What The Church Believes
This is our church basis of faith, which summarises what every member understands, believes and confesses concerning: the Bible, God, ourselves, Christ, salvation, the Holy Spirit, the church, the ordinances, and the final judgment that we must all face when Christ returns.
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The full inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, their authority and sufficiency as not only containing, but being in themselves the Word of God; the reliability of the New Testament in its testimony to the character and authorship of the Old Testament; and the need of the teaching of the Holy Spirit to a true and spiritual understanding of the whole.
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The unity of the Godhead and the divine co-equality of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the sovereignty of God in creation, providence, and redemption.
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The total depravity of human nature in consequence of the fall and the necessity for regeneration.
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The true and proper deity of our Lord Jesus Christ; his virgin birth, his real and perfect manhood, the authority of his teaching, and the infallibility of all his utterances, his work of atonement for sinners of mankind by his substitutionary sufferings and death, his bodily resurrection and his ascension into heaven; and his present priestly intercession for his people at the right hand of the Father.
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The justification of the sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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The necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, conversion, and sanctification; also in ministry and worship.
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The universal church, the body of which Christ is the head, embracing all the redeemed, called by God through the gospel, born of the Spirit and justified by faith; the local church, comprising such believers as the expression of the universal church; and fellowship between such churches, manifesting the unity of the body of Christ.
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The ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as being instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, but not in Baptism as conveying regenerating grace, nor in the Lord’s Supper as being a sacrifice for sin, not involving any change in the substance of the bread and wine.
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The personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory.
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The resurrection of the body; the judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, with eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the wicked.
As well as this helpful and important summary, Trinity Grace Church is committed to the creeds of the early church and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, commonly known as the 1689 Confession. All our church officers understand and fully subscribe to the 1689 Confession. Each Lord’s Day, our ministers preach from the Bible, but their teaching accords with the doctrines set out in our Confession, because we believe this is faithful to the whole counsel of God in scripture. This is why we are known as a Confessional Church.
At Trinity Grace Church
We seek to confess and proclaim the whole counsel of God – nothing more, nothing less. We believe that the preaching of God’s word is the most important part of our worship. We seek to be guided in all things by the Bible and the Bible alone.
We love the Lord Jesus Christ – we rejoice because he came to this world, leaving behind the glory of heaven, to die on a cross to save sinners like us. We are amazed that he should love sinners and rebels like us so much. The cross of our Lord and Saviour is at the heart of all our preaching, worship and evangelism.
We are passionate about the Gospel – we long to see lost souls converted to Christ. To this end, we proclaim the gospel each Lord’s Day in our church services, as well as from door-to-door, through leaflet distribution, open air work, and special evangelistic meetings (see our calendar and events page). We pray for this work regularly, both as individuals and as a church. We support the work of gospel outreach throughout the world, including Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, the Middle East and Hungary (see our overseas missions page).
We support one another in the church – living, working and growing together as the body of Christ in this town.
What is a Christian Church?
A Christian Church is NOT a building, or a tradition, or an organisation. In fact, a Christian Church is not a human institution at all. The Christian Church is the kingdom of Jesus Christ upon the earth. It is the body of men, women and children who worship, love, serve, honour, obey and enjoy Him.
These people are not all the same, nor are they trying to be the same. A Christian Church is made up of men and women, young and old, rich and poor, healthy and sick: there are those who love football, and those who hate it; those who sing beautifully, and those who are tone deaf; those who holiday in the Bahamas, and those who never stray from Rammy.
However, there are four great things that unite us.
We worship ONE LORD, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We know that He, God the Son, came from heaven 2000 years ago, became a man, lived a perfect life, and then died to take the punishment for sin that we deserve.
We share ONE FAITH in the living God. We believe that there is one God who made heaven and earth, who exercises sovereign authority over all things, and will one day judge all of His creation. Through faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ His Son, we know that He will receive us into His everlasting kingdom.
We experience ONE BAPTISM. We are all immersed in the Holy Spirit of God and seek to live our lives to His honour and praise by the strength that He gives to us. We have all been through “the waters of baptism” to symbolise the great change which has taken place in our lives. Every day we seek to become more like Jesus.
And above all, we are ONE IN LOVE. We love the Lord Jesus Christ for all that He has done for us in leaving behind the glory of heaven to come into this sin sick world and suffer so cruelly at the hands of evil men for the sake of careless sinners like us. We love one another as we share together the love of Jesus in our lives. And we love all men and women, seeking to share with them the glorious riches that we have found in the Lord Jesus.
What is an Evangelical Church?
An Evangelical Church is one which believes that the Bible not only contains, but is in itself, God’s perfect and perpetually relevant message to all men and women. The Apostle Paul wrote in his second letter to Timothy, his friend and colleague:
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
We therefore believe three things about the Bible:
The Bible is perfect. There are no mistakes or contradictions. Even though it was written over many hundreds of years, by many different people, in many different places, every part of the Bible is consistent with the rest. For example, the coming of Jesus Christ to be born of a virgin in Bethlehem, was prophesied by Isaiah and Malachi hundreds of years before it took place; every part of their prophecy came true.
The Bible is sufficient. Because it is God’s message to us, and because God knows all things, there can be nothing to add to the Bible. It contains all that we need to know to bring us to God, obtain forgiveness of sins, and secure a place in the eternal kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible is God’s power to save. God has chosen to convert the souls of men and women through the preaching of His Word, the Bible. Writing to Christians in Rome, Paul says:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”
Only the Bible’s message can change our hearts so that we can understand and respond to God. That is why we preach this message in the Church five or six times each week, in the open air, from door to door, and at special meetings whenever we can.
What is a Reformed Church?
Not only are we a Christian and an Evangelical Church, we are also a Reformed Church. This means that we continue to preserve and proclaim the truths for which the 16th century Protestant Fathers lived and died. Many of them were burned at the stake for their faith, and we hold to those same beliefs as strongly as they did!
What are these truths? Supremely they believed that the Bible was to be their guide in all matters of belief and living. Hence the first sentence in our Confession of faith is rooted in this Reformed tradition, and reads: The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience.
Out of the Bible, they discovered five great teachings:
We must be saved. All men and women are born with sinful hearts into a world that is full of sin. Sin is the refusal to accept God as the Lord and Master of our lives. The Bible teaches that God, who is supremely pure and lovely and perfect, hates this sin and all its consequences (selfishness, hatred, pride, sexual immorality, wickedness, theft, lying, cheating, murder, envy, greed, drunkenness etc..). One day He will call all of us to account, and unless we are saved, we will be punished by Him for all eternity.
We must be saved by grace alone. The Reformers understood from the Bible that no one could ever be good enough to earn for themselves a place in God’s kingdom. Because God wants to maintain the perfection of His home, nothing that is not completely perfect can come near to Him. Therefore, if we are to be saved, it must be by means of God’s activity on our behalf – an activity which is undeserved. The Bible calls this grace – God’s favour and kindness shown to those who do not deserve it.
We must be saved through faith alone. God’s way of saving men and women by grace was to send His Only Son into the world to live a perfect life (thus earning eternal life), and then to give up His life on the cross (thus dying in the place of all His people). He dies the death that we deserve so that we can inherit the life that we don’t deserve! But how do we obtain this life? Only by trusting completely in Him: by believing with all our mind and heart that Jesus alone can forgive all our sins and make us acceptable to God. The Bible calls this trust and belief “FAITH”. Without this faith, no one can be saved.
We must be saved in Christ alone. If we put any of our faith in anyone or anything else, then we cannot be saved. We must not trust in the church, or in the minister, or in the saints, and especially not in ourselves and our good works. Christ Jesus alone can save us, and we must put all our faith in Him.
We must be saved to God’s glory alone. God has made this world for the glory of His own name. All those who are saved have only one real desire: to live for the honour and glory of the God who has done so much for them. The Christian is not in the Church to get benefit for himself, but to give praise and thanks to God.
Furthermore, a Reformed Church is one that knows we have not yet “arrived”. We are determined to keep growing, changing and reforming until we are truly pleasing to our God in everything. Since this will not be possible in this life, we know the process of reformation will never end!
Finally, a Reformed Church is a Confessional Church, committed to the whole counsel of God clearly outlined and clarified in the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689.
What is The Gospel and how can you explain it to someone else?
At Trinity Grace Church we preach God’s Word – nothing more, nothing less. We believe that the preaching of God’s Word is the most important part of our worship. We seek to be guided in all things by the Bible and the Bible alone.
Church Constitution
See how we are organised and governed here!
