West Bowles Community Church

West Bowles Community Church

Our Beliefs

We believe that a healthy body of Jesus is united on essential issues and offers one another grace and freedom on secondary issues. In all things, our law is love in alignment with the new command Jesus gave us in John 13.​

We believe there is one Creator, God – all knowing, all loving, and all powerful, who co‑exists in three persons: The Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Gen 1:1, Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 28:19, Luke 10:21, John 10:30,   Peter 1:2). God is called by many different names because of the different dimensions of His personality, but God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4). 

We believe Jesus is the eternal Son of God, fully God and fully man. He was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, was raised from the dead on the third day, ascended to heaven, and will return again in power and glory to judge the living and the dead. Jesus is our High Priest, our mediator, our perfect sacrifice, and our advocate (John 1:1‑5, Gen 1:1, Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 1:18‑25, 1 Peter 2:24, Ephesians 1:7, Luke 24:6, 1 Corinthians 5:21, 15:4, Acts 1:9‑11, Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25, 9:24, 1 John 2:1-2, 1 Peter 4:5, 2 Timothy 4:

We believe the Holy Spirit dwells within every follower of Jesus in order to counsel, equip, empower, guide, and transform them into the likeness of Jesus, and help the church carry out the work of God in the world. We believe The Holy Spirit imparts gifts and talents to us for service in the church and that the fruits of the Spirit are the evidence of spiritual maturity and growth. The different gifts of the Spirit are all different manifestations of the Spirit, and they are all designed to build up the entire body of Christ and they must be exercised in an orderly way and in the context of love (Acts 1:4‑5, 2:38, 2 Corinthians 3:17, 12:1‑11, Romans 8, Galatians 5, 1 Corinthians 13:1‑13, 14:26‑33). The nine fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22‑23) are the by‑product of a Spirit‑filled life and evidence of spiritual maturity. 

We believe salvation is a gift from God and a deep reflection of His love, grace, and mercy towards us. The only means of salvation is Jesus Christ. Jesus paid the ransom for our sin, undid the consequences and penalty of sin, adopted us into the family of God, and began the process of reconciling all things back to God. By placing our faith and hope in God’s great work done through Christ, we are saved from our past, set free in the present, and given hope for the future. When we are saved, we are given eternal life, we are credited the righteousness of Christ, we are born-again and anew, we become citizens of heaven, and are we are promised an eternal inheritance. As a response to God’s great love and gift, we in turn declare our love for Him publicly in baptism (Acts 4:12, John 14:6, 1 Peter 2:24, Hebrews 9:26, 1 John 3:1‑4, John 3:16, Galatians 4:4‑7, Romans 4:4‑5) 

We believe that the entire Bible is the authoritative, infallible word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the only written revelation from God to man. The Bible is a vital component for helping us understand God’s will for our lives and is the final authority for faith and life (Matthew 5:18, John 16:12‑13, 2 Timothy 3:15‑17, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Peter 1:20‑21). 

We believe the church is the body of Christ, and thus, Jesus is the head of the church. The church is the people of God, who have been called and sent by God to bring glory to Him and to bless the world. The church finds her visible, yet imperfect expression in local congregations where the Word of God is preached and lived out, where purity and unity are pursued, where sacrifices are made for the sake of others, where the sacraments are administered with humility and reverence, where scriptural disciplines are practiced, and where loving fellowship is maintained (I Corinthians 12:12‑27, Ezekiel 47, Ephesians 1:22‑23, 4:11‑16, 5, Matthew 16, 28).