The Bible is our authority, our boss. We are a people of the Book, because we believe God actually wrote a book for us. God’s Word will be our anchor and our voice. It will keep us steady in storms. It will sting us when we need to be corrected, it will steer us when we go off course, it will train us how to resemble Jesus more and more. We will counsel from it, we will encourage with it, we will look to it for wisdom. In summary, we won’t ever apologize for what it says because God in his kindness gave us his very thoughts and heart in it.

2 Timothy 4:2 | Unapologetically preaching what God has said.

We sing like someone actually saved us from something. In spirit, giving God our highest and truest passion. Worshiping God with our head, heart, and hands, for he is worthy of it all. We can sing passionately because what we will sing will be true. We worship in spirit and TRUTH. Truth has a gravitational pull on the heart, and we want the men and women of Saint City to be able to cry out to God in worship for Who He is and what he has done.

John 4:24 | Unashamed praise to God for who he is and what he has done.

We will pray, pray again, and then pray some more. Why? Because God calls us to men and women of prayer. One prayer you’ll often hear from us is what we call the 10:02 prayer. We are convinced that God’s harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, therefore we will persistently pray to the Lord of the Harvest to give us more workers for Him (Luke 10:2).

Ephesians 6:18 | Unceasing prayer to a big God.

If we’re going to push back the darkness in Tempe, we must be winsome, or said another way appealing in our character. We must give the reason for our hope with gentleness and respect. Winsome witnesses are more consumed with loving and reaching actual people than winning abstract arguments. We have urgency, we are unafraid, and we don’t shrink back because we understand the gravity of the message of the Gospel.

1 Peter 3:15 | Unwavering pursuit of people with the message of the Gospel.

We could get all four of the other directives right, but if we don’t have biblical, genuine love, we are just noise. To be a people who love people from our neighbors to the nations, we must be loud with our love. Loving our campus and city with the love of God is a direct command from our King.

1 Corinthians 13 | Unconditional love for our neighbors in our city and campus.

We believe the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments to be the full record of God’s self-disclosure to mankind. Different men, while writing according to their own styles and personalities, were supernaturally moved along by the Holy Spirit to record God’s very words, inerrant in the original writings. Therefore, those applying themselves to study its literal, historical-grammatical context can accurately understand God’s word. Scripture is fully trustworthy as our final and sufficient authority for all of life.

2 Timothy 3:16–17; 2 Peter 1:20–21; Mark 13:31; John 8:31–32; John 20:31; Acts 20:32

We believe in the one living and true God, eternally existing in perfect unity as three equally, fully, and eternally divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each member of the Godhead, while executing distinct but complementary roles in redemptive history, has precisely the same nature, attributes, and being, and is equally worthy of the same glory, honor, and obedience.

Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 45:21b–22; John 17:3; Matthew 3:13–17; Matthew 28:19; John 1:1–4; Acts 5:3–4; Colossians 2:9

We believe God the Father eternally exists as the first person of the Trinity. In this role and relationship, he has planned, directed, and is absolutely sovereign over all of creation and redemption, having decreed for his own glory all things that come to pass. God the Father is an invisible spirit, yet personal and relational. He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, purposes, and promises. He is perfect in knowledge, wisdom, truthfulness, faithfulness, goodness, love, holiness, justice, and wrath. Each of his attributes, in their perfection and fullness, are eternally true of his character and exist in complete and beautiful harmony with one another. As Father of his redeemed people, God has chosen from eternity past those whom he would call his own and, as a gift of his grace, sent his Son to save them from sin and death. All who come to him through faith in Jesus Christ are adopted as his children, making them fellow inheritors with Christ and recipients of his fatherly love and discipline.

Psalm 90:2; Genesis 1:1–31; Psalm 24:1; 103:19; Romans 11:36; Revelation 4:11; Isaiah 46:9–10; John 1:18; 4:24; 1 John 4:7–12; Psalm 102:25–27; Job 37:16; Romans 16:27; Isaiah 45:19; Numbers 23:19; Psalm 36:5; Psalm 100:5; 1 John 4:8; Romans 5:8; Leviticus 19:2; Isaiah 6:3; Deuteronomy 32:4; Romans 1:18; Isaiah 63:16; Romans 8:14; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Ephesians 1:3–6; Romans 3:24–25; John 1:12; Romans 8:15–17; Hebrews 12:5–9

We believe that Jesus Christ, the eternal, uncreated Son, moved by love in accordance with the will of the Father, took on human flesh. Conceived through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the virgin Mary. He, being fully God and fully man, lived a sinless life and sacrificially shed his blood and died on the cross in our place accomplishing redemption for all who place their faith in him. He arose visibly and bodily from the dead three days later and ascended into heaven, where, at the Father’s right hand, he is now head of his body, the Church, the only Savior and Mediator between God and man, and He will return to earth in power and glory to consummate his redemptive mission.

John 1:1, 14, 18; Luke 1:35; John 14:8–9; Hebrews 4:15; 7:26; John 10:15; Romans 3:24–25; 5:8; 1 Peter 2:24; Matthew 28:6; Luke 24:38–39; Acts 2:30–31; Romans 1:4; 4:25; 8:34; 1 Corinthians 15:20; Hebrews 7:25; 9:24; 1 John 2:1; Acts 1:9–11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; 1 Timothy 3:16, Col 1:15

We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that he does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ during this age. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He draws the unredeemed to repentance and faith, and at salvation imparts new spiritual life to the believer, bringing that person into union with Christ and the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit sanctifies, seals, fills, guides, instructs, comforts, equips, empowers, permanently indwells at salvation, and bestows spiritual gifts to the believer for Christ-like living and service.

John 16:8, 14; Titus 3:5; Ephesians 1:13–14; Romans 8:9–17; 12:4–8; 1 Corinthians 2:12; 3:16; 12:4–5, 11–13; Galatians 5:25; Hebrews 2:1–4; 2 Corinthians 12:12

We believe that God created mankind—male and female—in his own image and likeness, free of sin, full of intrinsic value and dignity, to glorify himself and enjoy his fellowship. Tempted by Satan, but in the sovereign plan of God, man freely chose to disobey God, bringing sin, death, and condemnation to all mankind. All human beings, therefore, are totally depraved by nature and by choice. Alienated from God without defense or excuse, and subject to God’s righteous wrath, all of mankind is in desperate need of the Savior.

Genesis 1:26–27; Isaiah 43:6; Psalm 16:11; Genesis 3:1–6; Romans 3:10–19; 6:23; Jeremiah 17:9; Ephesians 2:1–3; Isaiah 59:2; Romans 1:18, 32

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, as the substitutionary atonement in our place, and that salvation is found in none other than Jesus Christ. Before creation, God chose those who would be saved and granted this unearned grace solely based on his sovereign good pleasure. Jesus Christ’s death on the cross was the sole and complete payment for sins, fully satisfying God’s righteous wrath, sufficient and possible for the whole world, yet effective and actual for each person that turns from sin in repentance and places their faith in Christ alone by grace alone. At salvation, each person is made a new creation by the Holy Spirit, declared righteous before God, and secured as an adopted child of God forever. Genuine faith continues in obedience and love for Jesus Christ with a life eager to glorify God and persevere to the end.

1 Corinthians 15:3–4; John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Peter 3:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 8:29–30; Ephesians 1:3–14; Isaiah 55:7; Romans 10:9; Ephesians 2:8–9; Romans 8:37–39

We believe that, upon placing one’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the believer is made part of the body of Christ, the one universal Church, of which Jesus Christ is the head. The Scriptures command believers to gather locally in order to devote themselves to worship, prayer, teaching of the word, fellowship, the ordinances of baptism and communion, service to the local body through the development and use of talents and spiritual gifts, and outreach to the world to make disciples. Wherever God’s people meet regularly in obedience to this command, there is the local expression of the Church under the watchful care of a plurality of pastors. A church’s members are to work together in love and unity, intent on the ultimate purpose of glorifying Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:12–13; Colossians 1:18; Hebrews 10:24–25; Ephesians 1:22–23; Acts 2:42–46; 20:17; 1 Corinthians 14:26; Matthew 28:18–20; Ephesians 4:16

We believe that Christian baptism is a public declaration of the believer’s salvation in Christ, identifying with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection symbolized by immersion in water. The Lord’s Supper is the united commemoration by believers of Christ’s death until he comes and should be preceded by a careful self-examination.

Acts 2:41; Romans 6:3–6; Acts 8:26–40; 1 Corinthians 11:17–34

We believe it is the aim, duty, and privilege of every believer and local church fellowship to glorify God by responding as active participants in the Great Commission call of Jesus Christ to go and make disciples of all nations. We believe the primary focus and priority of this call is centered on efforts that establish, strengthen, and reproduce biblically-based churches, which will then plant churches that plant churches for future generations and God’s glory.

Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8; Titus 1:5

We believe in and expectantly await the glorious, visible, personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blessed hope of his return has a vital bearing on the personal life, service, and mission of the believer. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the saved and the lost. The lost will be raised to judgment and experience eternal wrath in hell. The saved will be raised to eternal joy in the new heaven and new earth and will dwell forever with Him.

Titus 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; 1 Corinthians 15:51–53; 1 Thessalonians 4:15–5:11; John 5:28–29; Matthew 25:31–46; Romans 8:10–11; Revelation 20:15