Statement of Faith
Calvary Chapel Surfside has been formed as a fellowship of believers in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our supreme desire is to know Christ and be conformed to His image by the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re not a denominational church, and not opposed to denominations as such, only to their over-emphasis on the doctrinal differences that have led to the division of the Body of Christ.
We believe that the only true basis of Christian fellowship is Christ’s ‘agape’ love; without that we have no right to claim ourselves Christians. We believe worship of God should be spiritual. So, we remain flexible and yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit to direct our worship.
We believe worship of God should be inspirational. So, we give great place to music in our worship.
We believe worship of God should be intelligent. So, our services are designed with great emphasis upon the teaching of the Word of God that He might instruct us how He should be worshipped.
We believe worship of God should be fruitful. So, we look for His love in our lives as the ultimate evidence that we have truly been worshipping Him.
We believe that church government should be simplistic rather than a complex bureaucracy, and we depend on the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly promotion.
We believe in all the basic doctrines of historic Christianity.
We believe that all the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, fully inspired and without error in the original manuscripts, and that they are the infallible rule of faith and practice.
We believe that God is eternally existent in three distinct persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We believe that God is the personal, transcendent, and sovereign Creator of all things.
We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, that He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, provided for the atonement of our sins by His substitutionary death on the cross, was bodily raised from the dead, ascended back to the right hand of the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for us.
We believe in the rapture of the Church and the personal, visible, and pre-millennial second coming of Jesus Christ to the earth. He will return with His saints and set up a kingdom of which there will be no end.
We believe that after Jesus ascended to Heaven, He poured out His Holy Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to fulfill His command to be His witnesses in the entire world, a responsibility shared by all believers today.
We believe that all people are, by nature, separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are freely offered to all by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When a person, on the single ground of faith in the shed blood of Christ, repents of sin and accepts Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again by God’s grace and sealed by the Holy Spirit, all his/her sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a child of God, destined to spend eternity with the Lord.
We believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Scriptures, and that they are valid for today if they are exercised within the scriptural guidelines.
We as believers are to covet the best gifts, seeking to exercise them in love that the whole Body of Christ might be edified.
We believe that love is more important than the most spectacular gifts, and without this love all exercise of spiritual gifts is worthless.
We believe it is important to uphold the Scriptural practices of the early church. Therefore, we hold to the practice of water baptism (immersion) and the regular taking of communion. In our service, we focus on a personal relationship with God through worship, prayer, and in the teaching of the Word of God.
We believe people come to church for many reasons. Many because they know they should; others for fellowship and music; and others seeking spiritual understanding. Still, others come because they know they need God.
We believe that everyone who comes to Calvary Chapel Surfside is seeking to be edified, informed, encouraged, comforted, or directed. Thus we seek to point people to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith.
We believe that our faith should lead us to Win people to Jesus, Disciple people in Jesus, and Send people for Jesus in obedience to His last command.
We believe that the biblically taught and understood institution of Marriage is to be only between a man and a woman.
