CrossWay affirms the importance of sound doctrine in ensuring that our hope, lives, and ministry are grounded in the truth of Scripture. The church, by definition of our common faith, is a confessing people: we believe. To that end, although it is the Bible itself to which we are in ultimate submission, we believe the following articles reflect succinct summaries of core Biblical teachings.

In confessing these things, we maintain “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), finding unity in the historic, orthodox faith with the church across all ages. As such, we adhere to the commonly recognized Ecumenical (that is, universally received) Creeds: The Apostles’ Creed (c. 2nd cent.), The Nicene Creed (381), and The Athanasian Creed (c. 6th cent.); as well as The Chalcedonian Creed (451).

We also subscribe to our association’s confession, the EFCA Statement of Faith.

1 | Scripture

We believe that the Bible—consisting of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments—is God’s very Word, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, entirely true and without error in its original writings, wholly sufficient and clear for faith and practice, and supremely authoritative for what is true and right. We believe that through the Bible God makes known to us Himself, our own condition, and the way of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. As God’s Word, we affirm that the Bible is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it commands, and trusted in all that it promises.

2 | The Triune God

We believe in one God, the Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, and Judge of all things visible and invisible to whom all love, reverence, and obedience is due. He is living and personal, a spirit whose essence is incomprehensible. He is gloriously infinite in His essence and unchanging perfections: He is eternal, self-existent, self-sufficient, all-powerful, everywhere-present, and absolute in knowledge—including all things future. He is the perfection of beauty, holiness, and moral goodness: wholly just, loving, merciful, patient, gracious, slow to anger, faithful, forgiving, and one who unwaveringly executes judgment on evil. This one God eternally and splendidly exists in three persons (one in essence, distinct in person)—Father, Son, and Spirit—who equally share in the divine perfections. These three persons execute distinct but harmonious offices in the divine work of creation, providence, and redemption.

3 | Jesus Christ

We believe that Jesus of Nazareth is God incarnate—the eternal Son of God become man (truly God, and truly man). He was conceived through the miraculous agency of the Holy Spirit, was born of the virgin Mary, withstood temptation, lived a sinless and fully-obedient life, performed many miracles, taught with authority, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose bodily from the dead, appeared to many, and ascended into heaven. We believe that as our representative His work was substitutionary and atoning, that through His death and resurrection He inaugurated the New Covenant and defeated sin and death for us—bearing our guilt, reconciling us to God, restoring us from corruption. Our Savior is now seated at the right hand of the Father, from where He reigns, unceasingly intercedes for us, and will come to judge the living and the dead when He returns to consummate His saving mission. He is God’s promised Messiah, our Lord, and the Savior of all who trust in Him. Redemption can be found nowhere else.

4 | The Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit is fully divine. We believe that He convicts the world of its guilt, effects regeneration, indwells believers, cultivates Christian character, empowers believers for godly living, equips them for faithful service, testifies to their divine adoption, and seals them unto final salvation.

5 | Humanity & Its Fall

We believe that God uniquely created humanity in His image. On account of Adam’s transgression he incurred death (both physical and spiritual). With Adam as their representative, all humans are now sinners from conception—yet not in violation of their will, but in agreement with it—and that, apart from God’s gracious intervention in Christ, humanity finds itself alienated from God, under His wrath, without excuse (having sufficient knowledge of God to make one culpable), rightly condemned, and incapable of remedying its predicament.

6 | Salvation

We believe that salvation is entirely by God’s grace, based wholly on the work of Christ, and is received solely by trusting in Him alone as the only and all-sufficient Savior. We believe that this salvation concerns the redemption of the whole person and involves regeneration, in which God grants believers new life in Christ, justification, in which God imputes to believers Christ’s righteousness based on His sin-bearing work, sanctification, in which God sets believers apart from sin and unto His purposes, and glorification, in which God brings believers’ salvation to completion through physical resurrection and the eradication of sin. We believe that the believer’s good works are an indispensable evidence of this saving grace and serve as an authentication of saving faith.

7 | The Church 

We believe in the one, holy, universal, and apostolic Church composed of all those who, in every time and place, are united to Christ by the Spirit through faith. She exists to display the unsearchable wisdom of God to the praise of His glorious grace. This body—of which Christ is head—is manifest in local churches. They are distinguished by their Gospel message, their Gospel-depicting ordinances (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), the exercise of church discipline, its Biblical offices, and their members’ express love for one another. Christ has commissioned his Church to carry on His mission by spreading His Gospel with the aim of making disciples of all peoples.

8 | Christian Conduct

We believe that Christians should live for the glory of God and the well-being of their neighbor, and that they should be marked by holiness, evangelism, prayer, care for the vulnerable, God-honoring diligence in their work, purity from all sexual immorality, active involvement in a local church, and whole-hearted devotion to Christ stemming out of new desires and joy in him.

9 | Angels

We believe that God created angelic beings to worship Him and serve as His ministering spirits. We believe in the existence of Satan, an angelic being who rebelled against God, has been decisively defeated through Christ’s death and resurrection, and at the end of the age will be cast forever into the lake of fire.

10 | Last Things

We believe that in God’s own timing our Lord Jesus Christ will personally, bodily, visibly, and suddenly return to this earth in glory to consummate His kingdom and bring this world to its appropriate end, making all things new. We believe in the resurrection of the body and the final judgment: the righteous being raised to everlasting life, the unrighteous to everlasting torment. We believe that prior to then those who die in Christ are made perfect in holiness and consciously dwell with our all-satisfying savior, Jesus Christ.

In addition to our general Statement of Faith above, to which all of our members adhere, our elders are also required to subscribe to the following additional affirmations, which serve to guide our ministry, official beliefs, and teaching as a church.

Given these doctrinal distinctives, we find general alignment with the theological tradition reflected in statements such as the First London Baptist Confession (1644/46); the Somerset Confession (1656), the Second London Baptist Confession (1689) — see also the Philadelphia Confession (1742) and the Charleston Confession (1767); the New Hampshire Confession (1833); and the Abstract of Principles (1858), which represent a Baptistic form of the broader Reformed faith.

1 | God’s Eternal Decree

We believe that God, from all eternity, according to His own purposes—for the good of His people and in order to display the full extent of His own glory—did freely and immutably ordain and foreknow all things, which He then providentially brings about in time and history as He has purposed them. We believe that God so decrees and orchestrates all things such that He neither commits evil nor condemns anyone of sin unjustly, but that His ordaining and governing of all things is perfectly compatible with the freedom and moral accountability of human persons.

2 | Creation & Human Origins

We believe that God supernaturally created the universe out of nothing by the power of His word, that He created all things good, that Adam and Eve are the historical parents of all of humanity whose fall into sin was a historic event, and that death is the consequence of this fall.

3 | Gender Complementarity

We believe that God created humanity male and female—our gender immutably corresponding to our biological sex, with our male and female reproductive structures integral to God’s design for our self-conception as men and women. We believe that God created men and women equal in dignity and, as such, both men and women ought to be treated with equal worth, value, and respect. In addition, we believe that God created men and women distinct with complementary, interdependent, mutually-enriching roles corresponding to their gender, based in God’s good and beautiful design, and as a blessing to both men and women alike. In marriage, as a reflection of Christ’s relationship to the Church, husbands are lovingly and sacrificially to lead their wives while wives are respectfully to yield to their husbands. In the church, women are to be significantly involved in ministry while respecting Biblical principles that the office of elder and certain teaching roles are to be reserved for men.

4 | Sexuality & Marriage

We believe that God’s will for sexuality is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within it, and that any expression of sexuality outside of these bounds is to be regarded as sin. We believe that God designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union between one man and one woman, as husband and wife.

5 | Total Depravity 

We believe that, as a consequence of humanity’s fall into sin, every human born into this world is morally corrupt, utterly sinful, spiritually dead, and enslaved to sin, such that—apart from the sovereign, intervening grace of God—one is unable to submit to God or please Him; neither is one willing or able to turn themselves to God, initiate salvation, or even make themselves fit to receive His grace.

6 | God’s Sovereign Purpose of Grace

We believe that election is the eternal purpose of God according to which He effectually regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners, not on the basis of anything foreseen in them, but solely based on His free and sovereign grace. This election comprehends all the means connected with its end such that the salvation of all who trust in Christ is guaranteed, that by God’s unfailing grace all genuine believers will persevere in faith unto full and complete salvation. Furthermore, we believe that, in accordance with God's sovereign purpose, Christ's death, although of infinite worth and more than sufficient to atone for the sins of every person, is efficient only for the elect for whom it was divinely intended, to whom its saving effects are solely applied, and for whom Christ effectually accomplished this redemption, guaranteeing its application to them.

7 | Spirit-Baptism

We believe that at the moment of conversion every believer is baptized with the Spirit into union with Christ whereby they experience the blessings of salvation and are made members of His body, the Church. We believe that, apart from exceptional redemptive-historical cases such as those recorded in the book of Acts, baptism in the Spirit is not to be separated from conversion, nor is tongues-speaking to be understood as a necessary sign of this baptism.

8 | Progressive Sanctification

We believe that believers are freed from the domination of sin and possess new life in Christ on account of which, and by means of grace-empowered effort, they make continual and gradual, yet imperfect, progress in holiness from whence arises an ongoing conflict and struggle with sin that remains with the believer, alongside its entailing sinful imperfection, until glorification.

9 | Redemptive-Historical Unity

We believe in the oneness of God’s covenant people to whom His promises are given, and that, notwithstanding any distinctions with respect to their makeup, nature, administration, or earthly experience of these promises, an essential unity exists between God’s people in the Old and New Testaments. Namely, we believe that all of God’s redemptive purposes, which were expressed, promised, anticipated, typified, and foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament, are fulfilled by Christ in the Church, a unified community of Jews and Gentiles who together are beneficiaries and heirs of these saving realities by faith. These purposes include God's intent to restore His kingdom, which Christ inaugurated at His first coming, is partially realized at present, and will be fully realized with His return. On account of these things, we believe that the entirety of Scripture—both in terms of its individual parts as well as considered as a whole—finds fulfillment and ultimate significance in Christ, and as such all faithful Christian interpretation of Scripture must be understood in relation to him.

10 | Church Organization

We believe that the local church is to consist solely of believers in Jesus who are baptized on credible profession of faith. We believe that the church’s scriptural officers are elder and deacon.

11 | Baptism & the Lord’s Supper

We believe that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances instituted by God for the Church as signs to represent Christ and His benefits, and pledges to confirm believers' interest therein. In this way, they serve our spiritual nourishment when received in faith—the signs themselves not to be confused as actually becoming those things signified nor as having any saving effect in and of themselves. We believe that Christian baptism is the immersion of a professing believer into water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and is properly connected to conversion and inclusion in the church. We believe the Lord’s Supper is a memorial administered with bread and wine designed to commemorate Christ’s death and exhibit believers’ communion with Him as well as each other.