Our Beliefs

Amos 3:3 (NKJV) ³  Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?
Fellowship and peace among individuals with differing beliefs, worldviews, and religious convictions in the same church would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Some of the key areas where differences arise include the sanctity of life, marriage, gender identity, racism, Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the church, and Israel, among others.

The leadership at New Beginnings Christian Fellowship (NBCF) agrees that the beliefs of NBCF, as outlined below, are drawn from the Holy Scriptures, which are the sole source of sound doctrine. The New Testament teaches that the grace of God, which brings salvation, has appeared to all men (Titus 2:11-14) through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, the complete revelation of God to mankind.

We hold that opinions, culture, education, science, experiences, or any other ideology or practice not supported by the Word of God are inconsistent with, or in violation of, God’s will for His creation and His church.

We believe that the faith "once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3) in the first century by Jesus Christ, and spread throughout the world by the Holy Spirit through the apostles, is the complete revelation of God to mankind and His Church. This revelation is not to be changed to accommodate personal opinions, culture, education, science, experiences, or any other ideologies that do not align with the teachings of Christ and His apostles.

We respect those who disagree with NBCF’s statement of faith and understand that each person has the freedom to hold their own views. However, NBCF encourages those with differing beliefs who are not open to changing and following God’s Word to seek a fellowship where those in attendance share similar beliefs, as two cannot walk together unless they are agreed.

STATEMENT OF FAITH

• WE BELIEVE that God offers forgiveness, salvation, and restoration to all who confess and forsake their sin, seeking His mercy and forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ. (Acts 3:19-21; Rom 10:9-10; 1 Cor 6:9-11.)
• WE BELIEVE worship of God should be spiritual, rooted in the truth of Scripture and responsive to the Holy Spirit prompting heartfelt, Christ-centered worship. We value both reverence and order, seeking to honor God in worship.
• WE BELIEVE worship of God should be inspirational! Therefore, we give great place to music in our worship.
• WE BELIEVE worship of God should be intelligent! Therefore, in our services, we emphasize Bible teaching so that God may instruct us how He would be worshiped.
• WE BELIEVE worship of God is fruitful! Therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the greatest evidence that we are truly worshiping Him.
• WE BELIEVE in the inerrancy of Scripture, that the Bible, Old and New Testaments, in the original autographs, is the inspired, infallible Word of God, a complete and final written revelation of God.
• WE BELIEVE in one personal, transcendent, and holy God, the creator of all, who is eternal and who manifests Himself in three separate persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ, though fully God became a man for the suffering of death, that He is the promised Messiah, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His vicarious death on the Cross, was bodily resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, ascended back to the right hand of God the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for us. After Jesus ascended to Heaven, He poured out His Holy Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to fulfill His command to preach the Gospel to the entire world, an obligation shared by all believers today.
• WE BELIEVE that all people are, by nature, separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are freely offered to all by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When a person repents of sin and accepts Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, all his/her sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a child of God.
• WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit empowers believers with spiritual gifts for the building up of the church, and these gifts should be exercised in love, under the authority of Scripture, and for the glory of Christ (1 Cor 12:7, Eph 4:12, 1 Cor 13, 1 Pet 4:10-11, 1 Cor 14:40). While we affirm that God is sovereign and still performs miracles according to His will (Heb 2:4, James 5:14-16), we also recognize that some teachings and practices related to spiritual gifts go beyond what is clearly taught in Scripture (1 Cor 4:6). We believe the foundational roles of apostles and prophets were unique to the establishment of the early church and are not ongoing offices today (Eph 2:20, Acts 1:21-22, Rev 21:14). All spiritual gifts must be used in an orderly, Christ-centered, and biblically sound manner (1 Cor 14:33, 40, Col 3:17). As Scripture emphasizes love as the more excellent way, we believe that love is more important than all spiritual gifts, and without it, the exercise of those gifts is worthless.
• WE BELIEVE Jesus Christ is the head of the Body, His church, and that church government should he simplistic rather than a complex bureaucracy. We desire to be led by the Holy Scriptures in all the functions and directions of the ministry of the church.
• WE BELIEVE in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church, and we believe that the second coming of Christ with His saints to rule on the earth will be personal, pre-millennial, and visible. This motivates us to holy living, heartfelt worship, committed service, diligent study of God's Word, regular fellowship, and participation in baptism by immersion and in Holy Communion.
• WE BELIEVE that the Word of God should be taught in such a way that its message can be applied to an individual's life, leading that person to greater maturity in Christ.
• WE BELIEVE that we should reject doctrinal viewpoints or spiritual phenomena which are based solely on experience. We look to the Word of God for the basis of all our faith and practice.
• WE BELIEVE in a real devil called Satan who, along with all his evil angels, called demons, is destined to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire, and who now seeks to deceive the believers and defeat the work of God, but who can be resisted by believers who are in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, protected by God, and interceded for by Jesus Christ our Lord.
• WE BELIEVE that the nation of Israel has a special place in God's plan and that all the promises of God to Israel will be fulfilled.
• WE BELIEVE that God wonderfully and purposefully creates each person as male or female. These two distinct and complementary sexes together reflect the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). To reject one’s biological sex is to reject God's perfect design and the image-bearing identity given by Him.
• WE BELIEVE that the term “marriage” has only one meaning: the uniting of one biological man and one biological woman in a single, exclusive union, as defined in Scripture. (Gen 2:18-25.)
• WE BELIEVE that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other. (1 Cor 6:18; 7:2-5; Heb 13:4.)
• WE BELIEVE that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, use of pornography or any other form of sexual inappropriateness) is sinful as described by God in the scriptures. (Matt 15:18-20; 1 Cor 6:9-10.)
• WE BELIEVE that God welcomes everyone to accept the gift of salvation through faith in His Son Jesus Christ regardless of past behavior and lifestyle identified as sinful in His Word. Therefore, if an individual was known as a thief, murderer, adulterer, fornicator, homosexual, transgender, idolater, drunkard, drug addict or any other activity that goes against sound doctrine, comes to repentance and accepts Christ, the evidence of the repentance will be revealed in a change of lifestyle that reflects God’s will, as revealed in His Word. (1 Cor 6:9-11)
• WE BELIEVE that human life is sacred from conception to its natural end; and that we must have concern for the physical and spiritual needs of our fellow men. Psalm 139:13; Isaiah 49:1; Jeremiah 1:5; Matthew 22:37-39; Romans 12:20-21; Galatians 6:10.
• WE BELIEVE that every person must be afforded compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity. (Mark 12:28-31; Luke 6:31.) Hateful and harassing behavior or attitudes directed toward any individual are to be repudiated and are not in accord with Scripture nor the doctrines of New Beginnings Christian Fellowship.