OUR PURPOSE
East Parkway Bible Church is an evangelical community of faith in association with the Wesleyan Church, called by and dedicated to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Under the authority of Scripture we seek to fulfi ll our commitment to ministry through the evangelization of the lost, the perfecting (maturing) of the saints, and the preparation of men and women, young and old for the manifold ministries of Christ and His church.
In all of our activities including worship, nurture, service and witness, we strive for excellence in the service of Jesus Christ, under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of the Father.
OUR THEOLOGICAL STANCE
Evangelical Commitment
The East Parkway Bible Church community-pastoral staff, elders, and congregation believe that Jesus Christ, as revealed in Holy Scripture and proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit, is the only ground for a person¹s reconciliation to God. The church assumes, then, a commitment to:
Doctrinal Perspective
Doctrinally the church stands for the fundamentals of the faith as taught in Holy Scripture and handed down by the Church. We acknowledge both the creeds of the early church and the confessions of the Protestant communions to which we owe our existence. While seeking to be true and supportive to our own denominational family, we are firmly committed to two critically important reformational principals:
1. Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); that the Bible alone is our rule for (Scripture alone); that the Bible alone is our rule for faith and practice. As refl ected in the early Methodist movement itself, “the Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation; so that whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any person that it should be believed as an article of faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”
2. Adiaphora (matters indifferent); those beliefs on which Scripture is (matters indifferent); those beliefs on which Scripture is not absolutely clear as evidenced by the fact that equally Biblical Christians, equally anxious to understand the teaching of Scripture and to submit to its authority, reach different conclusions, and which therefore should be considered of secondary importance, not to be insisted upon, and to which all of us can afford to give one another liberty. “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”
Statement of Faith
Under God, and subject to biblical authority, the pastoral staff, elders and congregation bear concerted witness to the following, which we hold to be essential to our ministry.
I. God has revealed Himself to be the living and true God, perfect in love and righteous in all His ways; one in essence, existing eternally in the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
II. God, who discloses Himself through His creation, has savingly spoken in the words and events of redemptive history. This history is fulfi lled in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, Who is made known to us by the Holy Spirit in sacred Scripture.
III. Scripture is an essential part and true and trustworthy record of this divine self-disclosure. All the books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, are the written word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. They are to be interpreted according to their context and purpose and in reverent obedience to the Lord Who speaks through them in living power.
IV. God, by His Word and for His glory, freely created the world out of nothing. He made man and woman in His own image, as the crown of creation, that they might have fellowship with Him. Tempted by Satan, they rebelled against God. Being estranged from their Maker, yet responsible to Him, they became subject to divine wrath, inwardly depraved, and, apart from grace, incapable of returning to God.
V. The only Mediator between God and mankind is Christ Jesus our Lord, God’s eternal Son, who, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, fully shared and fulfi lled our humanity in a life of perfect obedience. By His death in our stead, He revealed Divine love and upheld divine justice, removing our guilt and reconciling us to God. Having redeemed us from sin, the third day He rose bodily from the grave, victorious over death and the powers of darkness. He ascended into heaven where, at God’s right hand, He intercedes for His people and rules as Lord over all.
VI. The Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the gospel, renews our hearts, persuading us to repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord. By the same Spirit we are led to trust in divine mercy, whereby we are forgiven all our sins, justifi ed by faith alone through the merit of Christ our Savior and granted the free gift of eternal life.
VII. God graciously adopts us into His family and enables us to call Him Father. As we are led by the Spirit, we grow in the knowledge of the Lord, freely keeping His commandments and endeavoring so to live in the world that all may see our good works and glorify our Father Who is in heaven.
VIII. God, by His Word and Spirit, creates the one holy catholic and apostolic church, calling sinners out of the whole human race into the fellowship of Christ’s body. By the same Word and Spirit, He guides and preserves for eternity that new, redeemed humanity which, being formed in every culture, is spiritually one with the people of God in all ages.
IX. The church is summoned by Christ to offer acceptable worship to God and to serve Him by preaching the gospel and making disciples of all nations, by tending the fl ock through daily pastoral care, by striving for justice and by relieving human distress and need.
X. God’s redemptive purpose will be consummated by the return of Christ to raise the dead, to judge all people according to the deeds done in the body and to establish His glorious kingdom. The wicked shall be separated from God’s presence, but the righteous, in glorious bodies, shall live and reign with Him forever. Then shall the eager expectation of creation be fulfi lled and the whole earth shall proclaim the glory of God who makes all things new.
