The most important question you can ask regarding a church is, “What does the church believe and teach?” The fact that you are reading this article is a good indication that you, too, believe this to be an essential issue.

While this article may not answer every question you have about East Point Church, we do want to assist guests and inquirers in learning more about us.

We are convinced that the church must not be so broadly open that it fails to make vitally important distinctions that the Bible itself makes. At the same time, however, we do not insist that every person share the same precise set of theological convictions on every matter. In other words, there are negotiables and non-negotiables when it comes to doctrinal distinctives. To be more specific, East Point Church is and will be characterized accurately with the following terms:

We are evangelical

To say that we are evangelical means that we take our stand with those who believe in what are called “the fundamentals” of the Christian faith: the existence of the triune God, the complete humanity and deity of Jesus Christ, the virgin conception of Christ and His incarnation as the eternal Son of God, the utter sinfulness of all humanity, the substitutionary death of Christ as the only way of salvation, the physical resurrection of Christ, His sure return, salvation by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone, and the infallibility and divine authority of the Bible as a faithful and true guide to what we are to believe and how we are to live.

We joyfully affirm our unity with those from every tradition and denomination that hold these fundamentals, including those true believers in Christ who are members of denominations or churches with which we might have certain theological or doctrinal disagreements in other areas.

We are evangelistic

This means we take seriously the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Without compromising the sovereignty of God, we affirm the responsibility of each person to repent and believe on Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. We further affirm our responsibility to extend the message of the Gospel as a call to salvation to everyone who hears its message. To this end, we call all, without distinction, to drink freely of the Water of Life and to live eternally in the presence of their Creator.

This privilege and responsibility is realized not only in our immediate context, but also in the mandate from our Lord to declare His glory to the nations. Therefore, we seek to provide regular opportunities for the community of believers at East Point Church to go on mission to other parts of the world.

We are Reformed

The word “Reformed” can be defined simply in two ways: (1) It is a reference to our historical link to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and describes us as heirs of the tradition that comes from Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, and other Reformers of the Church. (2) The word “Reformed” is used most commonly to refer to certain theological distinctives that have marked Reformation believers, particularly those who embrace what have come to be referred to as “the doctrines of grace.”

These distinctives can be summarized by our glad affirmation of the responsibility of every person to repent and believe, and that it is God who, by His sovereign electing grace, draws men and women, otherwise dead in sin, to faith in His Son. By this faith alone are God’s people justified.

Reformed distinctives include the sovereignty of God in His creation, providence and election of believers apart from any merit of their own; the irresistible grace of God provided for and preceding the faith of the individual; the sufficiency of God’s grace apart from which every person is dead in sin and wholly defiled in all his/her faculties of soul and body; the efficacy of Christ’s death for all those who believe in Him by grace; the safe-guarding of all those for whom Christ died for eternal life.

We desire and seek to hold to our Reformed convictions humbly, recognizing the sincerity and earnestness of godly men and women who hold to other positions.

We are committed to doctrinal soundness

This is primarily expressed by means of a doctrinal statement that we believe is a good and accurate summary of the Bible’s teaching. We certainly recognize that our expression of biblical truth is not flawless, yet we believe it to be a carefully worded summary of the Bible’s content. We believe it is important to note that every church has a doctrinal confession or statement, even though some may claim they have “no confession but Christ” or “no creed but the Bible.” Every church summarizes its convictions in some form in order to distinguish its members from those who are not believers or those who do not embrace their church’s distinctives.

We further recognize that knowledge alone leads invariably to pride. It is our sincere desire to affirm truth in genuine Christian love. We believe that truth properly applied will issue forth in the affections of the heart being stirred to obedience, thus yielding a life that glorifies God. Such a God-glorifying life is the very purpose of our existence

(adapted from the Theological Identity of Redeemer Church, Fort Worth TX)