Knowing Christ and Making Christ Known
What We Believe
As The Lake of the Woods Church has grown, we have expressed our commitment to God and one another in a series of documents.
What we want to accomplish together: The vision and purpose of The Lake of the Woods Church is to teach and preach the Gospel, and equip every member and all who come to our church, to become mature, ministering, and worshiping disciples of Christ.
What we hold as the core beliefs: We believe there is only one true and living God who exists in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe the Scriptures of the Holy Bible are the Word of God, were given by inspiration, and contain the only rule of Christian faith and practice. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church and we believe salvation is attained only through belief in Him.
What we hold as foundational teaching unifying the church historically
(Apostles’ Creed): I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come to 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.
What kind of people we strive to become: We acknowledge the Scriptures as our authority in matters of faith and practice. Our concerns are to encourage the congregation to: worship God; witness to God’s saving love in Jesus Christ, teach and preach the Gospel to all ages, recognizing the challenge of reaching youth effectively, be a ministering community through Christ reconciling people to God and to each other, and serve Christ in the world, working ecumenically with others. This Constitution does not preclude the church from affiliating with other churches.
Core Values
To express how we commit to live out these statements in ministry and life together, these Core values guide all we do:
Our focus is the person, work and message of Jesus Christ. We take seriously that he is our life and binds us together. We pursue unity. We do not rely upon uniformity to accomplish this, but upon the Holy Spirit. We are a church for all believers and focus on those powerful essentials that all believers embrace.
We are a congregation of ministers. The ministry belongs to all the people of God. We are saved to serve. As each one serves the church it is empowered to achieve its mission. People will have a sense of belonging and ownership.
A need-focused ministry takes seriously the needs of people in the church and community and develops ministries to address them. We seek to be sensitive to the needs of people across the life-span. The needs may be physical, spiritual, emotional, or relational. Needs are not merely preferences or wants, but rather usually involve such things as struggles, questions or hungers. We seek to be a channel of God’s provision wherever possible.
Christ was a missionary who was sent out to a world he loved. We too are sent by God to impact Lake of the Woods, the surrounding communities, and the uttermost parts of the earth. We see the world as our field and the local area as our focus. Our church has a calling to impact the world and win the community to Christ. Youth and children are a key to accomplish both of these callings. We realize most of our youth will live much of their Christian life somewhere else. Through them we embrace the world with the Gospel.
It is our role as a church to offer glory, praise, honor and worship to God. We seek to give many opportunities for our people to worship. All service to God is founded on a vital worship of God. We affirm various styles of worship.
Pastors/ministers are to equip others for the work of the ministry. Program staff are not to take ministry work from the laity, but engage them in ministry by recruiting, training, teaching, delegating, mentoring, encouraging, building teams and giving responsibility and authority, while asking for accountability.
Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, the Chief Shepherd, and the Lord of the Church. Under His leadership we are “Elder ruled,” “laity run,” and “Pastor led.”