Beliefs

Sola City Church has adopted the Gospel Coalition Foundation Document for an exhaustive understanding of the core of our beliefs. We also have adopted a shorter statement on basic beliefs that we use for our membership covenant. See the link below for access to these documents.

In addition to our core beliefs, we want to identify some distinctive theological doctrines and practices that express our convictions about certain points of theology and church practice. These distinctives are matters of emphasis for our church. They set us apart and help foster even greater levels of theological clarity regarding the culture, direction, and spirit of our church. The distinctives formally clarify our church’s positions on several additional questions not explicitly outlined in the Basic Beliefs. These include important theological questions and cultural developments facing the present-day church.

Our goal here is to provide a clear center for our church that gives us an increased level of clarity for all of our members and leaders as well as those in our community.

We believe the gospel has the power to transform every aspect of our lives and therefore should be the core of all of the ministries of the church. We believe the gospel is the essential message for entering the kingdom. It confronts both moralism (legalism) and relativism (antinomianism). The proclamation of this good news releases God’s power for salvation and his mission to renew and revive the church. It motivates both personal renewal and social change.

Our theology is rooted in the major tenets of the Protestant Reformation and is where we derive our name “Sola” from: that salvation comes to us only in God’s Word (sola scriptura) by faith alone (sola fide) and grace alone (sola gratia) through Christ alone (solo Christo) and for God’s glory alone (soli Deo gloria). This means that we affirm the authority of God’s Word, God’s sovereignty in salvation, and the necessity of evangelism. We seek to exhibit deep trust in God’s promises and providence and zealous evangelistic efforts and good works.  

We believe that baptism is a divinely ordained means of grace for believers and an act of obedience on the part of both the believer and the church. Baptism symbolizes the believer’s union with Christ and association with the triune God whereby she enters into covenant into the local church and experiences all the benefits of this association. This means we see personal conversion as a necessity, and we practice believer’s baptism by immersion.

We believe that God creates each person as male or female. These two distinct and complementary genders together reflect the image of God. As such, both women and men should be involved and engaged in ministry. But within the home and the church—a spiritual household—God has given men and women distinctive roles. The pastoral office in particular is reserved for qualified men who serve as spiritual fathers. We believe we will not flourish when operating outside of God’s wise design nor when one gender is sidelined or inactive.

God gave the church spiritual fathers— pastor-elders —to shepherd the flock. He’s also given the church deacons to serve the body and free the pastors to focus on Word and prayer ministry. While we still have a lead pastor, we believe God has designed the church, his household of faith, to be led by a team of pastors and served by a team of deacons.

We believe in the Holy Spirit’s continued work in the church to distribute spiritual gifts. We believe the practice of all gifts is meant to be orderly and edifying to the whole church. Our goal must always be to build one another up in love. Though we celebrate diversity in that many may fall in different places in terms of the application of the spiritual gifts—particularly the miraculous gifts— we unify around the pursuit of Spirit-led ministry that impacts both our private lives and corporate gatherings.

We believe the church is the covenant people of God that he has made alive, called together, and sent out into the world. The church is also called the household of faith. The early church assembled weekly, gathering to rehearse the story of the gospel through the rhythms of corporate worship. It also scattered to meet from house to house as a natural expression of its identity as the family of faith. We value larger church gatherings as well as close-knit expressions of community life through smaller groups.