Welcome to The Good Word Ministries - Good Word Christian Center

THE STATEMENT OF BELIEFS

Good Word Ministries has been formed as a fellowship and community of believers in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our utmost desire is to know Christ and be conformed to His image by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are a non-denominational, non-sectarian church, nor are we opposed to denominations as such, only to the over-emphasis of the trivial doctrinal differences that have led to the division within the Body of Christ.

We believe the only true basis of Christian fellowship is Christ's Agape love, which is greater than any differences we possess and without which we have no right to claim ourselves Christians.

We believe that God is the personal, transcendent, and sovereign Creator of all things.

We believe that God is eternally existent in three distinct persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We believe that all human beings are God’s creation and life is God’s gift to us. All persons are created equal, privileged and loved by God, and with specific eternal God-given purpose. We therefore hold true the sanity and dignity of all human life, the right to exist, to prosper, and to be happy.

We believe that all people are, by nature, separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are freely offered to all by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When a person repents of sin and accepts Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, all his/her sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a child of God, destined to spend eternity with the Lord.

We believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, that the Bible, Old and New Testaments are the inspired, infallible and authoritative Word of God sufficient for our instruction unto salvation and true relationship with God.

We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, that He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His substitutionary death on the cross, was bodily raised from the dead, ascended back to the right hand of the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for us.

After Jesus ascended to Heaven, He poured out His Holy Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to fulfill His command to preach the Gospel to the entire world, an obligation shared by all believers today.

We believe in the personal, visible, and pre-millennial second coming of Jesus Christ to the earth. He will return with His saints and set up a kingdom of which there will be no end.

We believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit which is promised to all believers subsequent to salvation as the entrance into a Spirit-filled life including: a prayer language (speaking in tongues), gifts of the Holy Spirit, and power to be a witness and anointed servant of God.

We believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Scriptures, and that they are valid for today if they are exercised within the scriptural guidelines. We as believers 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 this love all exercise of spiritual gifts is worthless.

We believe in all the basic doctrines of historic Christianity, the spiritual unity of all believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, the holy sacraments: The Lord’s Supper, Water Baptism, and Holy Matrimony.

We believe worship of God should be spiritual. Therefore, we remain flexible and yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit to direct our worship.

We believe worship of God should be inspirational. Therefore, we give great place to music in our worship.

We believe worship of God should be intelligent. Therefore, our services are designed with great emphasis upon the teaching of the Word of God that He might instruct us how He should be worshipped and also maximize our potential.

We believe worship of God should be fruitful. Therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have truly been worshipping Him.

We believe in the Powers and Miracles of God and His Christ as true, relevant and available to believers and anyone God in His sovereign wisdom chooses either to save, heal, deliver, or to administer such miracles as a servant of God. That Christ’s finished work on the Cross provides healings for the human body, soul and spirit.

We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation. But, God desires all to be saved, therefore we strongly believe in the responsibility of all believers to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe in biblical leadership principles and hence follow the biblical and spiritual qualification for church leadership mainly prescribed by 1Timothy 3:1-7:

1 This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; 3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; 4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); 6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. 7 Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

(This qualification is true for both women and men holding or desiring responsibilities within the Church.)