On your visit with us you can expect a number of things. First, you can expect to be welcomed warmly. The worship service could probably be described as contemporary. There is a music team with singers and musicians who lead us in singing together.

Teaching

The centerpiece of CrossWay of Pembroke is solid teaching from the Bible. We not only believe that the Bible is the completely true and trustworthy Word of God, we also believe God gave it to us for the express purpose of shaping our thinking and our behavior. Therefore, we always dedicate time to hearing God’s word taught when we gather on Sundays. After a time of singing, one of our men reads from the Bible, explains what it means, and applies God’s truth to our lives.

Worship

God has not only called us to learn from Him, but also to worship Him. Therefore, we usually spend the first part of our worship service singing songs to God. At CrossWay we make every effort to ensure that our worship services are focused on God and on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The songs we sing are chosen to express our love to God and His love for us as it is revealed in Jesus Christ. We draw from a variety of traditions and try to select songs that are God-centered, theologically sound, and musically enjoyable.

At CrossWay, we acknowledge that we can do nothing to make people worship; we can only remind them of our reason to worship, and then provide them the opportunity to do so.

Prayer

At several points each Sunday morning someone will lead the congregation in prayer. These are times for all of us to speak to God by lifting our thoughts and hearts to Him.

Giving

Each Sunday morning we give the members of our church an opportunity to give of their money as an act of worship to God. If you are a guest or are new to CrossWay, please just be our guest. Our weekly offering is for those who consider CrossWay their church home.

Statement of Faith

At CrossWay of Pembroke Church, we gladly affirm these truths and own our responsibility to actively believe and live in accordance with them.

CrossWay of Pembroke Church is an evangelical church, which means we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is presented in the Bible.

The Gospel message is that God created us to have a relationship with Him, but that relationship was broken by our sin. God’s punishment for our sin is our death, but He made a way for that sentence to be fulfilled through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus came into the world to live as a man and die in our place. He could do this because He had no sin of His own to die for. After Jesus died on the cross, God raised Him back to life! We believe that Jesus’ death paid the penalty for our sin and when we put our trust in Him, we will be forgiven for our sin and will enjoy the relationship with God that we were created to have both in this life and in the life to come.

God

We believe in one, and only one, true God, eternally existing in three equally divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This God is infinitely perfect in all His attributes and is the Creator of all things. He is therefore alone worthy to receive man’s highest worship, his full allegiance, and his whole-hearted love. God sustains and sovereignly rules over all things, and providentially brings about His eternal purpose to redeem a people for Himself and restore His fallen creation, to the praise of His own glorious grace. While the three persons of the God-head are equal in every divine perfection, they execute distinct but harmonious offices in the work of creation and redemption.

The Bible

We believe that God is the originating author of the words preserved in the Scriptures, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, which are both record and means of His saving work in the world. The Bible alone is the verbally inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, complete in its revelation of His will for salvation, sufficient for all that God requires us to believe and do, and final in its authority over everything to which it speaks. We admit that both our finiteness and our sinfulness preclude the possibility of knowing God’s truth perfectly, but we affirm that, enlightened by the Spirit of God, we can know God’s revealed truth truly. The Bible is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it teaches; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; and trusted, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises. As God’s people hear, believe, and obey the Word, they are nurtured in their faith and equipped as disciples of Christ and as witnesses to the transforming power of the Gospel.

Man’s Creation and Fallen Condition

We believe that God created man—male and female—in His own image. Adam and Eve belonged to the created order that God Himself declared to be very good, serving as God’s stewards to care for and govern creation, living in holy and happy fellowship with their Maker. Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only right pattern for sexual relations for human beings. In God’s wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching and distinct ways. We believe that Adam, by disobeying God and falling into sin through Satan’s temptation, forfeited his original blessedness, both for himself and all his descendants. As a result, all human beings are born into sin, alienated from God, radically corrupted in every aspect of their being (physically, mentally, volitionally, emotionally, socially and spiritually), personally opposed to God, and therefore, condemned finally and irrevocably to death—apart from God’s own gracious intervention. The one great and universal need of all human beings is to be reconciled to God, under whose just judgment we stand; the only hope of all human beings is the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can rescue us and bring us back into life-giving relationship with Himself.

God’s Gracious Provision: The Gospel of Jesus Christ

We believe that from eternity past God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation. We believe that God will perfectly accomplish this purpose through the incarnation, sinless life, substitutionary death, resurrection, and victorious return of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus Christ, being fully God from all eternity, became flesh, being born of the virgin Mary, and thus became fully human without relinquishing His full deity in the least. He lived a sinless life thus perfectly fulfilling, as a human, all the requirements of God’s law. He then voluntarily offered His life on the Cross in our place. Christ bore in our place the punishment due us for our sins. This is the heart of the gospel. By dying on the Cross for our sins, Christ satisfied God’s justice and reconciled to God all those who believe. In His resurrection Christ was vindicated by the Father, broke the power of death and defeated Satan who once had power over us in death, and brought eternal life to all His people. We believe that this salvation from death into life is found in no place but Jesus Christ.

Man’s Response to the Gospel: Repentance and Faith

We believe man’s fall into sin rendered him spiritually dead and therefore completely unable to initiate any reconciliation with God and completely unable to contribute anything to his own salvation. However, God graciously initiates by regenerating human hearts enabling man to respond to God’s call to salvation with repentance and faith. In repentance we turn away from both our sin and any confidence we might have in our own goodness, and in faith we entrust ourselves completely to Jesus Christ and what He has done on our behalf.

The Free Gift of God: Justification

We believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone and that when God’s grace is met by faith a person is justified—that is, his sins have been imputed to Christ and he is therefore completely forgiven. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to him, and he is thereby declared righteous and fully accepted by God. This justification simultaneously puts on glorious display the perfect justice and the great love of God.

The Christian Life: Empowered by the Spirit

We believe that at the point of conversion the Holy Spirit “baptizes” believers into union with Christ and that He indwells them as a pledge of their promised inheritance. While all genuine believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit at conversion, the New Testament indicates the importance of an ongoing, empowering work of the Spirit subsequent to conversion which the believer is encouraged to pursue. The Holy Spirit desires to fill each believer continually with increased power, acting in the believer to encourage, guide, and ultimately effect growth in Christ-likeness and Christian witness. We believe this sanctification is a progressive work that begins at conversion. Though it is carried out by the presence and power of the Spirit, it is a work with which the individual believer cooperates by engaging in active obedience, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, and true fellowship with other believers. Those who have been saved delight in the blessings of the New Covenant: the forgiveness of sins, the inward transformation of heart that awakens a desire to glorify, trust, and obey God, and the prospect of the glory yet to come. Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace. Though indwelling sin remains, actual growth in holiness is the norm for the Christian life.

We also believe the Holy Spirit is active in the church corporately. He empowers the church for witness and service. He also imparts His supernatural gifts for the edification of the Body and for various works of ministry in the world. The gifts of the Holy Spirit at work in the New Testament church are available today, are vital for the mission of the church, and are to be earnestly desired and practiced.

The Christian Hope: Glorification

We believe all believers are exhorted to persevere in their faith to the end. Nevertheless, the believer’s ultimate confidence to persevere is based on the sure promise of God to preserve to the end those who truly belong to Him. When Christ comes again, there will be a radical and complete transformation into perfect Christ-likeness of all believers.

God’s New People: The Church

We believe the Church is made up of all those who have by faith received the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. This universal church is manifested in local gatherings of believers of which Christ is the only Head. We believe that everyone who is part of the universal church should be part of a local church. The church is the corporate dwelling place of God’s Spirit and the ongoing witness to Christ in the world. We believe the church should neither hide from the world nor blend in with the world but should be distinctively engaged in the world as both “salt” and “light”. The church is distinguished by faithfulness in Gospel preaching, the worship of God, the observance of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, its governance, its engagement in Christ’s mission, its use of spiritual gifts, loving church discipline, on-going discipleship, obedience, and above all, by love for God and by the members’ love for one another.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has committed two ordinances to the local church, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We believe that baptism is the immersion of the believer in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This water baptism is a visual sign of a person’s union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. It signifies that one’s former way of life has been put to death, that one is released from the mastery of sin, and that one has entered into a new life of obedience and faith. The Lord’s Supper is to be observed only by those who have trusted Christ for salvation and is to be observed regularly as a commemoration and proclamation of Christ’s death. In the observance of the Lord’s Supper, we anticipate Christ’s return, we are strengthened in our faith, and we also signify our unity with other members of Christ’s body.

The World to Come

We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of the Lord Jesus Christ when He will exercise His role as perfectly righteous Judge and fully establish His perfect kingdom forever. We believe in the bodily resurrection of all people. For those who have not been justified, there will be judgment and the eternal punishment of hell. For those who are justified, there will be eternal joy in the presence of God in the new heaven and the new earth. All sin will be purged away and its wretched effects forever banished. On that day the eager longing of all creation will be realized and the whole earth will proclaim the glory of God who makes all things new.

Statement on Marriage, Gender, and Sexuality

We believe that God wonderfully and immutably creates each person as male or female. These two distinct, complementary genders together reflect the image and nature of God. (Gen 1:26-27.) Rejection of one’s biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person.

We believe that the term “marriage” has only one meaning: the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture. (Gen 2:18-25.) We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other. (1 Cor 6:18; 7:2-5; Heb 13:4.) We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman.

We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, and use of pornography) is sinful and offensive to God. (Matt 15:18-20; 1 Cor 6:9-10.) We believe that in order to preserve the function and integrity of CrossWay of Pembroke Church as the local Body of Christ, and to provide a biblical role model to the CrossWay of Pembroke Church members and the community, it is imperative that all persons employed by CrossWay of Pembroke Church in any capacity, or who serve as volunteers, agree to and abide by this Statement on Marriage, Gender, and Sexuality. (Matt 5:16; Phil 2:14-16; 1 Thess 5:22.)

We believe that God offers redemption and restoration to all who confess and forsake their sin, seeking His mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. (Acts 3:19-21; Rom 10:9-10; 1 Cor 6:9-11.)

We believe that every person must be afforded compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity. (Mark 12:28-31; Luke 6:31.) Hateful and harassing behavior or attitudes directed toward any individual are to be repudiated and are not in accord with Scripture nor the doctrines of CrossWay of Pembroke Church.

Statement on the Sanctity of Human Life

We believe that all human life is sacred and created by God in His image. Human life is of inestimable worth in all its dimensions, including pre-born babies, the aged, the physically or mentally challenged, and every other stage or condition from conception through natural death. We are therefore called to defend, protect, and value all human life. (Ps 139.)

Final Authority for Matters of Belief and Conduct

The statement of faith does not exhaust the extent of our beliefs. The Bible itself, as the inspired and infallible Word of God that speaks with final authority concerning truth, morality, and the proper conduct of mankind, is the sole and final source of all that we believe. While each member is responsible to study for themselves these truths, it is the responsibility of the Elders of CrossWay of Pembroke Church to humbly lead the church by giving interpretive oversight and direction in these beliefs.

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Mark 1:16–2:12ESV