What We Believe

The following are the core beliefs of City on a Hill, based on the foundational truths taught in the Bible. All of our teaching and ministry is rooted in and flows out of these biblical doctrines.

We believe the Bible, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, to be the verbally inspired word of God, His revelation to mankind of His character and plan, the final authority for faith and life, inerrant in the original writings, infallible, and God-breathed.  
Matt. 5:18, 2 Tim. 3:16-17, 2 Pet. 1:20-21.

We believe in one God, the creator and sustainer of all things, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, love, justice, goodness, and truth, eternally existing in three co-equal persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  
Deut. 6:4, 2 Cor. 13:14.

We believe in the sovereignty of God the Father who decreed all that comes to pass for His own glory according to His own counsel.  Dan. 4:34-35, Eph. 1:11.

We believe that God the Son became fully human in the person of Jesus Christ while remaining fully God, having been conceived of God the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful humankind.  He lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the complete sacrifice for our sins, thus fulfilling the righteous requirement of God’s law for us.  He then arose physically from the dead and ascended into heaven where, at the right hand of God the Father, He is now our High Priest and Advocate.  He will come again to the earth personally, visibly, and physically to judge the living and the dead, to consummate history, and to restore creation to its original perfection through the new heaven and earth, thus completing the eternal plan of God the Father.  
John 1:1-14, Acts 1:10-11, Rom. 3:24, Rom. 8:3-4, Rom. 8:34, Phil. 2:5-8, Col. 1:13-20, Heb. 4:14-15, Rev. 21:1-4.

We believe that God the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of humankind for the glorification of God the Father and God the Son.  He is the giver of new life, convicting individuals of sin and enabling saving faith in Jesus Christ.  He permanently indwells individuals from the moment of new birth and is the seal or guarantee of their full salvation.  He fills believers as they yield to Him, guiding, instructing, empowering, and gifting them for godly living and service.  
John 14:16-17, John 15:26, John 16:8-14, Rom. 6:22, Gal. 5:22-23, Eph. 1:13-14.

We believe that humankind from every tribe, tongue, nation and race was created by God, in the image and likeness of God, bearing inherent dignity, worth and value for the purpose of glorifying and enjoying God forever.  Through Adam and Eve’s rebellion, humankind fell into sin, came under God’s righteous condemnation, and experienced physical and spiritual death.  All humankind has descended from Adam and Eve and has inherited their sinful nature from conception.  In and of themselves, no one is able to live righteously or to remedy their innate alienation from God.  
Gen. 1:26-27, Acts 17:26, Rom. 3:10-12, Rom. 3:23, Rom. 5:12, Eph. 2:1-3.

We believe that God the Father, in gracious, unmerited love and in fulfillment of His promise, sent Jesus to die on the cross, the perfect and consummate blood sacrifice, bearing the punishment for sin—God’s wrath.  We believe that God, in His sovereign, all-sufficient, and effective grace, through the work of the life-giving Holy Spirit, regenerates the heart of an unbeliever so that they earnestly confess their sinfulness, put their faith in Jesus alone for salvation, and commit themselves to Him.  Through no possible merit of their own and according to the counsel of His will, God the Father credits Jesus’ righteousness to those who have trusted Jesus for salvation.  God the Father ends the believer’s alienation—the believer having been justified—made right in God’s eyes.  The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled through Jesus’ perfect life and substitutionary death, and God adopts the believer as His child for eternity.  
Lev. 17:11, John 1:12-13, John 6:37, John 6:44, John 10:11, John 10:17, Rom. 3:24-26, Rom. 9:15-16, Eph. 1:4-6, Eph. 2:1-10, Col. 1:21-22, Heb. 9:11-14.

We believe that God intends each believer to live in active recognition and joy of having died and been resurrected with Christ, nourishing their new nature and putting to death his or her old sinful nature through dependence on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  We believe God is transforming each believer into the image of His Son, to grow in affection and devotion to God, to understand and apply the Bible, to grow in personal holiness and unselfish love, to be used in leading others to Christ by their lives and words, and in building one another up as followers of Christ.  We believe that God, who has begun this work, will see it to completion.  
Ps. 110:3, Ezek. 36:26-27, John 6:37, Rom. 6:1-6, Rom. 8:13, Rom. 8:29, Eph. 4:15-16, Phil. 1:6, Phil. 2:12-13, 2 Pet. 1:3-7, 2 Pet. 1:19.

We believe that upon physical death, the believer enters God’s presence and is delivered from the presence of sin.  When Christ returns, His followers, both living and dead, will receive their resurrection bodies and experience the perfect completeness of their redemption, being fully fitted to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  All who have rejected God’s offer of salvation in this life will face His judgment and will consciously experience His everlasting punishment.  
John 5:27-29, 1 Cor. 15:42-44, 2 Cor. 5:10, 1 Thess. 4:13-17, 2 Thess. 1:7-10, Heb. 9:27-28, Rev. 21:1-4.

We believe that the one true Church is composed of all persons who, through saving faith in Jesus Christ, have been justified by God the Father and united together by the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ, of which Christ is the head.  This one true Church finds her visible, yet imperfect, expression in the local congregation.  These congregations meet for the purposes of worshipping God, growing in knowledge and application of the Bible, celebrating the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, fellowshipping to build one another up in the image of Christ, and being equipped to serve as God’s ambassadors to a lost and dying world.  The Church will be ultimately comprised of people from all nations, tribes, peoples and languages and to this end we strive to see unity of the body and the lost from all nations to come to Christ. For her perfecting, the Church awaits the return of the Lord Jesus.  
Acts 2:41-42, Acts 14:27, Acts 18:22, Acts 20:17, 1 Cor. 11:23-26, 1 Cor. 12:12-27, 2 Cor. 5:20, Eph. 1:22-23, Eph. 4:4, Eph. 4:11-16.

We believe that God created all people in his image and likeness.  Men and women are equal in their personhood, and there is no difference in their worth, as God created men and women to reflect his attributes.  Masculinity and femininity were created by God as meaningful distinctions indicating differing roles for men and women which are meant to complement one another.  Men and women are identical in nature but different in function and role.  We hold that only men can be pastors/elders, but both men and women can be deacons.  We believe that God has designed marriage to be between one man and one woman.  To further understand our beliefs, please see The Nashville Statement, which we affirm.  
Gen. 2:18, Rom. 16:1, Eph. 5:21-33, 1 Tim. 2:11-13, 1 Tim. 3:2, 1 Tim. 3:11, Titus 1:6.

We would be considered non-denominational, evangelical, Reformed, and historically orthodox in our beliefs, holding to both the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds.  We hold the 5 Solas of the Reformation to be central to our theological framework.
We are a member of the Great Commission Collective. A network committed to 'Planting Churches and Strengthening Leaders'