We Believe The Church of the Nazarene exists to serve as an instrument for advancing the kingdom of God through the preaching and teaching of the gospel throughout the world. Our well-defined commission is to preserve and propagate Christian holiness as set forth in the Scriptures, through the conversion of sinners, the reclamation of backsliders, and the entire sanctification of believers.   Worship Trinity Church of the Nazarene's spiritual vitality is evidenced most in our worship on Sunday-the Lord's Day. In our worship, with joy and reverence, we praise our majestic and awesome God. We really love to sing and we sing everything from the traditional hymns of the church to the contemporary praise and worship songs.  We feel that both are relevant and have much to contribute to our praise of Jesus. The reason for our enthusiasm stems from a desire that everyone be not merely observers but participators. God is seeking out worshipers, and the joy of His people gathering together before Him with reverence, awe, and celebration is what we desire to give Him. We give to God in our worship, but we also receive. That's where the Bible fits in. For it is through the pages of scripture that God communicated to us. Therefore, we desire to honor God through the preaching and teaching of His Word. The Bible tells us what God is like and what He desires for His people. And, through the Bible, we learn God's standards for living the life He desires for us in not just the week ahead, but for all the challenges of life. Articles Of Faith The Triune God We believe in one eternally existent, infinite God, Sovereign of the universe; that He only is God, creative and administrative, holy in nature, attributes, and purpose; that He, as God, is Triune in essential being, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.   Jesus Christ We believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that He was eternally one with the Father; that He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man. We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that He truly arose from the dead and took again His body, together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven and is there engaged in intercession for us. The Holy Spirit We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Triune Godhead, that He is ever present and efficiently active in and with the Church of Christ, convincing the world of sin, regenerating those who repent and believe, sanctifying believers, and guiding into all truth as it is in Jesus. The Holy Scriptures We believe that God fully and completely inspired the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith. Sin, Original and Personal   We believe that sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and death by sin. We believe that sin is of two kinds: original sin or depravity, and actual or personal sin. We believe that original sin, or depravity, is that corruption of the nature of all the offspring of Adam by reason of which everyone is very far gone from original righteousness or the pure state of our first parents at the time of their creation, is adverse to God, is without spiritual life, and inclined to evil, and that continually.   We further believe that original sin continues to exist with the new life of the regenerate, until eradicated by the baptism with the Holy Spirit. We believe that original sin differs from actual sin in that it constitutes an inherited propensity to actual sin for which no one is accountable until its divinely provided remedy is neglected or rejected.   We believe that actual or personal sin is a voluntary violation of a known law of God by a morally responsible person. It is therefore not to be confused with involuntary and inescapable shortcomings, infirmities, faults, mistakes, failures, or other deviations from a standard of perfect conduct that are the residual effects of the Fall. However, such innocent effects do not include attitudes or responses contrary to the spirit of Christ, which may properly be called sins of the spirit. We believe that personal sin is primarily and essentially a violation of the law of love; and that in relation to Christ sin may be defined as unbelief.   Atonement   We believe that Jesus Christ, by His sufferings, by the shedding of His blood, and by His meritorious death on the cross, made a full atonement for all human sin, and that this atonement is the only ground of salvation, and that it is sufficient for every individual of Adam's race. The atonement is graciously efficacious for the salvation of the irresponsible and for the children in innocency but is efficacious for the salvation of those who reach the age of responsibility only when they repent and believe.   Free Agency We believe that the human race's creation in Godlikeness included ability to choose between right and wrong, and thus human beings were morally responsible; that through the fall of Adam they became depraved so that they cannot now turn and prepare themselves by their own natural strength and works to faith and calling upon God. But we also believe that the grace of God through Jesus Christ is freely bestowed upon all people, enabling all who will to turn from sin to righteousness, believe on Jesus Christ for pardon and cleansing from sin, and follow good works pleasing and acceptable in His sight. We believe that all persons, though in the possession of the experience of regeneration and entire sanctification, may fall from grace and apostatize and, unless they repent of their sins, be hopelessly and eternally lost. Repentance   We believe that repentance, which is a sincere and thorough change of the mind in regard to sin, involving a sense of personal guilt and a voluntary turning away from sin, is demanded of all who have by act or purpose become sinners against God. The Spirit of God gives to all who will repent the gracious help of penitence. A Living Faith: What Nazarenes Believe Every organization that endures over time is based on a deeply shared combination of purpose, belief, and values. So it is with the Church of the Nazarene. It was founded to transform the world by spreading Scriptural holiness, the wonderful message that not only does Christ save us from our sins but that His Holy Spirit gives power to live victoriously over sin!