Love God. Love People. And Serve the World.
When trying to figure out if you can truly do life with a particular church, it is critically important that you know what that church believes. The following statements represent our most basic biblical and theological beliefs.
We believe in one God who exists eternally in three co-equal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe that God has spoken and continues to speak in and through Scripture, the only infallible and sufficiently clear rule and authority for Christian faith, thought, and life.
We believe that God created humans in his own image as male and female, both with inherent dignity and the calling to rule with him.
We believe that God’s calling for humanity to rule with him is rooted in his desire for a relationship with his image bearers, one in which we would come to know and love him with our whole being and be moved to love other image bearers as the natural outflow of experiencing his divine love. From this design, God connected our calling to include expanding his image across the land through human reproduction, which is the fruitful multiplication of image bearers. In order to accomplish this fruitful multiplication, God crafted the covenant of marriage founded on the truth that men and women were created in such a way, for those who are given the calling, that one man and one woman would be united as one together within this covenant calling. This establishes God’s divine ideal and standard of human sexual expression for men and women. Jesus would later expand on God’s calling for humanity when he commissioned his followers toward fruitful multiplication by making disciples of all people groups as they bring the gospel good news of redemption and restoration to all image bearers.
We believe that the original goodness defined by God for all creation, including humanity, has been corrupted by sin. Sin infected and replaced the original and continual desires of all humanity, from the first humans to today. This replaced desire has led humanity to define good and evil on their own terms, rather than listening and obeying the desire of their Creator God and therefore leaving them without the ability to restore right relationship with him, rule with him, or find life on their own apart from him.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who became human for the salvation of humanity. He was born of the virgin Mary and existed as one person with two natures: truly God and truly man. He is the only Mediator between God and humanity.
We believe that God, who is rich in mercy towards the undeserving has made gracious provision for human wrongdoing in the gift of Jesus’ once-for-all sufficient and perfect sacrificial death on the cross. It is wholly by grace, not our own works or accomplishments, that we have been forgiven; it is wholly by Jesus’ shed blood, not by our own sweat and tears, that we have been cleansed.
We believe that the gospel is the good news that Jesus has come to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven and restore humanity to rule with him. To restore humanity, he paid the debt of death owed for humanity’s sin on the cross and in that moment, Jesus made a way for humanity to return back to life with God where there had previously been no hope. God poured out his grace in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, so that through Jesus alone humanity might have restoration / restored relationship with God. Now humanity can return to God by repenting of their sin of unbelief, surrendering to him as Lord, and placing their faith, hope, and trust in the finished work of Jesus. All those whom he redeems and restores are fully adopted into his forever family. Because the image of God which had been marred at the fall has been renewed, his children are now empowered to live earthly lives with restored purpose. Justified by the work of Jesus alone, humanity has been restored to rule with him and enjoy his presence for all eternity.
We believe that the Holy Spirit is the giver of life, first creating and sustaining life throughout the cosmos and now providing God’s own life to the church as he dwells within each human who has surrendered their lives to Jesus. He is the invisible, personal presence of God that guides believers into a deepening understanding of what it looks like to love God and love people and convicts believers of sin, in thought, word, action, and inaction. He also provides comfort and strength to them as he forms them into new creatures with hearts oriented to the light and life of the Kingdom of Heaven and to peace and justice on Earth.
We believe that the unified, holy, global, and historic Church is the visual advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and is composed of every person who has been redeemed and restored by Jesus to the Father through the ages, regardless of geographical location, Christian denomination or cultural tradition. Jesus, the Son of the living God, is the Church’s firm foundation and serves as its ultimate head and leader. Each local church serves as an embassy of the Kingdom of Heaven, an earthly place where his will is done and he is now present. He is working within the local church both through individuals and through the gathering of believers who come together in his name to proclaim and spread the gospel in word and deed, and obedience to the Lord’s commands to make disciples, baptize them, and celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
We believe that these two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are visible reminders of the past, present, and future realities of the gospel.
We believe that believers abide with Jesus by being reminded of the gospel through participation in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as well as through personal and corporate spiritual rhythms such as prayer, engaging with Scripture, worship, fasting, submission, fellowship, celebration, and more. As we abide with him in such ways, we grow into our new reality and restored purpose as God’s holy nation, a people, who are called to discover daily what it looks like to walk in the way of Jesus through the power of the Spirit given to us by God.
We believe that in God’s own time and way, the bodily risen and ascended Christ will return to consummate what he has already accomplished through his death and resurrection.
This document was crafted and adapted by the elders of Mosaic Church from two external core belief documents: A Reforming Catholic Confession, a document written to honor the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and focused on what unites all Protestant Christians together in core beliefs, and The Gospel Coalition Confessional Statement, which was written to give clarity for all individuals, organizations, and churches that participate in endeavors with TGC what all should agree on as core beliefs. Our desire was to honor the intent of both documents and display our stance in continuity with the historic Church to present an easy-to-use document for the purposes of clarity, discipleship, and shepherding here at Mosaic Church.
If you have any questions regarding any point of this document or any other matter of doctrine, ethics, or theology please feel free to email info@thisismosaic.org to schedule a meeting to explore those questions further with one of the elders of Mosaic Church.
For more information on A Reforming Catholic Confession and The TGC Confessional Statement, please visit the following links for further study and explanation.