Who are we and what do we believe? Those are a couple of big questions! If you’re a guest wondering who exactly we are before you risk setting foot in our door, they are two really important questions. The answers will probably determine whether or not you do anything more than make your visit to our website. Well, we are a Southern Baptist Church. We know that title comes with some baggage, but we think there’s a lot more good stuff it carries than bad. From a belief standpoint, that means we affirm the 2,000 version of the Baptist Faith and Message which you can find here. But, while that’s a great statement that we encourage you to read, it’s also a really long statement. If you’ve only got a few minutes, below you can find a nice summary that captures the heart of what we believe as a church. Before that, we’d like to share some of the things we value most so you know what to expect when you get here. Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing you soon!
First Baptist Oakboro Core Values
1. Meaningful worship: As followers of the God who is supremely worthy of our worship, worship is part of our lifeblood. As such, our constant striving is for this time to be a truly meaningful occasion for everyone who is present. We aim to do this through a variety of means—songs of praise to our God, corporate and personal prayer, times of silence and reflection, celebrating big events in life and God’s role in them, the public and powerful proclamation of God’s word, and more. If you connect with our community, meaningful worship is something we expect you will be empowered to experience on a regular basis.
2. Biblical teaching: We believe the Scriptures contain the words of life. As such, learning and understanding what it has to say is of paramount importance. This is the primary way by which we come to know God, and by which He speaks to us. To this end, we are a community that thrives on Biblical teaching. Whether from the pulpit, in one of our many Sunday school classes, at the Gathering Place on Wednesday night, or through the lives of our members, we strive to be certain that all of us are filtering all of life through the lens of the Scriptures.
3. Prayer: One of the most fundamental calls of Jesus during His life and ministry was for people to enter into a relationship with God. All relationships thrive on communication, and when it comes to our relationship with God, we call this prayer, and it is essential to everything we do.
4. Community: At First Baptist Oakboro, we don’t think of ourselves as primarily a place where people gather, but the people who are gathered and connecting at a place. Not only that, but we think it is necessary and important and enjoyable to spend time together on a regular and consistent basis so that we can help each other across all generations grow healthily as followers of Jesus.
That being said, no single church exists well or healthily unless it is itself integrated fully into its own surrounding community. God didn’t make the church for its own benefit. He made it for the benefit of the world. To this end, being an active and even integral part of our community in Oakboro, NC is fundamentally important to who we are. Whether through serving, leading, or simply being involved, we want to see not just ourselves, but our whole community become fully who God designed it to be.
5. Involvement in God’s activity: As followers of Jesus, we are called to be a part of what God is doing in His world. We think about our involvement in this in two different ways. The first is focused more inwardly. We call this ministry, which involves individual pieces and parts of our community helping one another through the exercise of our spiritual gifts move in the direction of who God designed us to be. If you come into our midst, you are going to be ministered to by the members of this body and invited to become involved in God’s ministry as well.
But, reaching inwardly is hardly the only way to be involved in the activity of God in His world. We believe God’s activity starts at home, but quickly moves outward to encompass others in its blessing. We call this missions. At FBCO, our heart beats with the pulse of missions. We are eager to be a part of what God is doing in the Oakboro community and beyond. Whether through supporting local missionaries, serving in our local school, sending members out to serve as our representatives around the region and world, and beyond, if God is moving and has invited us to be a part of it, we are on board.
6. Family: First Baptist Oakboro is a family church. We are a place where all families can connect, grow, and thrive. Furthermore, we want to minister to the whole family. We believe in creating opportunities for each member of the family to grow and learn at a level specifically suited for them, but also in creating opportunities for multiple generations to gather to learn from one another.
First Baptist Oakboro Statement of Belief
- God the Father:
- We believe God is something special. The first member of the Trinity is the center point of all we do. We believe that He is the source of everything—He created all we see and don’t, and all creatures find their existence primarily in Him. God is greater than us. At everything. If He possesses a character trait, He has the fullest expression of it possible. He lovingly cares for and guides His creation toward the end that will be most fulfilling for us and most glorifying for Him. For all of this and more, we believe He alone is worthy of our worship.
- Jesus:
- Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. He was born of a virgin, lived a fully human life, lived a fully righteous life never sinning even once, performed a variety of miracles demonstrating His power over both the natural world and human life, believed Himself to be co-equal in identity with God the Father, died on a cross, was raised to eternal life on the third day, and ascended into heaven where He dwells to this day at the Father’s right hand. He is our Savior and Lord and friend. Salvation comes only through Him to all those who place their faith in Him. As with the Father, with whom He is one, He is worthy of our worship, and His example is the one we strive to follow in all things.
- Holy Spirit:
- God the Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is co-equal in identity and eternality with the Father and with the Son. The Spirit is Who lives and dwells in the hearts of those who are followers of Jesus, proclaiming to us the will and plans of the Father and helping us to understand and apply the teachings of Jesus in our lives. He brings conviction, righteousness, and judgment. He is the person Who sees the plans of the Father brought into reality whether through inspiring the Scriptures, shaping the character of the Christ-follower, giving spiritual gifts to each believer, or empowering our worship, evangelism, and service.
- Church:
- The church is not a building; it is the people of God working together in unity to advance the kingdom of God and accomplish the plans of God in this world. In the Scriptures, the church is the guardian of the words of life, of the Gospel. The church is the institution that should represent Christ to the world more clearly than anywhere else. When it comes to a local church, we believe that each church is autonomous and should operate with democracy as its goal. Individual members are each responsible and accountable to Christ, but are wise to work with other like-minded organizations to maximize their Gospel impact. Through the church are ministered the two great ordinances: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
- People:
- At First Baptist we love people. We love people because God does. But, we also believe that people are broken. All of them. In fact, because of sin, there’s no such thing as a good, non-broken person. But God loves them anyway, and so do we. We believe that God made people really special. In fact, we were the only creatures He made in His image. He made us male and female. Men and women, though sharing equally in the image of God, are different from each other in complementary ways. One of the reasons for this complementarity is marriage, which God designed in creation to be a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman for the purpose of pointing people to Jesus.
- Sin:
- Sin messed everything up. God made the world perfect and beautiful and flawless and sin made a mess of all of it. Sin is defined in several ways in the Scriptures, but at its core, all sin is anything we do which violates the character of God. Sin separates us from God. Because God is the only source of life in this world, the result of sin is death. If we persist in our sin, that death will become an eternally permanent state of affairs. Nobody wants that. Not us. Not God.
- Salvation:
- Because God in particular doesn’t want to see us separated from Him, He took it upon Himself to fix our sin problem so that we don’t have to be. Here’s what He did: He sent His Son to die in our place. Jesus came, lived a perfect life, and then gave that life as an offering back to His Father so that we could live through Him. We are saved in a moment when we accept Him as our Savior and Lord and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our heart (baptism is a powerful symbol publicly proclaiming this spiritual transformation). We grow daily in our relationship with Jesus as the Holy Spirit gradually transforms us in the image of Christ, a transformation made complete when Jesus returns to claim His kingdom. And we believe that once a person has received salvation, it cannot be lost. Salvation is a free gift offered to any who would receive it and is accepted by faith alone. Once we are fully in Christ, we pursue good works as an expression of our salvation and an act of gratitude for it.
- Scripture:
- We believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. More specifically, we believe the various ancient documents written by some 40 different authors over the course of 1,500 years nonetheless all tell a single story and are collected together into what we call “the Bible.” These were inspired by the Holy Spirit such that they are without error in all that they affirm when properly understood. Although the Scriptures are not fully understandable apart from the Spirit’s help, when we study them closely, we come to learn who God is, what God is like, and what life with Him looks like when done well. They are our primary source of knowledge and revealer of Truth. The Scriptures do no address everything, but if they proclaim something to be true, it is true; if they proclaim something false, it is indeed false.