Portland / Oregon / United States
We consider ourselves to be apart of the universal or catholic church and trace our roots back to Jesus Christ, His apostles, and His prophets. Our authority is Jesus Christ who is the head of the church and our instruction manual is the Holy Bible which is the inspired Word of God. As an assembly of believers, that is a local church, we are independent and have local autonomy. We loosely associate with other Christian Churches, however, we consider ourselves to belong to Christ and Him alone and not to any denomination or group. When a person believes, repents, confesses his or her faith in Jesus, and is baptized (immersed in water) into Christ they are considered to be a member of the universal church, or body of Christ, the Christian Church, the Church of Christ, the Church of God. Local Membership: One identifies with a local assembly like ours in one of three ways: By faith, repentance, confession, and baptism by immersion in one of the local assemblies services. By sending or authorizing a letter of transfer of membership from another church where one accepted Christ and was immersed. Having believed and been baptized by immersion elsewhere you can identify with us by coming forward at an assembly of the church and making the good confession: I believe that Jesus is the Christ , the Son of the living God, and mans only Savior. We believe The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are co-equal in nature and are eternal persons who work as a unity carrying out the eternal plans of The Father. We view Jesus as the eternal Son of God who existed from eternity on an equality with God and Who for the sake of the Father and the salvation of mankind released His being on an equality with God and thus limited Himself, took the form of a bond-servant, and was made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7, NAS). As a man Jesus humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:8-9, NAS). After three days in the tomb Jesus was raised bodily by the power of God from the dead. Having entered the Holy of Holies in Heaven as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world He once and for all time obtained eternal redemption through His shed blood (Hebrews 9:11-12 "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; 12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption." NASU). We believe that Jesus Christ is mans only Savior and that believing in Him is the Saving Act. The normative biblical response to Christ is to have faith in Him, that is, to personally realize that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God and ones personal Savior who died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and who was raised from the dead for our justification (Romans 4:25), then acknowledging this, by repenting, that is turning away from your old lifeby being baptized (immersed in water) and then keep on seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person and not an it, and that He is the eternal Spirit who has existed with the Father and the Son before time.
