What We Believe

Calvary Chapel Manhattan North has been formed as a fellowship of believers in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our supreme desire is to know Christ and to be conformed into His image by the power of the Holy Spirit.

• We are not a denominational church, nor are we opposed to denominations as such, only their over-emphasis of the doctrinal differences that have led to the division of the Body of Christ.
  
  
• We believe that the only true basis of Christian fellowship is His (Agape) love, which is greater than any differences we possess and without which we have no right to claim ourselves Christians.
  
  
• We believe worship of God should be spiritual. Therefore, we remain flexible and yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit to direct our worship.
  
  
• We believe worship of God should be inspirational. Therefore, we give a great place to music in our worship.
  
  
• We believe worship of God should be intelligent. Therefore, our services are designed with great emphasis upon teaching the Word of God that He might instruct us how He should be worshiped.
  
  
• We believe worship of God is fruitful. Therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the supreme manifestation that we have truly been worshiping Him.
  
  
• We believe that worship should be fruitful; therefore, we look for His love in our lives as the supreme manisfestation that we have been truly worshipping Him .
  
  
• We believe in all the fundamental doctrines of orthodox evangelical Christianity,
  
  
• We believe in the inerrancy of Scripture; that the Bible (Old and New Testaments) is the inspired, infallible Word of God.
  
  
• We believe that God is eternally existent in three separate persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  
  
• We believe that God, the Father, is the personal, transcendent, and sovereign Creator of all things.
  
  
• We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, that he was born of a virgin, lived ia sinless life; provided for the atonement of our sins by His vicarious death on the cross, was bodily resurrected by the power of the Holy Spirit, ascended back to the right hand of God the Father, and ever lives to make intercession for us.
  
  
• After Jesus ascended to Heaven, He poured out His Holy Spirit on believers in Jerusalem, enabling them to fulfill His command to preach the Gospel to the entire world; an obligation shared by all believers today.
  
  
• We believe that all people are by nature separated from God and responsible for their own sin, but that salvation, redemption, and forgiveness are freely offered to all by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When a person repents of sin and accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, trusting Him to save, that person is immediately born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit, all of his/hers sins are forgiven, and that person becomes a Child of God, destined to spend eternity with the Lord.
  
  
• We believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Scriptures, and that they are valid for today and are to be exercised within scriptural guidlines. We, as believers, are to covet the best gifts, seeking to exercise them in love that the whole Body of Christ might be edified. We believe that love is more important than the most spectabular gifts, and without love, all exercise of spiritual gifts is worthless.
  
  
• We believe that the church government should be simplistic rather than a complex bureaucracy, and that we depend on the Holy Spirit to lead, rather than on fleshly promotion.
  
  
• We await the pre-tribulation rapture of the church, and we believe that the Second Coming of Christ with his saint to rule the earth will be personal, pre-millennial, and visible. This motivates us to holy living, heartfelt worship, committed service, deligent study of God's Word, regular fellowship, participation in adult baptism by immersion and Holy Communion.
  
  
• We seek to teach the Word of God in such a way that its message can be applied to the individual's life, leading that person to a greater maturity in Christ.
  
  
• We do not believe in "positive confession" (the faith movement belief that God can be commanded to heal or work miracles according to man's will); human porphey that supersedes the Scripture; the incorporation of humanistic and secular psychology in Biblical teaching; the over-emphasis of spiritual gifts and experiential signs and wonders to the exclusion of Biblical teaching; or that true Christians can be demon-possed.
  
  
• We are neither Five-Point Calvinsit nor are we Arminians. We adhere firmly to the Biblical teaching of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. We avoid any theological systems of belief, which go beyond the written Word and thereby divide the body of Christ.
  
  
• In our services, we focus on a personal relationship with God through worship, prayer and the teaching of the Word of God. We teach both expository and topically. We do not allow speaking in tongues loudly during services, nor prophecy while a Bible study is in progress because we do not believe that the Holy Spirit would interrrupt Himself. We have specific "after-glow services" and believer's meetings.