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About Us
At Whitewater Community Church, everything we do is built upon our core values. When we discovered what we stand for, and on what principles we operate, our vision and mission naturally came to fruition from the Scriptures. In designing our vision, we simply asked one question, "What was the vision the Apostle Paul had for planting churhces?" If our core values, vision, and mission are items that you value as well, we pray that you would join us in our efforts to make disciples.
Core Values
Our core values answer three questions:
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Why do we do what we do?
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What is most important in the life of God's church?
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On what principles do we operate?
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1. Glorifying Worship
We value genuine, humble, and unceasing worship in Spirit and Truth that glorifies the One True God, radiates from the Gospel, proclaims the
supremacy of Christ, and ignites faith in Him (Hebrews 12.28-29).
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2. Prayer
We prayerfully depend on God for all wisdom, guidance, and direction in sustaining us through His sovereign, providential care. We value the opportunity to ask of the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit in any circumstance, thankfully and humbly submitting to His will
(Philippians 4.6-7).
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3. Scripture
We value and uphold the Scripture as inspired by God, inerrant, sufficient, and authoritative for all matters of godliness. We stand firm upon the written Word of God in all acts of worship, continually nurtured on its endless treasure and revelation of God (2 Timothy 3.16-17).
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​4. Family
We support and uphold the spiritual nurture of the family as one of God's dynamic means to perpetuate the Christian faith and grow the Kingdom of God. Our earthly families reflect our greater heavenly family, which has been united through the Cross (Psalm 128).
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​5. Missions
We commit to a missional life. This is a life marked and caught up by the Gospel. It reflects the mission of God sending His Son to save sinners and build His Kingdom. This life extends to our families, friends, community, and throughout the nations by proclaiming the Gospel and discipleship - where saints are equipped to know God and make His glory known (Philippians 3.8).
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6. Biblical Community
We value sincere fellowship in the Body, reflective of our Triune God and united by the Gospel. We regard others as more important than ourselves as we demonstrate our love for one another (Mark 12.30-31).
STATEMENT OF FAITH
A.W. Tozer said, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us" (The Knowledge of the Holy). At Whitewater Community Church what we believe about God is the most important aspect of our faith community. Our statement of faith is something we are currently working through and something we will always revisit.
Essential Doctrinal Commitments
1. Undivided Greatness and Goodness of God
2. Inerrant, Inspired, Unified Protestant Canon of Scripture
3. The Eternal Trinity
4. Full Deity & Humanity of Christ
5. Literal, Historical Creation
6. Inherited, Imputed, and Personal Sinfulness of Man
7. Salvation by Grace Alone, through Faith Alone, in Christ Alone
8. Complete, Redemptive Gospel
9. Transformed Pursuit of Christian Life
10. The Church as New, Redeemed Humanity
11. The Return of Christ & Consummation of His Kingdom
Expanded Statement
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​God. We believe that the One, True God exists and has revealed Himself to all mankind. Finite humans will never completely understand the Infinite God whose divine character is mysterious and ultimately incomprehensible. But by grace, in order to meet humanity’s greatest need, God has lovingly made himself known and personally knowable. God’s greatness is revealed in Scripture as personal, infinite in being, sovereign, spirit, life, and unchanging in perfection. His goodness is holy, righteous, just, faithful, and abounding in lovingkindness, grace, and mercy. We deny the post-modern exchange of God's wrath in substitution for His love. We affirm that God's wrath cannot be fully understood nor biblically articulated apart from His love; just as His greatness apart from His goodness.
Gen 1.1; Exod 3.14; 34.6-7; Deut 32.4; Isa 55.8-9; John 4.24; 14.6; 1 Pet 1.16
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Revelation. We believe that God has revealed Himself generally through creation and specifically through the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. The Biblical narrative, from Genesis to Revelation, is a perfect unity describing God’s redemptive plan through Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. Scripture, in its original autographs, is verbally inspired, without error, and infallible by the Holy Spirit. We believe that the intention of Scripture’s human writers does not exhaust the scope of its complete meaning. Therefore, we read the Old Testament in light of Christ and the New Testament. Scripture is the supreme and final authority for faith and conduct, and sufficient to live wisely and godly in the present evil age. We believe that all Scripture is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and that no interpretation of the Bible is faithfully understood apart from its fulfillment in the person and work of Christ.
Gen 1-2; Mat 5.18; Luk 24.44-45; Heb 4.12; 2 Tim 3.16-17; 2 Pet 1.3; Rev 21-22
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The Eternal Trinity. We believe that God has mercifully chosen to reveal Himself to man as the eternal Trinity having three distinct persons, but one essence. The Father, Son, and Spirit share the same perfections and are worthy of the same worship. It is because of the Trinity that believers can know and worship God in his persons, but not in His essence. We believe the Trinity is the foundation for all Christianity, the unfathomable explanation behind the incarnation, and the model for fellowship in the community of believers. We cautiously avoid worldly analogies of the Trinity, but intentionally emphasize trinitarian language in our worship, honoring the One True God of heaven and earth who has always distinguished Himself as the Triune God.
Psa 2.7; 110.1; Mat 22.42-45; 28.18-20; John 1.12-13, 18; 10.30; 14.7-11; 17.17; Eph 3.14-19
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God the Father. We believe that God is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, His only begotten, eternal Son. He is also, in a spiritual sense, the Heavenly Father of Israel and the Father only of those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. His fatherhood is distinguished by spiritual adoption into His family, as well as spiritual discipline for the believer’s good and share of His holiness. We believe that God’s providence and sovereignty undeniably mark His fatherhood. God providentially cares for all aspects of His Creation and sovereignly reigns as the Almighty over all things in such a way that His goodness and glory is perfect, just, merciful, and trustworthy.
Gen 1.1; Exod 4.22; 15.1ff; 1 Chron 29.10-13; Matt 5.45; 6.25-33; John 1.18; Rom 8.14-15
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God the Son. We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God; being fully God as far as His deity is concerned and fully man as far as His humanity is concerned. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life but He was crucified for us and our salvation under Pontus Pilate, dead, and was buried according to the Scriptures. He was resurrected from death three days later, according to the Scriptures, appeared to the Apostles and 500 other believers before ascending to the right hand of God where He currently sits as our Advocate, Mediator, and eternal High Priest. He is the promised Messiah from the Old Testament, and Israel’s great hope for a Davidic King who will bring final restoration, and fulfillment to all the covenant promises regarding the Redeemer. He is the perfect image of God, who succeeded where Adam, Israel, and all humanity has failed. He will return to set up His Kingdom in Jerusalem over the New Heavens and New Earth.
Isa 7.14; Matt 1.23, 25; John 1.1-2; 8.58; 1 Cor 15.3-4; Phil 2.5-8; Tit 2.13-14; Heb 1.3; 7.17; Rev 19-22
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God the Holy Spirit. We believe that the Holy Spirit is the giver of life. He is the third person of the Trinity and possesses all the distinctive divine attributes. In His personhood, the Holy Spirit can be grieved, lied to, resisted, or obeyed. In His deity He is mysterious and the invisible power that sanctifies, restrains, teaches, comforts, empowers, and testifies. The Holy Spirit is directly involved in God’s entire redemptive plan. He was indispensable in the transmission of Scripture and the life of Christ, who bestowed the Spirit at Pentecost for the Church - distributing certain gifts for the edification of the Body. According to promise, the Holy Spirit has been sent to convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment; to renew and baptize believers into the Body of Christ, to indwell, fill, seal, enlighten, and anoint the believer for teaching, guidance, godly living, and victory over sin.
Gen 1.2; John 14.26; 16.7-11; Rom 8.9; 1 Cor 12.13; Gal 5.16-25; Eph 5.18; 1 John 2.20-27
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Creation. We believe that God is the Maker of the heavens and the earth, all that is seen and unseen. He created the universe in six literal days as a “theater of His glory” with the distinct purpose that He would dwell with mankind, they would know Him, and make His glory known. God’s creation is of the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit. It is both original and continual through God’s providence and sustaining grace. When Adam sinned, mankind and all of creation were subjected to corruption and futility; Nevertheless, Creation is distinctly linked with God’s plan to establish His Kingdom on the earth in the final restoration of all things. We believe that the purpose of creation is understood more comprehensively by reading God’s final restoration (Rev 21-22) along with His original creation (Gen 1-2).
Gen 1-2; Job 38-41; Psa 104.24; Isa 45.18; John 1.1-3; Col 1.15-17; Heb 11.3; Rev 4.11; 21-22
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Mankind. Since all humanity is created in the image of God, we believe in the sanctity and inestimable worth of all human life. We do not believe that man is in any sense the product of evolution, but has been created by God, distinct from animals. As a result of sin, the image of God in man has been corrupted, though not completely destroyed. Sin has marred the image of God in man at every point. By nature and apart from Christ, mankind has an empirically demonstrable and biblically defensible bias toward evil. All of humanity has fallen into sin and from conception is depraved, spiritually dead, and lost, being severed from Christ. Because of sin, no one of himself, apart from God’s intervention, can gain recovery or be restored in the family of God. We believe that the redeemed should give wholehearted allegiance to God in whose image they are made. We believe that Christ is the perfect image of God, and believers constantly pursue His image until death at which time believers will be made like Him in glory.
Gen 1-2; 9.6-7; Psa 8; Eccl 7.20; Acts 17.26-28; Rom 3.23-24; Eph 2.1-3; Col 1.15
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Sin. We believe that sin entered all humanity through Adam’s rebellion, resulting in spiritual, physical, and eternal death. God is in no way the author of sin. Sin originated with Satan, infects the world, and turns the heart of man against God. Universally, sin is inherited from conception, imputed from Adam, and personal in nature culminating in shame and guilt before the Holy God of Scripture. We reject the modern attempt to minimize sin, and deny that natural man, reason, secularism, moral thought, or science can do anything about one’s sin problem. We affirm that sin makes it impossible for unbelievers to think clearly about self. Being corrupt, enslaved to sin, and apart from God, man is unable to diagnose their sin problem, let alone cure it. All sin is first and finally a Godward offense, making sinners culpable to God’s perfect standard of righteousness and objects of His wrath. We believe that despite sin’s polluted, parasitic, and perverse nature, no sin, except the willful rejection of Christ, is beyond the redemptive grace of God in the Gospel.
Gen 3.1-7; Psa 51.4; Isa 53.6; Jer 17.9; Hos 4.6; Rom 3.23; 6.23; 8.7; Heb 12.1; 1 John 3.4
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Salvation. Because all humanity is subject to death as a result of sin, we believe no one can enter the kingdom of God unless first born again. No good works, no feeling, no resolution, no sincere efforts, no morality, no baptism, nor any ordinance can grant any unbeliever salvation. Salvation is a gift given by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone by the work of the Triune God alone. Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross, provides salvation for all who believe, justifying them on the basis of His shed blood and resurrection. All who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are redeemed from sin, born of the Spirit, adopted by God, reconciled to Him, and posses eternal life. We believe that we are not saved by good works, but to good works. God, having begun the work of salvation, will save us and keep us forever, based entirely on Christ’s work apart from any human merit. All true believers, once saved shall be kept saved forever, in the mighty hand of our great God.
John 1.12; 3.1-7; 5.14; 10.29; Rom 5.1; 8.1-2, 29-39; 1 Cor 15.1-4; Eph 2.8-10
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The Gospel. We believe that the Gospel starts with a promise, centers on Jesus Christ, progresses through the storyline of God’s Kingdom, and builds to final redemption through the promise of God’s Spirit. The backbone of the Gospel is the covenants to Abraham, David, and the New Covenant. In the Gospel, the first Adam sinned resulting in eternal separation from God for all mankind, but Christ overcame sin resulting in reconciliation for all those who believe. The Cross of Jesus is the climax of the Gospel, but not the entire Gospel. The entire Gospel stretches from Genesis to Revelation, from the Fall of man to the coming of the King. The Gospel is good news because of what Jesus has done and will do, not what mankind does. The good news is that a Holy God has redeemed sinful man through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We believe in a Gospel that makes disciples not just decisions, and fixes humanity’s sin problem not just social problems. We believe that the Gospel should be central in everything we do individually and corporately.
Gen 3.15; 12.2-3; 2 Sam 7; Jer 31.31-34; John 3.16-18; Eph 1.13-14; Titus 2.12-14
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The Christian Life. The Christian life is a progressive work of transformation where believers pursue the image of Christ. We believe one’s new identity in Christ is a bedrock for resisting sin. Therefore, we emphasize the positional truth of the Gospel and the full realization of what transpired at the moment of saving faith to defeat sin’s power. We believe that no Christian will reach complete freedom from the presence of sin in their lifetime, but every Christian can gain freedom by relying on God. We believe justification, God’s declaration of righteousness, is distinguished from sanctification, the Spirit’s work of making a believer more holy, while affirming that they are connectedly united. Sanctification is not an individual effort, but a divine-human operation initiated and sustained by God and carried out in the community of faith. We believe the Christian life is lived the same way it began, by faith.
John 15.1-11; Rom 6.6-14; 12.1-2; 2 Cor 3.18; Eph 2.8-10; Col 2.6; Heb 12.14
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The Church. We believe in one, holy, unified, apostolic church which consists of all true believers in Jesus Christ, who have been baptized by the Holy Spirit and worship the One, True God in the Father through the Son and by the Spirit. We believe the local church is God’s new redeemed humanity comprised of believers in Jesus Christ, having been water baptized, preaching the Gospel rightly, administering the Lord’s Supper biblically, and carrying out God’s will prayerfully. The New Testament church is called to be centralized in Christ, decentralized in the world, and unified for God’s Kingdom, therefore wisely and righteously conducting church discipline, community fellowship, and ministry gifts to build and edify the Body of Christ in which Jesus is the Head.
Mat 28.18-20; Gal 1.6-9; 6.1; Eph 2.11-22; 4.4-6; 11-16; 1 Cor 12.13; Jud 3
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End Times. We believe in the resurrection. All believers will give an account of their lives at the Judgment Seat of Christ in regard to reward. All unbelievers will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment and suffer eternally in Hell away from the presence of the Lord. Although this life is transitory, our daily lives are immeasurably significant in light of the glory to follow. We believe death is real, spiritual, and inescapable. It is a penalty, hostile enemy, and curse, but not the end of existence. We believe in an intermediate state between death and resurrection for all humanity to experience either the presence or absence of God. For the believer death is no longer a curse, but a great blessing because of the bodily resurrection of Christ. We believe in the triumphant, visible, and impending return of Jesus Christ to judge the living and the dead and establish His Kingdom, which will have no end. We maintain a sure and certain hope that one day every consequence of sin will be eternally removed and Christ’s full redemption realized.
Gen 3.19; Mat 10.28; 24-25; 1 Cor 15; 2 Cor 5.10; Phil 1.21; Heb 9.27; Rev 21-22
Vision
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Proverbs 29.18
Where there is no vision the people perish.
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We live in a dark world that believes there is no absolute truth: the Bible is just another book and the One, True God of Heaven is just another god. People consider themselves too good to need a Savior, sin is tolerated, and God is whatever generates comfort. Self reigns as king in our culture and reality is based on one's inner experiences. As a result, people are broken, weary, and hopeless in their identity, significance, and eternal destination.
Today, the church is in midlife crisis. suffering in Biblical and theological literacy. Christ is a life coach, not a Savior. The Gospel has been sidelined, and God's mission has been replaced by worldly pursuits. We treasure happiness and comfort more than holiness. A take-it-or-leave-it Bible has led to take-it-or-leave-it marriages and relationships. Some believers worship busyness and others remain idle, while unbelievers are perishing. And our great commission to make disciples has been replaced with morality and programs.
Compelled by the love of Christ, His return to set up His Kingdom, and the urgency that is needed to address these problems, Whitewater Community Church has a vision to...
UNITe in God's Mission - Matthew 28.18-20
In Scripture, God created man in His image to expand His glory on the earth. Man sinned, rebelling against God and falling short of His glory. But Christ redeemed on Calvary. He ascended to Heaven and will return to consummate His glory in an eternal Kingdom. Since Creation and despite man's rebellion, God has had a mission to make His glory known through representatives of His Kingdom and Gospel. We have a vision to represent our King, who first came to die and will return to rule. As ambassadors of Christ, our mission is to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples both locally and globally. This should be the very fabric of our being. We envision everyone at Whitewater Community Church united in one central effort to glorify God by making disciples.
UNLOCK the Transforming Gospel - 1 Peter 2.9-10
We envision Whitewater Community Church as a group of disciples who have been transformed by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His Gospel reaches all - from the worst to the best of mankind - we are all sinners. We proclaim the good news of Christ's death and resurrection apart from prejudices. We envision that salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone will lead to responsible Christian living. Our desire is the that the Gospel will continue to transform our lives as we walk in Gospel-saturated principles of humility, forgiveness, love, redemption, discipline, and grace to restore relationships, marriages, and families. In our communities, we will uphold unity and fellowship, allowing the world to see the glory of God in our oneness.
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UPHOLD the Supremacy of Christ - Colossians 1.17
We envision Whitewater Community Church as a body of disciples who place Jesus above everything. He takes priority over our bloodlines, buildings, budgets, business, and busyness. We envision a church where God's Word is the supreme basis for all that we do because God's Word is authoritative and has the power to change lives. We envision that all our worship will draw us toward the Christ of Scripture. It is our hope and prayer that in every situation of life Christ will reign supreme for the glory of God.
Our Mission
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Making Disciples Who Make a Difference