The Gospel

The Gospel is central to everything we do. We hope to see our city made better by the Gospel and we desire for the people of our city to worship Jesus. Simply stated, the Gospel is good news. Mark Dever in The Gospel and Personal Evangelism states:

The good news is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God.

The only hope men and women have for reconciliation and restoration with God is found in the Gospel (Romans 1:16). Without it life is hopeless and meaningless. The Gospel is the central message of the entire Bible and the central message of the church. It’s the foundational purpose we center ourselves upon.

The Essentials

The Apostle’s Creed is the most universally received statement of the Christian faith. It has its origins around the second century A.D. and is attributed to the apostles themselves. The Apostle’s Creed is not exhaustive, nor is it meant to be; rather it is a summary of the essentials of the Christian faith. It reads: 

I believe in God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Christ Jesus, his only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come and judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Outside of these, we follow the motto of St. Augustine: “In essentials, unity; in matters of opinions, liberty; in all things, love.”

From our Neighbors to the Nations

We’re passionate about Jesus’ last words being of first importance. In Matthew 28:18, Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

We’re convinced that the greatest method to glorify God by making disciples is planting churches from our neighbors to the nations. There’s no other method in history that’s proven to be as effective as the apostle Paul’s method of boldly proclaiming the gospel and planting churches. Church planting is not an easy task. But we know Jesus is faithful in providing laborers for the harvest and the necessary resources for such a bold mission.

The Church at Martinsburg began as a church plant in 2009. Three years later, we planted our first church in Winchester, Virginia. Then, in 2019 we sent some of our body to plant another church in Hagerstown, MD. Since Martinsburg is in the last stretch of the North American Mission Board’s Send DC region, our city is a strategic location for a church planting center. We not only hope to plant churches throughout our region, but we also hope to partner with several other church planters in our country and around the world.