Our Core Values
White Oak Baptist Church is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention and affirms the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, which represents our convictions on 18 topics. You can learn more about them through this link: Baptist Faith & Message 2000. Below is a condensed version of the major doctrinal points our church affirms that are represented in full in the BF&M 2000:
The Scriptures: The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is totally true and trustworthy, having God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error, for its matter.
God: There is one and only one living and true God. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.
God the Father: God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace.
God the Son: Christ is the eternal Son of God, who in His incarnation was fully God and fully man, born of a virgin. Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death making provision for redemption from sin on a cross, rose bodily from the dead 3 days later, and ascended to heaven to reign at the right hand of the Father.
God the Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired the Scriptures, and enables the understanding of the Gospel, convicts men of sin, calls men to salvation, cultivated spiritual growth and sanctification, and bestows spiritual gifts to serve the church.
Man: Man was created male and female in the image of God and is worthy of dignity. Man was made perfect, yet freely sinned against God, distorting but not destroying the image of God, a condition all humanity has inherited that inclines our hearts towards sin.
Salvation: Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. By faith in the work of Christ alone for salvation from sin, committing to Him as Lord and Savior, and repenting of sin by turning from it and towards God, we are saved.
God’s Purpose of Grace: Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners, which is consistent with the free agency of man. All true believers endure to the end.
The Church: A New Testament church is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Baptism & The Lord’s Supper: Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior. The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.
Last Things: Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness, consigning the unrighteous to Hell and resurrecting the righteous to dwell with God forever in heaven.
Evangelism & Missions: It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. The new birth of man’s spirit by God’s Holy Spirit means the birth of love for others.