D O C T R I N E S  &
D I S T I N C T I V E S

Grace Point Church is a church under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are committed to contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3). In unity with all Protestant Churches, we hold to the "Five Solas" of the Reformation: (1) Sola Scriptura; (2) Sola Gratia; (3) Sola Fide; (4) Solus Christus; & (5) Soli Deo Gloria.

We also affirm the "Five Fundamentals" of Evangelicalism: (1) The Verbal Inspiration of Scripture; (2) The Virgin Birth of Jesus; (3) His Vicarious Atonement at the Cross; (4) His Victorious Resurrection from the Grave; & (5) His Visible Return in Glory.

Finally, we joyfully align with the Reformed and Baptist traditions.

The Doctrines in the Grace Point Church Core Beliefs represent what we believe to be essential elements of biblical teaching. We expect all Members of Grace Point Church to affirm these doctrines.

The Distinctives in the Grace Point Church Core Beliefs reflect what distinguishes Grace Point from other churches which would affirm the same foundational doctrines. We do not require all Members to embrace all aspects of these distinctives, but our Members should expect our distinctives to shape the teaching, leadership, vision, and direction of Grace Point Church. As such, our Members must commit to not teaching anything contrary to these distinctives or being divisive if there are points on which they disagree. That being said, the pastors of Grace Point invite all questions on these issues and welcome honest discussions as an opportunity for discipleship and growth.

_{*NOTE: This Statement of Faith has been adapted from The Village Church (Dallas, TX) & August Gate Church (Belleville, IL).
It has been updated and amended by Grace Point Church.}

We believe in one God eternally existing as one essence and three distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each person is fully, equally, and eternally God, yet there is one God (Deuteronomy 6:4-6). Each person has the same nature and attributes and is worthy of the same glory, worship, honor, and praise. The entire Christian faith is bound together with the confession of God’s Trinitarian nature (Matthew 28:18-20).

We believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. He is infinite yet personal, transcendent yet immanent, perfect in holiness, wisdom, power, and love. He orders, arranges, and controls all things according to His own sovereign purpose (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 113; 115:1-3; Isaiah 43:10-13; 45:21-25; 46:8-11).  

We believe in God the Son, eternally begotten but not made, who in history took on human nature for the sake of our salvation (John 1:14; Hebrews 1:3). He is fully God and fully man. Through Him, all things came into being and were created. He was before all things and in Him, all things hold together by the word of His power (Colossians1:15-20). He suffered, died, was buried, resurrected, ascended, and sits at the right hand of the Father until He returns for the final judgment and consummation of the Kingdom.

We believe in God the Holy Spirit, who eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son and who is sent by the Father and Son to give new life (John 15:26-27). The Holy Spirit unites believers to Jesus Christ in faith, brings about the new birth, and dwells within God's people (Ephesians 1:13-14). The Holy Spirit has come to glorify the Son who, in turn, came to glorify the Father. He will lead the Church into a right understanding and rich application of the truth of God’s word. He is to be respected, honored, and worshiped as God, the third person of the Trinity.

We believe that God has made Himself known to His creation. He has revealed Himself to us in His Son, the incarnate Word (Hebrews 1:1-2), in Scripture, the inspired word (2 Timothy 3:16), and in the world He has created (Psalm 8; Romans 1:20).

We believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the perfect revelation of who God is. Jesus Christ is the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), “the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3), and a perfect reflection of God the Father (John 5:19).

We believe the Scriptures, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are the inspired word of God and are therefore without error in their original writings. These writings alone constitute the verbally inspired word of God, which is utterly authoritative. Scripture is sufficient to reveal all that God requires us to believe and do. Likewise, "all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) As God’s people learn, submit, repent, and grow in righteousness through hearing, believing, and obeying God's word, they are equipped to know, love, and follow Jesus together by His grace and to tell the truth about Jesus to a watching world (Romans 10:14-17).

We believe that God created the world from nothing and governs all things at all times in all places. God created all things from nothing and with nothing but a word (Genesis 1:1-2; Psalm 24:1). Creation, according to the design of God, was good (Genesis 1:3-31). God doesn’t let the world exist, He makes the world exist. He upholds the universe by the word of His power, and He holds the world together in Himself (Colossians 1:17).

We believe that all humanity is created in the image of God and therefore possesses intrinsic dignity and worth. God made humanity—male and female—in His own image (Genesis 1:26-30). Set apart as His image bearers, every human life is sacred and to be protected: from conception to natural death. All men and all women, bearing the image of God, are meant to represent God in His creation (Genesis 1:26-28; 2 Corinthians 5:20). God declares the created order to be very good, distinguishing men and women as His agents to care for, manage, and rule over it. They enjoy equal access to God by faith in Christ Jesus and are both called to move beyond passive self-indulgence into significant private and public engagement in family, church, and civic life. Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union in the covenant of marriage that establishes the only God-ordained pattern of sexual relations for men and women. In God’s wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways

God's strength and beauty, on display in both Creation and Redemption, will lead His people to worship Him more and more for all eternity. However, God doesn't merely call us to declare His strength and beauty in our words, but to display them in our actions.

We do this most effectively when we understand our roles as male and female image-bearers of God. Even in their state of sinless perfection, neither the man nor the woman was able to embody the totality of God's image on their own, so He designed them to display His likeness in partnership with one another. To Adam, God gave strength by granting him authority over all creation (Genesis 2:15-16, 19) and calling him to work and keep the garden in which God placed him (Genesis 2:15). To Eve, God gave beauty as Adam's perfectly designed helper (Genesis 2:18-22). To Adam and Eve together, God said "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:28), thus calling them to work in perfect harmony with one another in order to display the fullness of His likeness.

We know from Genesis 3, however, that this perfect image of God (reflected in the harmonious union of the man and the woman partnering together to display His strength and beauty to all creation) was marred, almost beyond recognition, by Adam and Eve's rebellion against their Maker.

In response to that first sin, God issued two disciplinary consequences: to the woman, God told her that sin would undermine her beauty; & to the man, God told him that sin would sabotage his strength.

As God's fallen but redeemed image-bearers, men and women are still created and called by God to reveal His strength and beauty to a watching world, and we can only do this together. As Paul told the Corinthians, "Man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." (1 Corinthians 11:8-9) But as he continues, Paul adds that "nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God." (1 Corinthians 11:11-12)

The pressing question is how men and women should display God's strength and beauty in the home, in the church, and in society. According to God's word, the answer is that men display God's strength uniquely through Loving Leadership, while women display God's beauty uniquely through Respectful Submission. This begins in the home, extends into the church, and impacts the society in ways that are simultaneously counter-cultural and culture-shaping.

For a more complete answer to these questions, please see Grace Point's extended statement: "Strength & Beauty: God's Glory On Display In His Design For Men And Women."

We believe that sin has fractured all things, leaving the world in desperate need of salvation. Having created man in His own image, God designed us to find our greatest joy in relationship with our Creator. However, when tempted by Satan, our first parents rebelled against God by seeking satisfaction in the empty promises of sin, and every human since is a sinner both by nature and by choice, having inherited a corrupt nature from Adam, our first representative before God in judgment (Romans 5:12-14; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22).

All humanity deserves the wrath of God as His enemies and on our own we are completely incapable of returning to God. The effects and reach of our sinfulness are radical and pervasive, extending to the body, mind, affections, and will. We are dead in our sins, and it is impossible for us to know, love, or follow Jesus apart from His grace working on us and in us to make us alive through faith (Ephesians 2:1-10).

We believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Due to universal death through sin, we believe that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless born again (John 3:5-8); that salvation is only by grace through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:4-10); and that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ through faith are declared righteous by God and become children of God (Hebrews 10:19-25; 1 John 3:1-3).

The Scriptures teach that regeneration, or the new birth, is that act of God by which the Holy Spirit imparts a new nature and a new spiritual life, and the person becomes a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 2:20; 1 Peter 1:3-5). The mind is given a holy disposition (1 Corinthians 2:14-16) and a new desire to serve God (Ezekiel 36:26), the dominion of sin is broken (Colossians 1:13-14), and the heart is transformed from a love of sin and self to a love of holiness and God (1 Corinthians 13).

"Our God is in the heavens, He does all that He pleases." (Psalm 115:3)

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." (John 6:44)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved." (Ephesians 1:3-6)

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13)

"[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus,
who abolished death and brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel." (2 Timothy 1:9-10)

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you." (John 15:16)

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called,
and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified." (Romans 8:28-30)

"Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means. For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills." (Romans 9:14-18)

"As many as were appointed to eternal life believed." (Acts 13:48)

Based on the above passages and rooted in the character of the God who spoke all things into existence, sustains the universe by the word of His power, and reigns as King over all He has made, we affirm the absolute sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners. From first to last, salvation is the work of God, who makes the dead heart live (Ephesians 2:5), makes blind eyes see (2 Corinthians 4:4-6), adopts His enemies as His beloved children (Ephesians 1:5), and sets the captive free (Colossians 1:13-14). We joyfully embrace this reality as the foundation of our humble hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We believe that the Church is the body of Christ sent into the world to display the glory of God. By His word and Spirit, God creates the Church, calling sinful humanity into the fellowship of Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). By the same word and Spirit, He guides and preserves that newly redeemed humanity. The Church is made up of those who are growing to know, love, and follow Jesus together by His grace. The Church exists to worship and glorify God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Church is an extension of the ministry of Jesus in the power of the Spirit (John 14:12; Acts 1:1-2).

The mission of the Church is to bring glory to God by being disciples of Jesus who make more disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). We do this by pursuing intentionally gospel-centered relationships with Christ, His Church, and the city/region He has called us to love and serve. Through worship, prayer, preaching of the word, observance of the ordinances, fellowship, the exercise of our gifts, and the faithful application and proclamation of the gospel by all God's people, we are called by God to build a culture and spark a movement to "fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Habakkuk 2:14)

We believe there are two ordinances of the Church: Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Baptism is only for those who have received the saving benefits of Christ through the new birth of the Holy Spirit. In obedience to Christ’s command and as a testimony to God, the Church, oneself and the world, believers are baptized by water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Water baptism is a visual and symbolic demonstration of a person’s union with Christ in His death and resurrection (Romans 6:1-14). It signifies that a former way of life has been put to death and vividly depicts the freedom and joy that we have in Jesus, who has delivered us from sin, death, and hell.

As with baptism, the Lord’s Supper is to be observed only by those who are growing to know, love, and follow Jesus by grace through faith. This ordinance symbolizes the breaking of Christ’s body and the shedding of His blood on our behalf and is to be observed regularly as a reminder that God is holy, we are sinners, and Jesus is enough. As we come to the table in humble, confident faith, we remember and proclaim the death of Christ, receive spiritual nourishment for our souls and signify our unity with all other members of Christ’s body. True rest in Jesus is believing and living like "It is finished," (John 19:30) and that's what we celebrate in the Lord's Supper.

We follow a model of church structure where the Triune God is the ultimate authority. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is the Head of His body, the church (Ephesians 1:22-23) and that He is to be followed by His people in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father.

With that as our foundation, Grace Point is structured to represent what Scripture tells us about the relationship of God with the church, the differing roles of leaders within the church, and the church’s mission to the world.

Under God, each local church is to be led by a team of Pastors (also called Elders and Overseers in Scripture).

Pastors must be: 
1. Qualified (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9);
2. Gifted (Ephesians 4:11-14; 1 Peter 4:10-11);
3. Spirit-appointed (Acts 20:28);
4. Men (1 Timothy 2:12-15; 1 Timothy 3:1; 1 Corinthians 14:33-35).

These men are called by God to submit to Jesus and to the authority of His word (both as individuals and as a team), and to submit to one another just as all Members in the church are called by God to submit to the authority of the Elders. As practical needs arise, Pastors will appoint Deacons to meet those needs within the church community, with the goal of freeing up the Pastors to focus on meeting the spiritual needs of the church while the Deacons lead out in meeting the physical needs (Acts 6:1-6; 1 Peter 4:10-11).

Deacons must be:
1. Qualified (1 Timothy 3:8-9);
2. Tested (1 Timothy 3:10);
3. Servant-Hearted (1 Timothy 3:13);
4. Men and Women (1 Timothy 3:11-12).

Both Pastors and Deacons serve the church as faithful Members, locking arms with one another as we all grow to know, love, and follow Jesus together by His grace. This is what it means to be disciples who make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20), and it is the only way we will ever fulfill our vision to help suffering people find rest in a strong & beautiful God.

With that as our goal, the Pastors and Deacons invite our Members to:
1. Follow us in Worship;
2. Join us in Community; &
3. Lead us on Mission.

To hear more about how that looks at Grace Point, we invite you to join us for our DNA & Membership Classes.

We believe that Jesus Christ is returning to the world in the future to judge the living and the dead. The consummation of all things includes the future, physical, visible, personal and glorious return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the glorification of those alive in Christ, the judgment of the just and the unjust, and the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom in the new heavens and the new earth. In the judgment at the last day (John 12:48), Satan, with his hosts and all those outside Christ, will be finally separated from the benevolent presence of God, enduring eternal punishment (Revelation 20:7-15), but the righteous, in glorious bodies, will live and reign with Him forever, serving Him and giving Him unending praise and glory. Then the eager expectation of creation will be fulfilled, and the whole earth shall proclaim the glory of the God who makes all things new (Revelation 21:1-5).