Who Are You Guys Anyway?

​This is a question I am frequently asked.  Theologically put, it would sound like this: “What segment of the Christian experience does your church subscribe to?” Historically, we are linked with the non-denominational Christian Churches /Churches of Christ.  But another way of answering that question is by looking at four mottos which have followed us around for the past 150 years. The first one is this: “Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.”  This immediately identifies us as a conservative, Bible-believing, evangelical church. We get our authority for what we believe and do from the Word of God; not from some church headquarters or from the American culture or even from church history. It also indicates that we  allow our members to believe and practice whatever is not specifically commanded or forbidden by Scripture. This is probably the hardest part, because of the feeling so many of us tend to have that “the way I have always done things is the way things ought to be done.”
Another motto is “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.”  This is another way of expressing the first motto except that it underscores the most important quality when dealing with those who don’t come out with the same conclusions we do: love. If the family of God can’t love one another in spite of differing opinions then it hasn’t understood that which forever separates the church from mere human organizations.
Here is another: “We have no creed but Christ; no book the but the Bible; no name but the Divine.”  This helps people understand why we simply call ourselves “Christian,” why we designate our churches the same way, and why we have never adopted creedal statements outside of the Bible’s own words about itself.
One more: “We are not the only Christians, but we are Christians only.”  While belief statements are important, we don’t really spend all our time trying to figure out which churches are right or wrong or demanding that our members subscribe to a lot of traditional baggage. We have only one “product” to market: Jesus Christ and the salvation and growth that come through Him. That’s what we really want to be known for.
 

---