Our Vision

We believe God has given our church a 4-fold vision to be:

A Lighthouse bringing the Gospel to the community
A Hospital a place where people can be comforted during difficult times
A Covenant Community family and friends
A Spiritual Armory a place where you can learn about the power of God


CHRIST CHURCH was birthed in 1960 as a new mission endeavor in the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Our building was built in 1964. In 1968 the EUB denomination merged with the Methodist denomination to form the United Methodist Church which Christ Church is part of today.

METHODIST BELIEFS embrace the basic doctrines of orthodox, evangelical Christianity (such as is found in The Apostle's Creed) with a strong emphasis on personal assurance of salvation; and outwardly demonstrating God's love by helping people everywhere.


(Please click here for an extended history on Christ Church and Methodist Beliefs)


JOHN WESLEY, the founder of the Methodist Church (1700's, England) was a bold, courageous Christian leader who was used by God to ignite fires of revival. Wesley was an Anglican priest who saw that the Church of his day was not reaching the poor masses. His passion was to see lives changed and charged the first Methodist preachers saying, "You have nothing to do but save souls!" The early Methodists championed the causes of the poor, tirelessly visited prisons, widows, distributed food, fought against child labor (in the coal mines), used the new technology called "the printing press" to educate people and to give them the scriptures. Wesley organized believers to meet in small, house fellowships called "The Class Meeting" where "practical Christianity was taught in plain language." The English (Methodist) revival in the late 1700's spread across the Atlantic in the early 1800's. The Methodists played a significant role in "The Great (religious) Awakening" with preachers such as George Whitfield and Francis Asbury. For more reading on John Wesley, go to members.cox.net.

Prevenient Grace—We acknowledge God's prevenient grace, the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God's will, and our "first slight transient conviction" of having sinned against God.

God's grace also awakens in us an earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death and moves us toward repentance and faith.

Justification and Assurance—We believe God reaches out to the repentant believer in justifying grace with accepting and pardoning love. Wesleyan theology stresses that a decisive change in the human heart can and does occur under the prompting of grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In justification we are, through faith, forgiven our sin and restored to God's favor. This righting of relationships by God through Christ calls forth our faith and trust as we experience regeneration, by which we are made new creatures in Christ.

This process of justification and new birth is often referred to as conversion. Such a change may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative. It marks a new beginning, yet it is part of an ongoing process. Christian experience as personal transformation always expresses itself as faith working by love.

Our Wesleyan theology also embraces the scriptural promise that we can expect to receive assurance of our present salvation as the Spirit "bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."
 

Sanctification and Perfection—We hold that the wonder of God's acceptance and pardon does not end God's saving work, which continues to nurture our growth in grace. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to increase in the knowledge and love of God and in love for our neighbor.

New birth is the first step in this process of sanctification. Sanctifying grace draws us toward the gift of Christian perfection, which Wesley described as a heart "habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor" and as "having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked."

This gracious gift of God's power and love, the hope and expectation of the faithful, is neither warranted by our efforts nor limited by our frailties.

Faith and Good Works—We see God's grace and human activity working together in the relationship of faith and good works. God's grace calls forth human response and discipline.

Faith is the only response essential for salvation. However, the General Rules remind us that salvation evidences itself in good works. For Wesley, even repentance should be accompanied by "fruits meet for repentance," or works of piety and mercy.

Both faith and good works belong within an all-encompassing theology of grace, since they stem from God's gracious love "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."

Mission and Service—We insist that personal salvation always involves Christian mission and service to the world. By joining heart and hand, we assert that personal religion, evangelical witness, and Christian social action are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing.

Scriptural holiness entails more than personal piety; love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and renewal in the life of the world.

The General Rules represent one traditional expression of the intrinsic relationship between Christian life and thought as understood within the Wesleyan tradition. Theology is the servant of piety, which in turn is the ground of social conscience and the impetus for social action and global interaction, always in the empowering context of the reign of God.

Nurture and Mission of the Church—Finally, we emphasize the nurturing and serving function of Christian fellowship in the Church. The personal experience of faith is nourished by the worshiping community.

For Wesley there is no religion but social religion, no holiness but social holiness. The communal forms of faith in the Wesleyan tradition not only promote personal growth; they also equip and mobilize us for mission and service to the world.

The outreach of the church springs from the working of the Spirit. As United Methodists, we respond to that working through a connectional polity based upon mutual responsiveness and accountability. Connectional ties bind us together in faith and service in our global witness, enabling faith to become active in love and intensifying our desire for peace and justice in the world.

 

Membership Vows
Taken when a person joins a United Methodist church. By taking the membership vows, the individual agrees to:

Covenant with God and the members of the local church to keep the vows that are part of the reception into membership. These vows have four parts:
(1) To confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior;
(2) To believe in the Christian faith as contained in the Old and New Testaments;
(3) To promise to live a Christian life; and
(4) To uphold The United Methodist Church with one's prayers, presence, gifts (financial support) and service.

Official Membership Sundays are offered Quarterly throughout the year. If you are interested in membership please let us know by contacting us through the Church office.

Please know that whether or not you are an official member of Christ Church, you are always welcome to participate at every level including most leadership positions.


At Christ Church we preach and teach: 
 

 

We will pray for you!
menus by milonic
Home
Directions
Services
Contact Us
Our Vision
Prayer Requests
Women's Ministry
Men's Bible Study
Sermons
Teachings
Newsletters