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Our Core Beliefs
"The Ann Arbor Church of Christ is a fellowship of people seeking to know and do the will of God. Our most urgent desire is to follow Christ faithfully and to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit in our corporate and personal lives."
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The sole basis of our belief is the Bible. The Scripture in its entirety is composed
of 66 books of the Old and New Testament, which originated with God, and was given
through the work of many different God-inspired authors. Scripture is the final
authority in all matters of faith and practice.
We believe that there is one living, true, holy God eternally existent in the Holy Trinity
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe the love of God for men and women in his image is
the beginning of the story of redemption. We want to love one another as He has loved us.
We believe that Jesus was miraculously conceived, born of a virgin, and sinless in life. Christ
was fully man and fully God, walked our earth, lived a life of obedience, suffered at the hands
of men, and died on the cross. We believe the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ
constitute the core of the Good News all people need to hear. Jesus suffered the penalty our sins
should have brought to us. He paid our debt to sin at the cross and was raised in glorious triumph.
He is enthroned at God's right hand as our intercessor.
We believe that our salvation is by God's free grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The central purpose
of God's revelation in Scripture is to call all people into fellowship with Him. We deserve hell, not
heaven. We cannot earn what God has done for us through Christ. Even our deepest remorse over our
sins cannot undo the past or erase the harm already done. Forgiveness is a divine work. We can
be made new through our belief in Christ.
We believe that authentic faith expresses itself in repentance and immersion in Jesus' name. Repentance
is our sincere acknowledgement that God's judgment against sin is just, and water baptism is our confession of the
sufficiency of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to save us from sin.
We believe that believers are called to adopt a life of discipleship that imitates Christ's own. He is our
perfect model in all things. As we yield to the Holy Spirit's power, we pursue all that is holy and learn
to abhor the sinful things that once appealed to us. By that same power, we seek to honor God with spiritual
worship, unity with our fellow believers, and service to our neighbors.
We believe the role of the local church is to glorify God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
We meet regularly to share Jesus through our lives and our words, encourage individuals to grow in Jesus,
inspire a sense of belonging by sharing joys and burdens, participate in weekly gathered communion (Lord's Supper),
and reach out with loving support to people in need.
We believe the Scriptures clearly teach that there is a conscious personal existence after death. All individuals dying without
Christ will suffer eternally, while those in Christ will enjoy eternal blessedness. Christ will return to judge the
world and receive the saved.
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