What We Believe
We Believe in the Gospel
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of who Jesus is and what he does as God’s powerful Saviour, rescuing from sin, death and judgement.
Jesus is the Christ, the king, the man who is God. Jesus lived among us in our world, died in our place on a cross to take our sin and rose again to new life for our hope. The good news is that having defeated sin and death, the biggest problems of all time, Jesus is the rightful king. This is the gospel message, Jesus is Lord. In a world of bad news, that’s good news. The gospel of Jesus Christ saves us, and also reforms us.
We are Theologically Reformed
Reforming is a reformed church that belongs to the Presbyterian Church of Australia, our denomination.
Being ‘Reformed’ means the Bible is our supreme authority and we hold to the reformed confession that is the Westminster Confession (document or online version).
Being ‘Reformed’ means we have a biblically big view of God, and because He gives us grace He gets all the glory.
Being ‘Reformed’ means we “glorify God and enjoy Him forever”.
We are Presbyterian in Care & Leadership
Then what does it mean that we are presbyterian?
The word, ‘Presbyterian’ is a word from the Bible points to what we believe and how we work.
In the New Testament the original Greek word, πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros), is the word used for ‘elder’. We reckon that Jesus knew what He was doing when His Bible says it’s healthy for a church to be cared for by overseers, elders. So a Presbyterian church isn’t just headed up by one personality, but is cared for by a team.
As Presbyterians we believe in team-based ministry of elders and in the way churches relate.
Because we believe that God’s Word is true and has authority over elders and all of us, we therefore believe it with common understanding across churches. This common understanding of faith that we share as Presbyterian churches in Australia is the Westminster Confession of Faith, this is our subordinate standard.
The Confession is the subordinate standard, the Bible is the supreme standard. So most of all we would love you to read the Bible and meet Jesus there, contact us if you’d like to do that.