the gospel is

who we are

"Growing together in the gospel, for the glory of God, and the good of others."


At Immanuel, we strive to be a gospel-centered congregation. Being redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and His grace, we want to bring Him glory and honor in all we do. This compels us to be a church that demonstrates the love of Jesus through our love for each other, the community around us, and the world (John 13:35). 



We want to cultivate a biblical and healthy church culture for believers to unite under and thrive within. We maintain the belief that the gathering of fellow Christians in the worship setting is to be for the singing of His praises, offering up of prayers, hearing His Word correctly taught, sharing in the ordinances (baptism and the Lord's Supper), and encouraging one another to live out the faith we profess. We exist to promote and proclaim the good news of Jesus as the only means of relationship with God and the only true way we can live a life of love for others.



In light of our reverence for the worship service and specifically the preaching of the Word of God, we believe in "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). We practice this by the primary use of Christ-centered expository preaching in our worship service. Expository preaching is a unique term that means we "exposit" or "expose" the text of scripture in our gatherings. This includes explaining the background, setting, and context of a specific part of the Bible while also connecting it to the main themes of the whole of scripture. By "Christ-centered" we mean that we strive to elaborate on and preach the central narrative or story of scripture. The Bible tells an unfolding story of God's redemption and restoration of sinful humanity culminating in the person and work of Jesus. It is this gospel that we strive to preach and teach in our services.


It is our prayer that the overwhelming beauty of Christ be lifted high in everything done at Immanuel. We trust that through the transforming power of the Spirit, the preached word, and the sovereign grace of God, people from every nation, tribe, and tongue will be drawn to the Father. 

what is the gospel?

what do we believe?

what can i expect?

distinctives

Click to read more about our distinctives and ministry philosophy.

  • At Immanuel, we want to keep the life-giving message of Jesus at the center of all we do. We believe that the gospel is the power of God for salvation and transformation in the life of the believer. Only the gospel brings new life to sinners, and it is this gospel that we proclaim as good news for all who hear. Since we strive to keep the gospel at the center of everything we do, we actively evaluate our efforts and strive to avoid ministry that is defined by cultural Christianity, fad-driven church culture, or traditions that lack biblical warrant. We want everything done at Immanuel to be with the life changing message of Jesus in full view.

  • At Immanuel we want to build a church culture around the Word of God and the characteristics we see in the New Testament of a healthy church. Some of these specifics include:

    • Christ-Centered Expositional Preaching: The bible sets the tone for what we teach and preach. We seek to expose the words of scripture in their original context with Christ’s work in view from Genesis to Revelation. We actively try to avoid opinionated, political, or sensational preaching in the hopes that people will find strength in the plain power of the Word of God rightly taught and worshipfully enjoyed.
    • Primacy of Worship and the Ordinary Means of Grace: We believe the worship service to be the central hub of the covenant community that Christ is building at Immanuel. We gather to worship the living God and our services reflect the reverence and awe we have for Him. We believe the primary tool for facilitating growth in the life of believers is the ordinary means of grace, namely: singing praises, preaching, offering up prayers and alms, and observing the ordinances of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. This means that we let the scriptures and their record of how worship is to be offered drive our direction and style.
    • Biblical Literacy: We want to see the Word of God come alive at our church and change us through and through. This involves learning more about the Bible not for the sake of knowledge but in the pursuit of knowing the main character of the scriptures – Jesus Christ. We want to map the themes and overarching narrative of redemption that is woven all through the scriptures from the beginning to the end. The bible is not a manual, code book, math equation, spell book, or talisman – it is primarily a narrative, a story. The story of God and His plan to make all things new in Christ.
    • Meaningful Membership: We view membership as something that was organic in the life of the early church and meaningful in what it stands for. Membership is a covenant where we promise to love one another and live out our faith together in genuine, confessional, gospel community. This type of covenant by nature is not intended to be superficial, transactional, or made in the image of corporate America. This relationship should grow deep, disciplined, and meaningful as we dine together at the table of the Lord.
    • Biblical Church Government: We love the bible, and we want it to inspire our leadership and government practices. We are ever pursing greater and greater conformity to the scriptures as we seek to structure the church. A passion for biblical government would include things such as a plurality of elders/pastors, biblical deacons, and a respect for the involvement and affirmation of the congregation and it's authority. All of these we feel come from and are inspired by the New Testament. This type of authority is neither a top-down dictatorship nor a bottom-up democracy, it is wholly "other" and biblical in its scope.

  • We are called to be marked by a love that serves one another and those around us the way Christ served and loved His disciples. This type of love is incarnational and intentional. The same way Christ came in a body and lived among His disciples and the community of Israel, so likewise we want to develop a culture where believers seek to meet the needs of one another in the covenant community and the secular environments we live our lives in each day. The idea of Christian acts of service can often take the form of either social justice activism or sectarian isolationism. We strive to be neither extremes and instead embody the gospel tension between them. We want to incarnate the gospel in the communities God has sovereignly placed us in and serve those people selflessly. This transformational love is felt deepest and expressed the most in the covenant community of believers and then spills out into gospel witness for the world around us.

  • Because the gospel removes both fear and pride, we believe people should get along inside the church who could never get along outside. Because the good news points us to a man who died for his enemies, the gospel creates relationships of service rather than of selfishness. Because the gospel calls us to holiness, the people of God live in loving bonds of mutual accountability and discipline. Thus the gospel creates a human community radically different from any society around it.