WHAT WE BELIEVE

God has done everything for us in Jesus.

We care most about our God and in the Gospel he shows us what he cares most about. Gospel means ‘great news’ and the heart of this great news is that Jesus is Lord of all.

He lived the perfect life, died for our forgiveness, rose for our future and will return to make everything right. His story of grace is the great news at the heart of everything God is doing.

This means the Christian life is never superficial. It is always a life of passion. Passion that flows from a grasp of the Gospel and passion that shapes everything we are and drives all that we do.

God’s living Word shapes everything we do.

We want to know our God more than anything. Not just know about him but to know him.

That’s why we love hearing him speak. His truth is precious in a world of lies and nothing is more liberating than experiencing God’s Spirit as we hear God’s words in the definitive truth of the Bible.

Unlike any other book God’s Spirit has made sure that the Bible is exactly what God wants to say and everything we need to hear. He has promised to speak personally through it if we’re willing to listen.

That’s why we’re always going to put the Bible at the heart of everything we do. God speaks first and everything follows on from that.

God is transforming every relationship we have.

We will strive to live out the love that God has shown to us. His intention wasn’t isolation, and relationships based on self-interest are ultimately destructive but through the Gospel God has made his people one just like he is one: diverse and united, loving and being loved.

We won’t be perfect but we prayerfully aspire to be a community that lives this out – to love each other sacrificially like he loves us, to serve East London like he has served us, and to partner together for the blessing of those beyond our church.

God is growing his people all the time.

We won’t stand still. God has a plan to change us, our community and our world through the gospel and we want to play our part in that.

In our church we won’t settle for shallow discipleship but will work together to progress in our faith, grow one another and equip the next generation. We know the church dies when it stops doing this.

More than that though, we’re committed to sacrificially serving beyond ourselves. We want to see the gospel of Jesus impact as many lives as possible – in East London and across the world.

So trusting in our God we’ll follow Jesus’ great commission to go and make disciples. We’ll do it as a church that lives and speaks for Jesus and we’ll do it by training and sending people out.