Statement of Faith

As a Constituent Church of CESA we hold to the 39 articles of the Church of England as being a reformed statement of Christian doctrine. 

We would also be supportive of the  other great reformed and Protestant statements of faith such as the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism.

Although we are paedobaptist (infant baptist), we have many who worship with us who subscribe to a believers' baptism position and we have close fellowship with all such and respect the right of the individual Christian to decide how and when baptism should be conducted. We do not, therefore, place the mechanics of baptism into a primary and therefore potentially divisive  position.

We believe certain other emphases are, however, necessary in this day and age regarding the church’s witness which were not emphasised in the historic confessions. So we proclaim a literal 6-day Creation as recorded in Genesis 1; we believe this is an important foundational doctrine and must be clearly taught and heard.

We do not believe Scripture permits women to have any leadership role in the public worship of the mixed congregation, although we encourage all the gifts of women’s ministry outside of the roles of leadership and authority over the mixed body (1 Tim 2; 1 Cor 14).

We also believe in the perpetuity of all  of the 10 commandments, and with regard to the the 4^th commandment, seek to encourage all our members to have a high view of the Lord’s Day.

We believe in the vital need of evangelism and witness in the community. We believe this mainly to be done outside of the formal church setting using means such as visitation, pamphlet distribution, works of caring and social service, especially the importance of prayer, that God would open doors of opportunity.  We do not believe the public worship service on the Lord’s day is to be the main method for evangelism, although clearly outsiders are encouraged to attend and hear the Gospel (Acts 5), but the public Lord’s day worship services are not focussed on the unbeliever.

We are concerned for family worship with male headship within the family unit being clearly promoted and demonstrated without overlooking the needy singles of our community whether divorced or widowed.

Clearly, we are concerned to be faithful to the teaching of God’s word, hence our denomination’s motto “Thy word above all things”, and the prevailing humanistic ethos of our modern culture we believe needs to be firmly resisted by word and deed, through the proclamation of the word (2 Tim 4) and the Godly counter-cultural living of Christians.

We hold to a reformed cessationist position on charismatic supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.