Our Values

Some things we affirm as foundational...

  • The Great Tradition of orthodox Christian faith as it is revealed in the scripture and expressed in the ancient creeds of the Church is relevant for the needs of the contemporary world.
  • The vitality of the local church engaged in ministry is crucial for the salvation of the world.
  • The key to vitality for the Christian Church in the third millennium is to rediscover the spiritual and theological focus of the first millennium.
  • Unity in love and mutual respect among Christian believers and churches is critical for vibrant witness in our world today.
  • The global nature of the Church must be acknowledged.
  • The faith of Christians should be an informed and thoughtful faith.
  • Excellence in Christ-centered scholarship and ministry is required to bring glory to God.

The Core of Our Faith

There is only One True God, the Holy Trinity, whose existence, nature and character has been revealed in the history of Israel and supremely in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the definitive revelation of God. Because we only know of the nature of God as Trinity through the person of Jesus Christ, the language that we use to speak of God must be the language that Jesus gave us. The nature of God as Trinity, therefore, is only adequately expressed by naming God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The Three Persons of the Trinity are eternally distinct from one another, but are not three different divine beings. The Three are the same essence and all Three Persons share equally in divinity and are together the One True God.

The Second Person of the Trinity -- God the Son -- became incarnate as the human man Jesus of Nazareth. This is the most profound act of God's redeeming love for all of the creation and for all of humanity. Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary fully human and fully God. It is in the historical reality of the person of Jesus that the nature of God as Triune and the character of God as Holy Love is revealed. By the coming of the Son we know the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This Jesus is the one and only means to humanity's redemption and fulfillment in life, because he is the God-man. In his life and his work, he alone reconciles to God all who have true faith in him. His incarnate life, and most crucially his death and resurrection, atone for our sinfulness, heal our broken lives, and make possible a new way of life that is pleasing to God for all who will receive Him. By the Incarnation we see most fully the character of God and we are shown most clearly the kind of life that God calls his Church to live out in the world. Hence, we confess not only that Jesus reveals the true nature of God as triune, but the true nature of humanity fully alive.

From the Father through the Son the co-eternal Holy Spirit is given to all those who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the Cosmos. The Holy Spirit is fully equal in divinity with the Father and the Son and is co-eternal as the Third Person of the Trinity. The Spirit is a personal presence not simply some divine spark or force by which we are empowered in our spiritual lives. To speak of the Spirit's presence in our lives is to acknowledge the divine Person whereby God dwells in our lives. This same Spirit brings to our lives the spiritual power for living an obedient life to God that we lack prior to conversion.

God the Father sent the Son into the world. Our Incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ, was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. At his baptism Jesus was, also, annointted -- in his human nature as Messiah of Israel -- by the Holy Spirit. Through the power of the Holy Spirit Christ accomplished his great works and his obedience to the Father as a man. Hence, the spirit-empowered life of Jesus Christ as fully human can be granted to believers as they live if full dependence upon Christ, not only for forgiveness, but for obedience.

Through Christ, the Holy Spirit is at work in the world and in the life of every person. No one is without the grace-endowed work of the Spirit in their lives. Hence, salvation is a possibility for all people. (But not all will be saved.) The Spirit makes us able to repent, to have faith, and to surrender our lives fully to Christ's lordship. By the Holy Spirit's we are able to live in obedience to God, bringing pleasure to God our Father.

The Incarnation and the blessings of grace are necessary for salvation from sin because human beings are separated from the Triune God by sin and disobedience. Sin is more than the sum of all our bad acts and choices. Human sinfulness is a condition of being "turned in upon ourselves" and lacking regard for God's proper sovereign place in our lives. Such an orientation makes us alienated from God and from others. Sin, because God is personal and holy, is an affront, therefore, to God's righteous love.

Our actions cannot undo this. We cannot save ourselves from this separation or its consequences – neither by works nor by our right beliefs. Our salvation is only possible because the Holy Trinity has mercifully acted in grace to redeem us. Yet, God does not save us by divine proclamation, for that would be coercion. Rather, Christ comes to announce the coming of God's Kingdom, to bring our world a proper orientation to God, to bear in himself the consequences of our sinful rejection and neglect of God's sovereign rule, and to make possible radical freedom from the domination of sin in the life of those who believe in him an open their lives to his Lordship.

This grace alone is the source of salvation; and God's grace is revealed and enacted ultimately in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be the Savior of the World. His life, death, resurrection and ascension make possible forgiveness from sin and sanctification for those who receive him. Repentance and faith in him, therefore, as the gracious gift of God are the means of entering into the life of salvation.

The Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament comprise the FINAL and SUPREME authority in all matters of doctrine and the practices of the Christian faith because these are the written word of the Apostolic witness to Christ. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, this sacred book is the source of our knowledge of God's mighty acts and the mystery of the Incarnation. In them we have access to the Apostolic faith of the Church in the self-revelation of God.

The scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament are the source of our knowledge of this self-revelation. Not only God's existence, but God's nature as transcendent over creation, yet lovingly involved in the creation is revealed to us through the scriptural witness to God's self-revealing grace and acts. God's nature, will, and promises are revealed to us in the scriptures with complete reliability. Nothing we say about God or about God's will for our lives can contradict the clear teaching of the canon of scripture.

These scriptures are fully trustworthy in all that they affirm regarding God's nature, God's actions in the world, the creation's relation to God and our human condition.

The authority of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church, are recognized by Third Millennium faith recognizes for the role they play as decisive explications and articulations of the meaning of the Apostolic witness in scripture. The authority of these is not arbitrarily chosen, but is recognized because each of them were held before the Great Schism which divide the Church into East and West. The authority of these councils is recongized in so far as these councils' offer regulative discipline for Christian worship and formulate doctrinal truths that are either compatible with or inherent in the apostolic witness given in scripture.