. 8:20-21), divine condemnation instead of approval, and death instead of life for themselves and their descendants (Psa. 51:5; Rom. 5:12-20).

That Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God become human for us and our salvation (John 3:17), the only Mediator (solus Christus) between God and humanity (1 Tim. 2:5), born of the virgin Mary, the Son of David and servant of the house of Israel (Rom. 1:3; 15:8), one person with two natures, truly God and truly man. He lived a fully human life, having entered into the disorder and brokenness of fallen existence, yet without sin, and in his words, deeds, attitude, and suffering embodied the free and loving communication of God’s own light (truth) and life (salvation).

That God who is rich in mercy towards the undeserving has made gracious provision for human wrongdoing, corruption, and guilt, provisionally and typologically through Israel’s Temple and sin offerings, then definitively and gloriously in the gift of Jesus’ once-for-all sufficient and perfect sacrificial death on the cross (Rom. 6:10; 1 Pet. 3:18) in the temple of his human flesh (Heb. 10:11-12). By his death in our stead, he revealed God’s love and upheld God’s justice, removing our guilt, vanquishing the powers that held us captive, and reconciling us to God (Isa. 53:4-6; 2 Cor. 5:21; Col. 2:14-15). It is wholly by grace (sola gratia), not our own works or merits, that we have been forgiven; it is wholly by Jesus’ shed blood, not by our own sweat and tears, that we have been cleansed.

That the gospel is the good news that the triune God has poured out his grace in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that through his work we might have peace with God (Rom. 5:1). Jesus lived in perfect obedience yet suffered everything sinners deserved so that sinners would not have to pursue a righteousness of their own, relying on their own works, but rather through trust in him as the fulfillment of God’s promises could be justified by faith alone (sola fide) in order to become fellow heirs with him. Christ died in the place of sinners, absorbing the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23), so that those who entrust themselves to him also die with him to the power, penalty, and (eventually) practice of sin. Christ was raised the firstborn of a renewed and restored creation, so that those whom the Spirit unites to him in faith are raised up and created a new humanity in him (Eph. 2:15). Renewed in God’s image, they are thereby enabled to live out his life in them. One with Christ and made alive in him who is the only ground of salvation, sinners are reconciled with God – justified, adopted, sanctified, and eventually glorified children of the promise.

That the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, the unseen yet active personal presence of God in the world, who unites believers to Christ, regenerating and making them new creatures (Tit. 3:5) with hearts oriented to the light and life of the kingdom of God and to peace and justice on earth. The Spirit indwells those whom he makes alive with Christ, through faith incorporates them into the body of Christ, and conforms them to the image of Christ so that they may glorify him as they grow in knowledge, wisdom, and love into mature sainthood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). The Spirit is the light of truth and fire of love who continues to sanctify the people of God, prompting them to repentance and faith, diversifying their gifts, directing their witness, and empowering their discipleship.

That the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church is God’s new society, the first fruit of the new creation, the whole company of the redeemed through the ages, of which Christ is Lord and head. The truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is the church’s firm foundation (Matt. 16:16-18; 1 Cor. 3:11). The local church is both embassy and parable of the kingdom of heaven, an earthly place where his will is done and he is now present, existing visibly everywhere two or three gather in his name to proclaim and spread the gospel in word and works of love, and by obeying the Lord’s command to baptize disciples (Matt. 28:19) and celebrate the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:19).

That these two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which some among us call “sacraments,” are bound to the Word by the Spirit as visible words proclaiming the promise of the gospel, and thus become places where recipients encounter the Word again. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper communicate life in Christ to the faithful, confirming them in their assurance that Christ, the gift of God for the people of God, is indeed “for us and our salvation” and nurturing them in their faith. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are physical focal points for key Reformation insights: the gifts of God (sola gratia) and the faith that grasps their promise (sola fide). They are tangible expressions of the gospel insofar as they vividly depict our dying, rising, and incorporation into Jesus’ body (“one bread … one body” – 1 Cor. 10:16-17), truly presenting Christ and the reconciliation he achieved on the cross. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper strengthen the faithful by visibly recalling, proclaiming, and sealing the gracious promise of forgiveness of sins and communion with God and one another through the peace-making blood of Christ (1 Cor. 11:26; Col. 1:20).

That through participating in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as well as prayer, the ministry of the Word, and other forms of corporate worship, we grow into our new reality as God’s people, a holy nation (1 Pet. 2:9, 10), called to put on Christ through his indwelling Spirit. It is through the Spirit’s enlivening power that we live in imitation of Christ as his disciples, individually and corporately, a royal priesthood that proclaims his excellent deeds and offers our bodies as spiritual sacrifices in right worship of God and sacrificial service to the world through works of love, compassion for the poor, and justice for the oppressed, always, everywhere and to everyone bearing wise witness to the way, truth, and life of Jesus Christ.

That in God’s own time and way, the bodily risen and ascended Christ will visibly return to consummate God’s purpose for the whole cosmos through his victory over death and the devil (1 Cor. 15:26). He will judge the world, consigning any who persist in unbelief to an everlasting fate apart from him, where his life and light are no more. Yet he will prepare his people as a bride for the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7-9), giving rest to restless hearts and life to glorified bodies (1 Cor. 15:42-44; Phil. 3:21) as they exult in joyful fellowship with their Lord and delight in the new heaven and the new earth (Rev. 21:1-2). There they shall reign with him (2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 22:5) and see him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12; Rev. 22:4), forever rapt in wonder, love, and praise.

Soli Deo Gloria!

We believe that the gospel, the good news of Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension by which we are saved, is to be the functional centre of our lives and ministry. We believe disciples are made as the gospel is applied to our lives in community (Ephesians 4:15), and the decisions of our leadership are informed by gospel priorities.

We believe that God sovereignly chooses who he will save and causes them to turn to him in faith. This provides us with comfort in the power of God’s mighty hand to keep those whom he has saved, and this belief drives us to mission with confidence that God will work salvation through his people, as he has chosen to do.

John 6:35-40, 44; Romans 8-11; Ephesians 1

We believe that Christian Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer, into the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit; to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem, our faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior, with its effect, in our death to sin and resurrection to a new life.

(Matthew 28:18-21, Romans 6, Every Baptism in the bible)

We believe that the local church is to be led by Biblically qualified (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9) men (1 Timothy 2:12) who are affirmed by the local congregation as elders. We understand the terms elder, overseer and pastor as different descriptions of the same role in the Church. The local Church is autonomous, not being led by an external hierarchy, although it may be convenient to attach as a Church to a denomination, this will not come at the expense of autonomy.

We believe in congregational governance, worked out through specific decisions which need to be made with the congregation’s approval.

We believe that men and women were created by God to complement each other, equal in personhood and dignity, and diverse in roles (similar to how the Trinity is made up of equal persons who take distinct roles – i.e. Father, Son and Spirit). Complementarianism is significant because it is given to us as a picture of the reality of the gospel.

Two specific areas we see this applied are

1. in the home, where husbands are called to lead in loving their wives, as Christ loved the Church. This is self-sacrificial leadership, purposed toward the blessing and growth of the wife. Wives are called to submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ, out of ultimate reverence for Jesus. Thus, the wife is never called to submit to her husband in a way that is disobedient to Jesus.
2. In the church, where men are called to exercise the authoritative teaching over the whole congregation of the preaching ministry and are called to be elders.

(Genesis 1-2, Ephesians 5:22-33, 1 Timothy 2-3, Titus 1-2)

Because we believe in the authority of Scripture, we hold to a conservative understanding of creation as presented in Genesis 1-2. We reject theistic evolution, and all other forms of pre-fall evolution as contrary to the words of Scripture which teach a perfect, deathless creation before the fall, and that death came through sin. We affirm that Adam was a literal man, not least of all because the New Testament contrasts the literal Jesus with the literal Adam.

Whilst our members are free to be involved in politics as they see fit, we as a Church avoid being tied to any one side of politics. Our allegiance is to Christ, and no other political party or organisation represents Him perfectly in this fallen world.

This does not restrict us from discussing or teaching as a Church to engage with political issues where there is a moral imperative to do so.

We believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit as described in Scripture continue to this day, are to be desired and practiced (1 Corinthians 14:1), are given for the building up of the Church (Ephesians 4), and ultimately are for the glory of God.

Whilst we wholeheartedly hold to this, we also take caution with the many misuses and misrepresentations of the gifts in the broader church today.