Beliefs
As a Restoration Movement church, Southland's beliefs are similar to other churches' in the movement, although local congregations are independent and may vary slightly from each other. Southland members include a large number of people with roots in denominations outside the Restoration Movement, including a significant number from Baptist and Wesleyan/Methodist traditions among others. As such, the church also has strong influences from, and often even identifies itself with, protestantism.
In short, the following is a summary of what Christians who are members of Southland are asked to believe:
- Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God, who died for our sins and arose from the dead.
- The Bible is the inspired word of God.
- Every person has worth as a creation of God, but that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
- Forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life are available to those who trust Christ as Savior and Lord.
- Those accepting Christ should repent of sin, confess their faith, and be baptized into Him. This implies that salvation is not received by doing one of the above but all of the above.
- The Church is the body of Christ on earth, empowered by the Holy Spirit and exists to evangelize the lost and edify the saved.
- Jesus Christ will one day return to earth and reign forever as King of kings and Lord of lords.
In early 2010, Southland had a message series titled "DNA of a Dangerous Church." During this series, Jon Weece, lead follower, announced Southland's mission to "unleash a revolution of love." This main description was followed by four expressions that should define "the church".
1. We relentlessly pursue a transforming relationship with God.
2. We sacrificially serve our families.
3. We radically invest in the next generation.
4. We generously extend hope to the poor.
Read more about this topic: Southland Christian Church, Lexington, Kentucky
Famous quotes containing the word beliefs:
“To begin to use cultural forces for the good of our daughters we must first shake ourselves awake from the cultural trance we all live in. This is no small matter, to untangle our true beliefs from what we have been taught to believe about who and what girls and women are.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)