What We Believe

We believe that the Bible is the Holy Word of God. While acknowledging that no finite description of an infinite being could ever be complete and exhaustive, and acknowledging that the revelation of God in Jesus during His incarnation was more complete than any written document could ever be. We believe that the 66 books of the Bible alone represent the complete and exhaustive self-revelation of God to man that currently exists. To that end, we believe the Bible to be infallible, or without any errors, in all areas. We believe Paul’s statement in II Timothy 3:16-17 that, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” We understand the statement, “God-breathed,” to mean that each writer wrote what God wanted written down. That is not to say that there are no individual styles or literary forms that were used in the writings of those men of God. We also believe that the Bible is to be interpreted literally where appropriate so that we allow the Bible to say what it means. In all areas of interpretation, we wholeheartedly believe the Apostle Peter’s words when he said in 2 Peter 1:21, “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” To that end, we want to understand what each of the Bible writers was trying to say to the people to whom they were writing and how those ideas apply to our lives in the present day. Finally, we believe in the power that God’s Word brings to His creation. We affirm the words of the writer of Hebrews when he said, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” As such, we believe that the Word of God is living and active so that its meaning in the life of a believer will constantly change in relation to the current spiritual position of that believer. We believe that The Word of God has the ability to penetrate the soul of the believer to convict where it needs to in order to bring us back into a right relationship with God. As such, the people of Life Spring Community Church will endeavor to give the Bible its proper prominence in all of its ministries and services.

We believe that God exists in three forms, which is known as the trinity. These three forms as taught in the Bible are Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe that God exists as an infinite spirit and so everything that is true about God is also infinite. We believe that God has always existed and is the creator of all of mankind and all that His human creation can sense in the world around them. We believe the words of the writer of the Book of Genesis when he said, “In the beginning God created...” We also believe the words spoken by John in Revelation 22:13 that, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” In other words, the world as we know it starts and ends with God, the Father. We also believe that God also created all of the beings that exist in the spiritual realm. That would include all of the angels and heavenly beings including Satan and his dominion. We believe in that part of the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus said, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” as being the longing of every member of Life Spring Community Church. We will do all we can in order to further the Kingdom of God on the earth. As a gem stone has various facets, so God has various attributes; things that are true about Himself. As such, He is not described by any one attribute but only in the sum total of all His attributes can man even begin to understand the wondrous breadth of God. For example, when we read the Apostle John saying in 1 John 4:8 that, “God is love,” we understand that love is not the sum total of all that God is, but that love is but a facet of a much larger picture of God.

We believe that Jesus Christ, the eternally existing Son of God, became a man who lived for a time on the earth. We believe Jesus to be accurately describing Himself when he said in John 8:58, “I tell you the truth before Abraham was born, I am!" This is but one of many examples where Jesus was claiming to be eternal deity in human form. We believe that Jesus is co-equal with God, the Father as Paul described him in Philippians 2:6-7, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” We believe that Jesus Christ accomplished our complete redemption through His sacrificial death on a Roman cross. We believe that Jesus substituted His life for ours in order to pay the penalty for our sins and to make us wholly acceptable to God. We believe in the literal truth of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 when he said, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” We believe that Jesus currently acts as our High Priest before God, continually representing us before God, the Father, interceding on our behalf, acting as our advocate in Heaven and being our mediator before God. We believe that Jesus will one day, at a time of God’s own choosing, return to earth as both ruler and judge. As a result of that fact, we will endeavor to live a life that is always prepared for Jesus’ imminent return.

We believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit as a manifestation of God here on earth. We understand that the existence and presence of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was temporary as God needed to influence His creation. Then, 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, we believe that the Holy Spirit permanently indwelt every believer in order to give them what they needed to live the life that God wanted them to live. Today, we believe that process still happens, so that at the moment a person accepts the free gift of salvation, they receive the full measure of the Holy Spirit. It is the responsibility of every Christian to make sure that they are continually filled with the Holy Spirit. We do that so that our daily activities are directed by God. We understand that Jesus taught us much about the Holy Spirit who would come into us upon our acceptance of God’s free gift of salvation. He taught us about the Holy Spirit’s role as our counselor to be with us forever (John 14:16). He taught us how it is the Holy Spirit’s job to teach us and to remind us of all that Jesus taught us (John 14:26). Jesus revealed that it is the Holy Spirit who will convict us when we have disobeyed and failed to live up to what God wants from us (John 16:8-11). We believe that when we become saved, the Holy Spirit provides us with specific spiritual gifts that will enable us to do the work He directs in His church as described by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:7 when he said, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” We believe that it is the job of the church and each of its members to identify and develop everyone’s gift in order to allow His people to be used by God with maximum effectiveness.

We believe that human beings were all created in the image of God as indicated in Genesis 1:26. That means that humans have been given the ability to maintain a relationship with God, their Father and Creator. We believe that man lived in perfect communion with a Holy God until the first man, Adam, decided to disobey God’s only command and ate of the fruit that came from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was at that point that God’s pursuit of man began with the purpose of restoring the relationship that existed before sin and disobedience to God entered the world. We believe that sin and the rebellion against God, which Adam started, still exists in the world and in every human. We allow the Bible to define for us the very nature and specifics of sin and will not add any rules or regulations to that definition with regards to sin. Where the Bible fails to define a specific sin, we believe that it is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict the world of sin and that responsibility does not lie within the church.

We believe that the entire Bible has but one purpose, and that is to tell the story of God continually reaching out to man in order to reestablish the relationship that has been damaged by man’s insatiable desire to rebel and sin. To that end, God gave the Law to Moses and the people of Israel to show us where we fall short doing what God wants us to do. Then at the exact moment that God determined, He sent His Son to die on a Roman cross with the express purpose of paying the penalty for all of those times we failed to do all that God wants us to do. We believe that it is necessary for every man to accept the free gift of salvation. The Bible teaches us that God gave each of His creation a free will to accept that salvation or to continue to live in rebellion with God. As a result, we will always endeavor to do all we can to persuade each person we come in contact with of the need and urgency to establish a relationship with God, to accept His salvation, and so live with Him for all eternity. We believe in the words of Paul as stated in Ephesians 2:8-9, where he said, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast.” We believe that it is by God’s grace that we are saved. In other words, our salvation has not been earned by anything we did. We believe just the opposite. As Paul said to the church in Rome, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We believe that the completed work of salvation began and ended at the cross. Since we did nothing to earn our salvation, we also believe that we can do nothing to lose that salvation.

We believe in one universal church that exists throughout the world, of which Life Spring Community Church is but a part. We believe that the head of the church is Jesus Christ and we as a community of believers commit ourselves to doing all we can to enlarge and enhance Jesus’ church. We believe that there are but two ordinances that exist for the church to perform on a regular basis. Those ordinances are baptism and communion. As a group of believers committed to the advancement of the church, we will endeavor to be faithful witnesses and to honor God as we live within our own individual communities. As such, we believe that God will honor that faithfulness so that as a church we will find the need for regular baptismal services. We understand that the Bible teaches that baptism is an outward symbol of an inward act. In other words, we will baptize anyone over the age of eight who has expressed their commitment to live for Jesus Christ and wants to follow His example by entering the waters of baptism. We believe that the Bible clearly teaches that baptism shall be by complete immersion in water. As a church, we will endeavor to remember the price Jesus paid to save us by our practice of communion. As Paul taught the Corinthian church, we believe that communion should only be taken by those who have committed their life to Jesus Christ and have first taken the time to repent of their sin so as to do all they can to do honor to the body and blood of our Savior. We believe it is the responsibility of each believer, and by extension the church, to actively make disciples of everyone who comes and desires to fellowship with us. As Jesus commanded us in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,” and so we will endeavor to obey this command of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We believe that it is the responsibility of every member of Life Spring Community Church to do as Paul teaches to, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.” As we unite behind one leader, the Lord Jesus Christ, we will strive to achieve the kind of unity that He prayed for on the last night of His life. As Jesus prayed, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:20-21).” That being said, we realize that only when we unite behind the clear teaching of the Bible and behind the Lordship of Jesus will we ever be able to achieve the kind of unity that God desires of us. We believe that the Bible clearly describes our responsibilities when another believer sins against us. It is at that point that we realize the truth in Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:15-17 when He said, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” We believe that the point Jesus was making was that we must look closely at our own life to make sure that we have done nothing to promote the situation. It is only at that point that we invoke Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18:15-17 where He said, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” We believe that our intent must be always to restore our relationships and preserve our brothers and sisters in Jesus and not to find ways to divide and condemn others. We believe that marriage has been ordained by God as the exclusive union of one man and one woman. As such, this is the only definition of marriage that Life Spring Community Church recognizes. With this belief, we affirm that our staff or duly licensed members shall be authorized to perform only those wedding ceremonies that conform to our beliefs about marriage. We believe that it is God’s intent that sexual relations be exercised only in the context of a Biblically sanctioned marriage. We believe that any sexual relationships that occur outside the bonds of marriage fall outside the will of God for the lives of His children. We believe that God, in His infinite wisdom, created us just the way He wanted us, so we cannot recognize the right of human will to alter one’s gender. We believe that every believer should be a faithful steward of all the material possessions that God provides for us. We will always endeavor to return to God a portion of those material blessings in order to help finance the expansion of the Kingdom of God through the ministry of Life Spring Community Church. While we believe that a tithe (10%) is the Biblical standard for Godly giving, we recognize that, as in all things, God is in control and we recognize that if God moves within the heart of His children to give more than a tithe, we will recognize the Biblical fact that the believer cannot outgive God and will rejoice as God abundantly blesses the generous. We believe in the truth of Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”