Doctrinal Majors and Minors

"Unity in the majors, charity in the minors, and love in everything" 

    We want to be a church that is unified around our love and passion for Christ, not doctrinal agreement over minor issues. Doctrinally, we major in the majors and minor in the minors.  The majors are:

• The Trinity

• Jesus is both God and man.  

• Sin, demons, and the Devil are real, and Christ can free us from them.

• Faith in Jesus is the only way for salvation.  

• Salvation comes by grace, not works.

• The Bible is God’s word.

• The Kingdom is already/not until Jesus literally returns to the earth.

• The Holy Spirit is active today.

• Love matters most.

    The majors are nonnegotiable. As long as we have unity in the majors, we can agree to disagree over the minors. The minors are important, and they are worthy of studying until you understand them correctly, but not worth breaking unity over.   

    We find that when it comes to minor doctrinal disagreement it is best to hear multiple sides, let people dialogue, and work out the issues for themselves. Theology works best when it is does in community. If you want to grow, ask those who are mature what they think, and why.       

    It is okay to disagree with your pastors. In fact, we may have guest speakers or other pastors teach things that your senior pastor disagrees with, and make no effort to correct them. A healthy and mature disciple must learn to discern truth from error on his or her own, and still love those who don’t come to the same conclusions. It’s a part of growing up.

    This doesn’t mean anything goes.  We want to give charity as much as we can, however, there may be some things that are so out of line with our vision that we have to ask people to stop teaching a particular doctrine to protect our flock. This will be done on a case-by-case basis in a way that seeks to build healthy relationships. That being said we don’t want people to live in fear, but in freedom.