what we believe

We love the gospel.  The gospel is the good news of everything God has done throughout history to re-establish a relationship with men and women who had rejected him. Not one of us deserves this loving kindness; it's offered to us only because God is so good and merciful.  We call this free offer of forgiveness 'grace', and because we've found it to be so amazing, we named our church for it.


If you'd like to read a quick summary of what the Christian faith is about, have a look here.


At Grace Church we're conscious that we're part of a worldwide Christian church which existed long before we came along, and we take seriously the importance of believing what God's people have always believed from the beginning.  That means that we don't consider ourselves free to believe whatever we want, but are bound by the teaching of the Bible.  And since many millions of Christians have studied the Bible before us and thought deeply about what the Christian faith means, we consciously seek to follow in the footsteps of the Christian church throughout the ages.  We believe our history matters.


Therefore we accept certain historic formulations of the Christian faith as authoritative under the Bible, simply because they are helpful summaries of what the Bible teaches.  We hold to the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed and the Athanasian Creed.  These were all written early in the history of the Christian church, and are basic summaries of what all Christians believe.  In the 17th century a detailed statement of Christian beliefs called the Westminster Confession of Faith was written, and this too we gladly accept as an accurate summary of Christian truth.