We want to see every man, woman, and child living lives of WITNESS at home, at work, and at play.

We do this by treasuring the TRUTH of the Gospel, WORSHIPPING Jesus Christ in word and deed, and growing in COMMUNITIES of faith.

Eternal Church is characterized by biblical preaching and teaching and ordering our lives according to Truth. Since the Bible reveals God to us, we regard it as the supreme, controlling authority over all that we believe and do. The life of our church is saturated with and nurtured by faithful Bible teaching. Such teaching is central to the weekly gatherings of the church, and it consists of the exposition and application of Scripture. Such teaching is also central to all of our studies, meetings, ministry to children and youth, and communal gatherings and retreats. We believe that Truth is objective and lies outside of our own human wisdom and feelings. Without Truth we would have no knowledge of the desperate and broken nature of the human condition and no ability to respond to the life-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our church holds to the inspiration, inerrancy, authority, sufficiency and clarity of Scripture, and interprets each text of the Bible responsibly in context. Preaching the whole counsel of God across all of Scripture is non-negotiable to the life of our church. We stand in awe of God’s Word, we are formed by it, and we hold fast to it.

Worship is more than a service once a week, it is the very way of life for the Christian. Eternal Church is characterized by biblical worship. We offer to God worship that is acceptable to Him according to His Word, with reverence, awe and joy. A church sings psalms, hymns and spiritual songs whose content is saturated with biblical truth. Its worship includes the public reading of Scripture, the testimonies of God’s people, prayer and communion. A church’s worship also includes corporate fasting and repentance. Worship is the priestly duty and response of every human. We worship when we witness the miracle of birth, and we worship when we release our fellow brothers and sisters into the very arms of God. Biblical worship prioritizes biblical revelation, spiritual direction, community participation, reverent affection, honest confession, Gospel celebration, intentional intercession, and local and global commission. We are compelled into this together as a corporate body of active participants because God has drawn and equipped His people for this through new birth. Every facet of the church’s worship aims to glorify God and edify His people, for that is the whole and rightful duty of every man and woman.

Eternal Church is characterized by biblical community. Members in covenant with God and His church learn and are enabled by God to love each other, encourage one another, and build each other up. We care for one another, serve one another, and bear each other’s burdens. We are kind to one another and forgive each other. We teach, admonish, and exhort one another with the Word of God. We stir one another up to love and good deeds. We are involved in one another’s lives and know each other well enough to be fruitfully involved in one another’s discipleship. As the local body of believers grows, they must work hard together to cultivate community with one another beyond merely gathering once a week for worship. Such community is necessary for each of us individually to grow in Christ and all of us together to display His love to the world around us. Truth is also most clearly revealed in a community devoted together in the pursuit of the revelation of God in the Bible. The “church” is the people of God which is why the most popular phrase (over 100 times) to define the life of the early church was “one another.”

At Eternal Church we have an inward focus with an outward face. Although our primary goal in teaching truth, worship and community is to uplift, encourage and grow the Body of Christ, we also believe that the Hope that we have been given by God is not for us alone. While efforts to minister to the world is in no way a means of salvation, a church poured out in words of the Gospel, and deeds of mercy and justice, are signs of a church whose heart has been transformed by grace. God’s true church will seek to witness to her world and culture by displaying deeds of mercy and justice. Deeds of mercy include, but are not limited to, meeting people’s basic needs out of Gospel-produced compassion. Deeds of justice occur when we display generosity with a redistribution of our resources to the hurting and when we advocate for and assist people with less social and economic power.
We also commit to words of witness, or evangelism, as we seek to bring the life- saving news of the Gospel to a lost people. People come to Christ and become a part of the church only when they hear the full biblical message of the Gospel and respond in repentance and faith. These followers of Christ then share the Gospel with those apart from Christ. In the church, we want to preach the Gospel faithfully every single Sunday when we gather together. There should never be a sermon without Gospel proclamation. At the same time, our evangelistic strategy is not primarily based on bringing people to a building to hear the Gospel, but on sending hundreds of people
out from a building every week with the Gospel, filled with the Spirit, to spread that Gospel wherever they live, and to places they don’t.
God does not have a mission for the church as much as He has the church as a means through which His mission to the world is clearly seen and heard. The answer, therefore, to a lack of witness in the church is not to “gin up” mission programming, but to preach the Gospel more clearly and fervently, as our witness is not a means to grace, but a necessary expression of having received it.