What we believe about God as revealed in the Bible is found in our Constitution under “Articles of Faith”. Click here for the Stony Hill Constitution: SHBC Constitution. In addition to these “Articles of Faith,” Stony Hill Baptist Church also affirms The Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
Stony Hill Baptist Church Articles of Faith
– We believe that the Holy Scriptures, consisting of Old and New Testaments, were originally and inerrantly communicated by God and therefore are verbally inspired and constitute the infallible authority in all matters of faith, life, and conduct.
– We believe that there is one God, but three persons in the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- the same in essence and equal in wisdom, goodness, power, and glory.
– We believe in the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ; in His virgin birth; in His sinless life; in His inerrant teaching; in His miracles; in His substitutionary death, by which we have redemption through His blood; in His bodily resurrection from the dead; in His ascension into heaven; in His present ministry as intercessor; in His personal return at the end of the age to raise the dead, glorify the church, judge the earth, and reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
We believe that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and to indwell and enable the Christian to live in a sober, righteous, and godly manner, unspotted by the world in this present age.
We believe that all persons fell in Adam, the first man, resulting in separation from God, and therefore are not able to keep the perfect law of God nor to obtain salvation by the works of the law.
We believe that the salvation of lost and sinful man comes through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit as man repents toward God and exercises faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, as blessed Mediator.
We believe that the church on earth consists of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ who are dedicated to the worship and service of God through the proclamation of the Word, the observance of the ordinances, fellowship, prayer, and the administration of discipline. We believe it to be our duty to support and maintain the preaching of the Gospel in our church and abroad by giving our means as we may be able.
We believe that immersion is the only proper mode of water baptism and that believers are the only proper subjects thereof. We believe that baptism represents the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that communion represents the broken body and shed blood of our Savior.
End Times– We believe in the bodily resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust: the just to everlasting life and bliss, the unjust to everlasting shame, misery, and perdition.
Church Covenant
Forasmuch as almighty God by His grace has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light and we have been baptized by immersion upon a profession of our faith in Christ Jesus and have given ourselves to the Lord and to one another in the Gospel of Christ, we have committed to form ourselves into a local church body of baptized believers to be governed and guided by a proper discipline in accordance with the Word of God.
We do therefore in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through His assistance, covenant and agree to keep the church discipline that sustains our brotherly fellowship with one another, in brotherly love to pray for each other, and if need be in the most brotherly manner to reprove and admonish one another, observing the direction of our Savior, as given in the 18th chapter of Matthew.
We also agree by God’s assistance to pray in our families, attend our church meetings faithfully, observe the Lord’s day and keep it holy, partake regularly of the communion of the Lord’s supper and not absent ourselves from it without a lawful excuse, and give generously of our means, as God shall prosper us, to aid in maintaining the ministry among us and help in sending the Gospel to all people.
We agree to bear a reasonable part in all the expenses of the church and, as individual members, not to depart from the church or to leave its fellowship without a regular letter of dismission therefrom.