What we do believe:

GODHEAD

•  We believe in the Tri-unity of the Godhead — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each existing as a separate person yet one in essence. There is only one God. — Isa. 45:21; John 1:1-3; Rev. 1:8; 1 John 5:7

•  We believe that God the Father is the personal, transcendent and sovereign God over all things. — Isa. 45:21

WORD OF GOD

•   We believe in the inerrancy of Scripture; that the Bible, Old and New Testaments is the inspired, infallible Word of God. — 2 Tim. 3:16,17; 2 Peter 1:21; 1 Thess. 2:13

CONDITION OF MAN

•  We believe that all mankind is sinful by nature and under the condemnation of God, thus, being unable to come to God apart from salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and His bodily resurrection from the dead, that salvation is received by faith alone apart from any works, that it is a gift of God’s grace and mercy which are neither earned nor deserved. — John 3:14-16; Rom. 5:8,9; Heb. 9:11,12; 1 Peter 2:18,19; Rom. 10:9,10; Rom. 5:1; Rom. 4:4,5; Eph. 2:8,9; John 14:6; Luke 13:3

JESUS CHRIST

•  We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and human, that He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and provided our eternal salvation through His substitutionary death on the cross, and bodily resurrection, that He ascended back to the right hand of God the Father and ever lives to make intercession for us. — John 1:1-3

HOLY SPIRIT

•  We believe that the Holy Spirit is fully God, that He indwells all those born-again, that He fills believers for service and that He convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment, that He is the moving cause of salvation in that He draws us unto the Father and Jesus Christ so as to be saved, that He is the indwelling power for victory over the sins of the flesh. — 1 Cor. 6:19; Eph. 5:18; Eph. 1:13,1

PROPHECY

•  We await the rapture of the church, and we believe that the second coming of Christ with His saints to rule on the earth will be personal, premillennial, and visible. — 1 Thess.  4:13-18; Matt. 25:31-46; Rev. 19:11-21 

SPIRITUAL GIFTS

•  We believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Scriptures are valid for today if they are exercised within the scriptural guidelines, that the Holy Spirit gives these gifts as He wills and that no believer will have all the gifts, nor that every believer must manifest any one particular gift so as to evidence the baptism (filling) of the Holy Spirit. As believers we are to covet the best gifts, seeking to exercise them in love that the whole Body of Christ might be edified. We believe that love is more important than the most spectacular gifts and without love all exercise of spiritual gifts is worthless. — 1 Cor. 13:1-3; 1 Cor. 12-14; Rom. 12.

SPIRITUAL WARFARE

•  We believe that unseen spiritual powers (demons & angels) are active in our world and can affect Christians and non-Christians in their daily lives. (Eph. 6:12)

•  We believe that demonic influence and harassment should be dealt with directly by those who know Jesus Christ, on the basis of the authority of Jesus’ name, through prayer and the Word of God. (Acts 16:18; Acts 19:15).

BAPTISM & LORD’S SUPPER

•  We believe that there are two church ordinances — Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism is by immersion in water and is a testimony of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The Lord’s Supper is the commemoration of our Lord’s death until He comes. It should always be done after careful self-examination. — Acts 8:36-39; 1 Cor. 11:23-32

CHURCH GOVERNMENT

•  We believe that church government should be simplistic rather than a complex bureaucracy, and we depend on the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly promotion. — Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:22-23; 1 Cor. 12:27,28

LOCAL CHURCH 

•  We believe that the Church is the Body of Christ expressed both universally and locally, that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church both locally and universally. — Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:22,23

•  We believe that in our services we must focus on a personal relationship with God through worship, prayer, and the teaching of the Word of God. We teach/preach both expository and topical messages. 

SEXUAL PURITY

•  We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman.  We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery, and pornography are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex. We believe that God disapproves of and forbids any attempt to alter one’s gender by surgery or appearance.  — Gen. 2:24; Gen. 19:5, 13; Gen. 26:8-9; Lev. 18:1-30; Rom. 1: 26-29; 1 Cor. 5:1; 6:9; 1 Thess. 4:1-8; Heb. 13:4

MARRIAGE

•  We believe that the only Scriptural marriage is the joining of one man and one woman. —  Gen. 2:24; Rom. 7:2; 1 Cor. 7:10; Eph. 5:22-23

What we do not believe:

•  We do not believe that a person must speak in tongues to be saved, or to know that they are filled with the Holy Spirit. 

•  We do not believe that a Christian can be possessed by a demon (that is, having one’s will completely controlled by a demon), as the indwelling Holy Spirit is greater (1 John 4:4).

•  We do not believe the faith movement teaching of “positive confession” or the “health/wealth” teachings that is prevalent today. This false teaching says that we, like God, have the ability to create our own reality by the confession of our lips and that God is obligated to heal because of the positive confession of our lips. 

•  We do not believe the notion that a person living in sickness or poverty is settling for less than his full inheritance in Christ. It is our desire that people be healed of sickness and delivered from poverty, but they are not second-rate citizens of the Kingdom if they are experiencing one or both of these life situations.

•  We do not believe that “prophecy” given through the gift of prophecy is equal to or supersedes the Word of God. The Bible, the Word of God, is the completed Word of prophecy given by the Holy Spirit. God’s Word, the Bible, is not being added to today or superseded!

•  We do not believe teaching based upon humanistic secular psychology and philosophy. While we respect our fellow believers who work in mental health related fields, we at West Side Bible Church believe that the central mission of the church is to proclaim God’s Word to a lost and hurting world. It is God’s Word that changes lives for the better.