The following items are simple summaries of Central’s core beliefs. We have included important Bible passages as well as links that explain in greater detail what we believe. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions.
1. The Bible is God-inspired, inerrant, and our only authority.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
We believe that God inspired human authors to give us exactly what He intended to say, so that the Bible is reliable and without any error. It is our ultimate authority. We study it and seek to apply it to our lives. It contains the story of what God has done to reach and restore mankind to a relationship with Him.
2. Absolute truth is God-given and fundamental.
Things that are absolute and unchanging really do exist, regardless of our personal understanding or changing feelings. We believe that the very laws of physics that govern the behavior of nature were put into effect by God, and that God, as the Creator of it all, is the source of absolute truth.
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:15
3. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the one true God.
God has revealed Himself to mankind in three different persons. As the Father, He gave His Law to mankind, building the foundation for the plan of our salvation. As the Son, He came to earth and brought the plan of salvation to fruition. As the Holy Spirit, He takes up residence in every Christian to help us live the new life we have in Him.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
Ephesians 1:13
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
1 Corinthians 6:19a
4. Because of our sin, Jesus became our savior through His death, burial and resurrection.
The perfect God will not tolerate our rebellious disobedience. It was by dying on the cross on our behalf and rising again from the dead that Jesus secured forgiveness for us. We believe that this part of God’s plan is what makes eternal life possible for every person.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
5. We are saved by grace, through faith, in baptism, for good works.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
– Ephesians 2:8-9
God’s unearned, undeserved favor for us – grace – makes it possible to be freed from our guilt. This happens only through our faith – our belief in and reliance on God’s offer of forgiveness through Jesus. No amount of good deeds nor degree of personal holiness saves us. A person must make an individual decision to ask the Lord for this gift. Turning to Him involves acknowledging Jesus as Lord (confession), a change of heart that leads to a new lifestyle (repentance), and being immersed in water (baptism). This occasion of being “buried with Him, in baptism” is the time that the Bible says we are forgiven, brought into Christ, become a part of His Church, and receive the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. The good works produced in our lives after receiving this gift are the result of being saved.
6. Jesus will return to receive the saved to Heaven and to condemn the unsaved to Hell.
Jesus went back to Heaven, but He told His followers He is preparing Heaven and will come back to take us to be with Him forever. Heaven is a real place, wonderful beyond our ability to comprehend, described in some detail in the Bible. Jesus also thoroughly warned that those who reject Him will be forever condemned to separation from Him in Hell, a place of everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. So He tells us to watch and be ready for His return.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
John 14:3