What we believe

The Bible is God’s Word and the trustworthy foundation for what we believe and how we live.

We take the Bible seriously. It is where we go to understand who God is, who we are and how we are meant to live, and it is the measure against which we test what we teach from the front.

That means our preaching works through Scripture rather than around it, and it means you are free to hold what you hear up against it.

We believe in one God, eternally revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

One God, three persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — perfectly united, eternally and equally God. This is not a puzzle we have solved but the God we have come to know, and it shapes everything else we believe.

Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. His life, death and resurrection are central to everything.

Jesus is the reason this church exists. We believe he lived a real human life, died a real death in our place, and was raised bodily from the dead.

Everything we do is meant to bring people into contact with him. Not with a programme, a personality or a building — with Jesus.

People are reconciled to God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

We cannot earn our way to God, and we do not need to. Salvation is a gift, received by trusting what Jesus has already done.

That gift leads somewhere: a new life of repentance, faith and discipleship, lived out in the company of other people doing the same thing.

The Holy Spirit is present and active in the life of the Church today.

We are a Pentecostal church, which means we expect the Holy Spirit to be at work now — empowering ordinary people for holy living, for witness, for ministry and through spiritual gifts.

In practice that is less dramatic and more everyday than people sometimes imagine, and you will never be put on the spot or singled out in one of our services.

The Church is the people of God, called to worship, grow, care for one another and make Jesus known.

The church is not the building on Lee High Road. It is the people who gather in it, and the people who gather in churches like it all over the world.

We are called to worship together, grow as disciples together, look after one another properly, and make Jesus known where we live.

Two practices given to the Church by Jesus himself.

Baptism is a public declaration that someone has put their trust in Jesus. Communion is the meal Jesus gave his followers to remember him by, which we share together regularly as a church.

If you would like to be baptised, or you have questions about either, speak to one of our pastors — we would be glad to talk it through.

We believe God hears prayer and continues to work powerfully today.

We pray expectantly — for healing, for breakthrough, for the things people are carrying quietly. We have seen God answer, and we are honest that we do not always understand why some prayers are answered as we hoped and others are not.

Prayer is not a technique. It is talking to a God who listens.

Followers of Jesus are called to share the gospel and serve people, locally and globally.

The good news is not ours to keep. That conviction is why Lifebread runs every Tuesday, why The Pantry packs hampers every month, and why Go100 exists.

Mission is not a department of this church. It is what the whole church is for.

Christian hope looks forward to the return of Jesus and the fulfilment of God’s purposes.

We believe Jesus will return, that the dead will be raised, and that God will put right everything that is currently wrong with the world.

That hope is not escapism. It is what gives the work of today its weight.