STATEMENT OF FAITH

Highland Park Church is a Bible-believing congregation in the tradition of John Wesley.  These are our beliefs which we hold to be true and are common to Christians world wide:

  • We believe in one Creator, God, who reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit.
  • We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ.
  • We believe that all people have sinned and need God's grace and forgiveness which is abundantly available through Jesus' death on the cross.
  • We believe God draws us to Himself, but the decision to respond is ours.
  • We believe that an individual must repent and trust Christ to receive forgiveness and eternal life.
  • We believe that as Christians, we need to offer our whole lives to God that He might cleanse our hearts from the attitude of sin.  (The Biblical word for this experience is sanctification.)  When we surrender ourselves to God completely, His Spirit can fully mold us into Christ-likeness; His perfect love is reflected in our attitude and actions; and God empowers us to live life more abundantly.
  • We believe that the Church is the Body of Christ carrying on His purposes in the world.
  • We believe that God can bring healing.
  • We believe that Jesus Christ is coming again. 
  • We practice the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Core Values

We Are a Christian People

As members of the Church Universal, we join with all true believers in proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  We value our Wesleyan-Holiness heritage and believe it to be a way of understanding the faith that is true to Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience.

We Are a Holiness People

God, who is holy, calls us to a life of holiness.  We believe that the Holy Spirit seeks to do in us a second work of grace, called by various terms including "entire sanctification" and "baptism with the Holy Spirit" - cleansing us from all sin; renewing us in the image of God; empowering us to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves; and producing in us the character of Christ.  Holiness in the life of believers is most clearly understood as Christlikeness.

We Are a Missional People

We are a sent people, responding to the call of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to go into all the world, witnessing to the Lordship of Christ and participating with God in the building of the Church and the extension of His kingdom (2 Corinthians 6:1).  Our misison (a) begins in worship, (b) ministers to the world in evangelism and compassion, (c) encourages believers toward Christian maturity through desicipleship, and (d) prepares women and men for Christian service through Christian higher educaiton.