Our Beliefs

Our Mission

…is to change lives with Jesus’ love, always asking, “What does His love require us to do?” 

Our Strategy

...is to create environments where people are encouraged and equipped to trust Jesus, grow disciples, and bless others with our lives.

What We Believe

About the Scriptures

We believe the entire Bible is the collection of ancient scrolls that taken together are the written Word of God, each crafted by human authors who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell God’s story in a way that his people would understand or be moved by. The Bible has two related but distinctive ‘testaments’:  

• the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) were God’s way of guiding his unique nation to become his own special adopted people—as well as a light-bringer and blessing to the rest of the world.  Its words inspire us and give us history, insight, and wisdom lessons—and, we Christians believe, also point to… 

• the Christian scriptures (New Testament) are God’s revelation that his ancient promise to the world was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, who came to reconcile all humanity with the Father and with one another. 

About God

We believe in the one God who exists in three ‘persons,’ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Father created us, and God the Son become human in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus freed us from the power of sin and shame by his voluntary death on a Roman cross, and he freed us from the need to fear our death by defeating death on Easter morning. Beyond all that, Jesus equipped us to live on earth as citizens of Heaven through his teachings and wisdom, his prophecies against pride and injustice, and his love for all people—with his noteworthy fondness for, and defense of, those on the lower rungs and margins of society. After his time on earth, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to transform believers and empower their churches to bring his life-changing Good News to the world in our thoughts, words and deeds.

About Humanity

We believe that all people were created in the image of God to want fellowship with him and peace with one another. Each person was born alienated from God—in a variety of ways and degrees—through the innate inheritance of sin, and its manifestations in things like selfishness, disobedience, dysfunction, and pride. As a result, none of us are capable of regaining a right relationship with God through our own efforts.

About Salvation

We believe that the freely-accepted self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, his blood shed on the cross, is the sole basis for the forgiveness of sin. Its brutality makes clear how devoted Jesus was to inviting us back to the home of our Father, and his willingness to accept that terrible fate makes clear how deep his love for us was—and moves us to live our lives humbled and thankful for such determined love, and to simply trust Jesus with our lives the way he trusted the Father with his own.

About the Christian Life

We believe all Christians should live for Christ and not for themselves. That means we should take delighting in worshiping God, in using our gifts, sharing in the chores in the family of God, and growing our character and calling to bless the world we believe Jesus died to save. Maturity and Christ-likeness means we will be grace-filled but honest in our self-assessment, and grace-filled and generous in our view of others. Learn more about baptisms and dedications here at KP, an important step in your faith journey.

About the Church

We believe that the church is the body of Christ, of which Jesus Christ is the head. That means the fundamental faithfulness measure isn’t just, What does it say in the Bible? although of course God’s Word has tremendous guidance for us in personal, social, societal, and church life. The fundamental faithfulness question for people who follow Jesus is, What did Jesus tell his disciples to do, and are we doing what he asked?

About Diversity

A close reading of Scripture reveals some of the most central people of faith were not the kinds of people we’d expect, and Jesus’ honoring and calling disciples from surprising places only confirms that faithfulness to Jesus means openness and respectfulness toward all people – regardless of every race, ethnicity, economic class, marital status, sexual orientation, and faith background (or lack of).