OUR PURPOSE - TAKEN FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTHFIELD COMMUNITY CHURCH

The Purpose of this church shall be to glorify God by the loving edification of the saints and the proclamation of the gospel to the lost, in this community and in the uttermost parts of the earth, by ensuring that each individual member of this church is aware of our purpose and seeks to fulfill that purpose in every aspect of one's life.

OUR STATEMENT OF FAITH - TAKEN FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTHFIELD COMMUNITY CHURCH

The Bible

We believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the verbally inspired Word of God, inerrant in their original writing, the only infallible rule of what we are to believe in matters of Christian doctrine, and of how we are to live the Christian life.   2 Timothy 3:16, 17; 2 Peter 1:21

God

We believe in one triune God, externally existing in three persons.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that these three are one God, having the same nature, attributes, and perfections, equal in power and glory, and worthy of the same worship, confidence, and obedience.  Deuteronomy 6:4; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Matthew 28:18-20.

Jesus Christ

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternally preexistent Son of God, equal with the Father in power and glory; that He became man, taking upon Him our nature without ceasing to be God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful man.  We believe in His sinless life and in His miracles.  John 1:1, 2, 14; Matthew 1:18-25; Colossians 1:15; Philippians 2:5-8.

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice, and that our justification is made sure by His literal, bodily resurrection from the dead.  1 Corinthians 15; 1 Peter 2:24-25; Romans 3:23-25.

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven in His body glorified, and is now exalted at the right hand of God where, as our High Priest, He ever liveth to make intercession for us; and that He is the Head of the Church, which is His body.  Acts 1:9-10; 1 John 2:1-2; Ephesians 5:23-24.

We believe in that "Blessed Hope," the personal, imminent, premillenial coming of our Lord Jesus Christ for His redeemed, and in His subsequent, second coming or return to earth with His saints, to establish his millennial kingdom.  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 19:11-16, 20:1-6.

The Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit is God, a person.  We believe He is the one who convicts of sin, regenerates the believer in Jesus Christ, and at the moment of regeneration baptizes him into the body of Christ and seals him to the day of redemption; that he also indwells the believer from the moment of his faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, teaches him the Word, leads into all the Truth, guides the walk, makes Christ real, and empowers for victory and for service.  John 16:18-11, 13; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Romans 8:9; Ephesians 1:13-14; 1 John 2:27; Acts 1:8.

Satan

We believe that Satan is a person, a fallen creature who by the permission  of God holds at this time a position of great influence and power in human affairs; that he is the enemy of God and man and that he shall be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire.   Job 1:6-7; Isaiah 14:12-17; Matthew 4:2-11; Revelation 20:10.

Man

We believe that man was created in the image of God, but that in Adam's disobedience in eating of the forbidden fruit, the entire human race fell and is lost and depraved by nature.  We believe that all men are sinners by choice and children of wrath by nature.  We believe that all unsaved men are at enmity with God, and are incapable of doing anything of themselves to remedy their lost condition, and that except a man be born again he can not see the Kingdom of God.  John 3; Genesis 1, 2, 3; Romans 3:10-23; Ephesians 2:1-3, 12.

Salvation

We believe that eternal life (salvation) is the gift of God brought to man by grace through the incarnation and substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and received by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; and that no work of man, be it feelings, rituals, ordinance, sacraments, church membership, or obedience can add anything to the value and sufficiency of the finished work of Christ (or the merit of the shed blood of Christ) or help a person in any way to be saved, or to keep saved.  We believe that salvation is by grace, through faith, plus nothing whatsoever.  Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 2:11-14, 3:5-8.

We believe that the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is justified from all things and accepted in the beloved, and will not come into judgement, but is passed from death unto life.  John 5:24; Ephesians 1.

We believe that it is God's intent that every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ should have assurance of eternal salvation from the moment of regeneration, and that this assurance is based, not on any feeling or experience, but on the Word of God.  1 John 5:13; Romans 8.

We believe that saving faith brings about the Divine work of regeneration whereby a believer in Christ is made a new creature and a partaker of the divine nature, and that this saving faith will manifest itself in a life pleasing to the Lord.  We believe that the principle of Christian conduct is not the Law, but "faith, which worketh by love."  2 Corinthians 5:14; Phillippians 3.

We believe that henseforth the believer possesses two natures, with provision made for the victory of the new nature over the old nature by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Romans 8:5-11.

The Church

We believe that all believers in Christ in this dispensation are members of the true church, the Body of Christ, being baptized into this body by the Holy Spirit at the moment of regeneration.  It is our duty to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  We believe that the church has been commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ to be His witness to every creature; and that those who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord will be caught up to meet Him in the air before He appears to set up His Kingdom.  Acts 1:6-8, 2:41, 15:13-17; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18.

Resurrection and Judgement

We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the saved and the lost; the saved unto the resurrection of eternal life at the Rapture, and the lost (unbelievers in Christ) unto the resurrection of eternal conscious damnation and separation from God.  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 20:4-6, 11-15.

In the mean time we believe that believers in Christ, when absent from the body are present with the Lord, while unbelievers are in constant conscious torment, banished from his presence.  2 Corinthians 5:8; Luke 16:23, Revelation 20:11-15.

Love

We believe it is the duty of Christians to love one another with a pure heart fervently; to preserve the "Truth" in "Love"; to put away all malice, ill will, gossip, and the like; and to be "kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us."  John 13:34, 35; Ephesians 4:15, 32.