WHAT WE BELIEVE

DOCTRINAL STATEMENT

West City Church is a gospel-centered church located in Easley, South Carolina. Our beliefs at West City Church are historic, biblical, and are rooted in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are made up of people from many denominations, backgrounds, and everyone belongs because we are centered on the true Christian Message.

THE TRIUNE GOD

We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who know, love, and glorify one another. There is one and only one living and true God. This one true and living God is worthy to receive all of our love, worship, and honor. 

REVELATION

We believe that God has inspired the words of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments written by human authors. These writings alone constitute the Word of God, utterly authoritative, without error in the original writings, complete in its revelation of his character and will for salvation, and all that God requires us to believe and do.

God has ultimately revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was the living word, truth, character, and life that was fully God with us.

CREATION OF HUMANITY

We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in his own image. Men and women, equally made in the image of God, are equal in access to God by faith in Jesus Christ. Both men and women were commissioned at creation to serve and spread the Christian Message until it fills the earth. Both are called to significant engagement in family, church, and civic life. 

THE FALL

We believe that a real, historic Adam, made in the image of God, distorted that image, and forfeited his original status and mission – for himself and all his progeny – by falling into rebellion against God’s truth, through Satan's temptation. As a result, all human beings are separated from God and one another, corrupted in every aspect of their being and condemned to death-apart from God's own gracious and miraculous saving. 

THE PLAN OF GOD

God created a world where all people would love and worship Him, knowing we would not. Before time began, he had a plan We believe that before creation God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and to this end he foreknew them and chose them, all to the praise of his glorious grace. In love God has set his affections on rebellious people to put on display his unmatched love, grace, and mercy. This gracious, sovereign God calls all people to repent and believe, having set his saving love on those he has chosen and having ordained Christ to be their Redeemer. 

THE GOSPEL

The word Gospel means good news. It was used by Roman messengers proclaiming the good news of victory in war on a foreign front. We believe that the biblical gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. It is the good news of what God has done in the person and work of Jesus. The Gospel is the power of God to those who are being saved, this good news centers on the cross and resurrection of Christ. 

The Person and Work of Christ

We believe that before creation God planned the rescue mission to save His people would be accomplished through the person and work of Jesus. Jesus is a real and historic person who walked the earth 2000 years ago and lives today. He is fully God and fully human being, one Person in two natures. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, was conceived through the Holy Spirit and was born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified, rose on the third day and ascended into heaven as our representative and substitute. On the cross he canceled the debt of sin and reconciled to God all those who believe. By his resurrection Christ Jesus was vindicated by his Father, broke the power of death, defeated Satan, and brought everlasting life to all his people. By his ascension he has been forever exalted as Lord and has prepared a place for us to be with him. We believe that salvation is found in no one else.

THE JUSTIFICATION OF SINNERS

We believe that Christ, by his life and work, fully, and finally canceled the debt of all those who are justified. By his sacrifice, He bore in His body the punishment due us for our sins. By his perfect obedience, he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf. By faith alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God. Justification comes by Grace Alone, through Faith Alone, in Christ Alone. We cannot earn this salvation and cannot lose it as those who are in Christ. 

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

We believe that this salvation is applied to his people by the Holy Spirit. Sent by the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ and, as "The Helper," is present with and in believers. He is the evidence and down payment on what will fully be realized when Christ returns. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and by his powerful work regenerates spiritually dead sinners, breathing life into us as He did in the first creation of man when He breathed life into Adam. He is the life giver and vivifier of all God has made. He is at work awakening people to repentance and faith, baptizing them into union with the Lord Jesus.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

We believe that when you become united to Christ through faith in His saving work, and are made alive by the Holy Spirit, you become part of a countercultural kingdom. The Kingdom of God stands in contrast to the Kingdom of self and the Kingdom’s of the world. The kingdom of man does not acknowledge God as creator or worship Him as he is owed. The Kingdom of God restores what sin and rebellion have vandalized in a once perfect and flourishing creation before sin. We are once again re-commissioned to our original task of spreading God’s good rule and reign to the ends of the earth. That commission begins to be lived out by each follower of Christ right where we live, work, and do everyday life. We become members of God’s kingdom to be active builders of God's Kingdom and live among it. Believers live as salt in a decaying world and light in a dark world. Believers neither withdraw from the world nor become indistinguishable from it. Rather, we are to do good to the city, for all the glory and honor of the nations is to be offered up to the living God.

GOD'S NEW PEOPLE

We believe that God's new covenant people are made visible through the local church around the world where Christ is the only Head. The church is a trophy room of God’s grace and new life. The church is distinguished by her gospel message, her sacred ordinances, her discipline, her great mission, and, above all, by her love for God, and by her members' love for one another and for the world. 

BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER

We believe that baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. Baptism symbolizes entrance into the new covenant community The Lord's Supper displays ongoing covenant renewal. They are God's pledge to us and our public submission to Christ.

THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS

We believe that the mission of God has been to restore what sin has stolen. That restoration has already begun at the resurrection of Christ and in the life of His church. One day what is seen with veiled eyes will be seen clearly at Christ's return. That day will see the resurrection of both the believer and the non-believer bodily. The end for the unbeliever is eternal conscious punishment in hell. For the believer the end is eternal blessedness in the presence of him who alone could save. On that day the church will be presented faultless before God by Christ, and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace.