Ah yes, the all-important Doctrinal Statement! It's the first thing religious people check for. Of course, what they usually find is a carbon copy of what everyone else says, and this supposedly gives the assurance that the people putting forth the statement are "pure" insofar as their teachings and beliefs are concerned.

"Sinners" on the other hand don't know what a doctrinal statement is, and don't really care. Amazingly, these lost people are able to sense Jesus speaking to them without having to dissect the message or force it through some kind of theological filter.

Be that as it may, many Christians have been taught that having a Doctrinal Statement is absolutely essential. It is, undoubtedly, a terrific time-saver. You can avoid the labor-intensive process of actually reading or listening to what is taught. You don't have to bother with looking up anything in the Scriptures. And you don't even have to exercise good, sound spiritual discernment. Just skip all that and go right for the Doctrinal Statement!

We could just do a cut-and-paste job here to satisfy the curious and conform to what is considered acceptable but we choose not to give you a cookie-cutter Doctrinal Statement for you to judge us by. That would cause good-hearted religious folks to engage us over heady theological riddles that tend to suck all the life out of a person.

No, we want you to really work for it. If you REALLY want to know what we believe then read a few articles and listen to a few messages. If you do then certain things will become very obvious to you. We'll call them our Four Big Points. Here they are:

1) We believe the Scriptures are inspired by God and contain the revelation of Christ (this is why we keep referring to them).

2) We believe God made everything and governs all of it according to a very definite Purpose that is revealed through the Scriptures.

3) We believe Jesus Christ is the One and Only Lord of All and the One and Only Savior of All.

4) We believe religion hinders, rather than helps, people who want to know Jesus as He really is. Just as some people can't see the forest for the trees, most "sinners" can't see Jesus for the Christians.

These Four Big Points constitute a consistent set of values that we consider our core beliefs. Point Number Four is particularly threatening to people but most people agree with Points One, Two, and Three.

We realize that having only Four Big Points is not as impressive as creating a list of 25 Fundamental Truths or writing a 95 Thesis but it works for us.