Our Doctrinal Distinctives

These are the doctrinal distinctives we uphold at FCC. On any given Sunday you will likely hear ideas that reflect these distinctives in our prayers, songs, conversations, and sermon. Our doctrinal distinctives generally reflect those embraced by The Master’s Seminary and they are summarized as follows:

  1. Reformed: We uphold the five solas of the Reformation: sola scriptura (Scripture alone), sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), solo Christo (Christ alone), and soli deo gloria (glory to God alone). We also uphold the canons of Dort (also known as five point Calvinism, or TULIP). We uphold the Reformed understanding of salvation (or the historic Protestant or the lordship salvation position) and we reject Free Grace Theology. We uphold historical-grammatical (“literal”) hermeneutics (not covenantal hermeneutics).

  2. Historic: We uphold the historic formulations of Christology. Jesus is the incarnation of the second person of the triune God, who is one God existing in the three co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is one person (not two) who possesses—as a result of His incarnation—two natures (not one) and two wills (not one).

  3. Pre-millennial: We uphold a pre-tribulational and pre-millennial eschatology, that the rapture of the church will precede the seven years of tribulation and a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth that will commence at His second coming after the tribulation.

  4. Cessationist: We uphold the cessationist position regarding the sign gifts. We are not Charismatic.

  5. Elder-ruled: We uphold an elder-ruled form of church government. We are not congregational.

  6. Credobaptist: We uphold the credobaptist position. We only baptize believers and that by immersion. We do not baptize infants.

  7. Complementarian: We uphold the biblical view of gender (binary categories of male and female for the purpose of marriage between one man and one woman for life) and the complementarian view of gender roles (husband leads with love while wife submits with willingness).

  8. Memorialist: We practice a strictly memorial view of the Lord’s table. We reject real presence ideas (transubstantiation or consubstantiation) and we do not practice spiritual presence.