Pritchard Webpages

We believe that God the Father is the personal, transcendent, and sovereign Creator of all things. We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, that He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His vicarious death on the Cross, was bodily resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, ascended back to the right hand of the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for us. After Jesus ascended to Heaven, He poured out His Holy Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to fulfill His command to preach the Gospel to the entire world, an obligation shared by all believers today. We believe that all people are by nature separated from God and are responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are freely offered to all by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When a person repents of sin and accepts Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, all his/her sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a child of God, destined to spend eternity with the Lord. We believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Scriptures, and that they are valid for today if they are exercised within the scriptural guidelines. We as believers are to covet the best gifts, seeking to exercise them in love that the whole Body of Christ might be edified. We believe that love is more important than the most spectacular gifts, and without this love all exercise of spiritual gifts is worthless. We believe that church government should be simplistic rather than complex bureaucracy, and we depend on the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly promotion. We await the pre-tribulation rapture of the church, and We believe that the second coming of Christ with His saints to rule on the earth will be personal, pre-millennial, and visible. This motivates us to holy living, heartfelt worship, committed service, diligent study of God's Word, regular fellowship, and participation in adult baptism by immersion and Holy Communion. We seek to teach the Word of God in such a way that its message can be applied to an individual's life, leading that person to greater maturity in Christ. We reject: The belief that true Christians can be demon possessed. We reject: "5-point Calvinism" (i.e., a fatalistic Calvinistic view that leaves no room for free will; specifically we reject the belief that Jesus' atonement was limited.