Community
We grow in relationship with Christ through a community of small and cell groups. Our tendency toward individualism is a great threat to the church. This mentality drives us away from the very thing that can bring us healing. Deep down inside, we crave group interaction. We were created that way! God designed human beings to function best in community. This is what church is all about!
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Authority
We rely upon the Word of God as our ultimate authority, the source of our faith, and the centerpiece of all our teaching.
At ECC, we believe that God has spoken. We have received a supernatural communication from God, for our Scriptures came forth from His very breath (2 Tim. 3:16). As such, the Scriptures are our highest authority demanding absolute attention and allegiance. Everything that we believe about God and understand about God’s interaction with humankind comes from this inspired collection of writings. Men of God, through the ages, were carried along by the Spirit of God (2 Peter1:21) as they wrote to express the heart of God to us in human language. Accordingly, it is the centerpiece of all our teaching, the justification of our salvation in Jesus Christ, and our standard for apprehending righteousness. This treasure, we possess, governs how we study any other subject matter. It is our light in the darkness, our shelter in the storm, our warmth in the cold, and our hope in a world of suffering.
Leadership
We are led and governed by a team of pastors and elders. The universal Church’s Head is Jesus Christ (Mat. 16:18; Eph.1:22,23; Col.1:18). He establishes local expressions of His Body in communities as He did in Rome, Antioch, and Corinth. Then, as now, He qualifies mature leaders to serve Him (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9) as under-shepherds to His flock (1 Peter 5:1-4). New Testament teaching on church leadership consistently speaks of a plurality and diversity of leaders (Acts 11:30; 14:23; 1Tim:5:17; Titus 1:5; James 5:14) who are identified and raised up by the Holy Spirit as a team. Only in a team, can He bring together the needed gift mix, life experience, and training necessary to meet the needs of His flock to obey His calling (Mat. 28:18-20). ECC has been, from our founding, committed to these New Testament church principles of pastor and elder team leadership.
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Fellowship
We fellowship as Christians based on the love and grace of Jesus Christ and not on any creed, tradition, organization, or race.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” –Galatians 3:28
At Evangelical Community Church, we are corporately neither Methodist nor Presbyterian, Calvinist nor Arminian, contemporary worshippers nor traditional worshippers, rich nor poor, charismatic nor fundamental, black nor white. We come before the throne of grace equally and with respect for one another, based on the shed blood of Christ, to worship and serve as onebody, all of whose members are equally important in fulfilling the command of Christ to engageand redeem a fallen world.
Unity
We seek unity and reconciliation of the body of Christ in the local and universal church.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19
Unity in the body of Christ begins when we come to understand that it is through Jesus, and Jesus alone, that we are reconciled to God.
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Foundations
