Park Avenue is a Bible based church. We look to the Bible alone as our guide for our beliefs and practices. (Click here for sermons on our beliefs.) We believe in the core historical teachings of Christianity such as:
- The Bible is the inspired word of God and the primary source of our knowledge of God, our Creator.
- God exists in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
- Salvation is by grace through faith.
- The church is the Body of Christ commissioned and empowered to carry out the work of Christ.
- We believe God wonderfully created two distinct, complementary genders which together reflect the image of God. Rejection of one’s biological gender is a rejection of the image of God within that person (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4). We believe that the term “marriage” has only one meaning: marriage, sanctioned by God, joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive, life-long union as delineated in Scripture (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5-6). We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between one man and one woman who are married to each other. Therefore, we believe that any form of sexual immorality, whether in flesh or mind, is harmful to the soul and, moreover, is sinful and offensive to God (Matthew 5:27-28; Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
- Christ will come again and there will be a judgment of all humans to either entering God’s eternal presence, Heaven, or eternal separation, Hell.
We recognize that there are many disputable teachings and allow for differences in such matters even among our members. We value unity and see it as a core value of Christianity.
Naturally, there are some distinctive practices of the Park Avenue Church such as:
Congregational Autonomy - Each congregation is autonomous (self- ruled) and is independent of every other congregation. Each congregation is governed locally by a body of elders selected from among the members. These are men who meet the specific qualifications for this office given in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. We do, however, cooperate with other Christians locally and globally in serving our community and our world as in bringing the love and peace of Christ into the world.
A Cappella Singing - One of the things people most frequently notice about Park Avenue is that we sing without the use of mechanical instruments of music. This practice most closely resembles the worship of the early church and promotes congregational participation in this important act of worship.
Weekly Observance of The Lord’s Supper - Another place where you may have noticed a difference between Park Avenue and other churches is in the Lord’s Supper, or sometimes called Communion. Each Sunday we call our church to remember the life-giving death of Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is open to anyone who has gathered with us to honor Jesus as Lord.
A High View of Baptism – We practice adult baptism by immersion upon a person’s confession of faith in Jesus Christ. The New Testament teaches baptism as an act which is connected to our acceptance of God’s free gift. (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16). Clikc here for a sermon on baptism.