Our Beliefs
At First Baptist Church, located at the heart of things in Springfield, Missouri, our purpose is to passionately serve and glorify God. We do this by fostering a welcoming and nurturing Christian community. We aim to inspire spiritual growth, share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and engage in meaningful outreach to positively impact our local community. Through worship, fellowship, and acts of compassion, we strive to reflect God’s love and bring hope to the lives of those we encounter in Springfield and beyond.
The Southern Baptist Convention have prepared a statement of generally held convictions called The Baptist Faith and Message. It serves as a guide to understanding what we believe below.
We believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God, revealing God and His will, both in the Old and New Testaments.
We believe in one God, eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary and lived a perfect life. He is the perfect and ultimate sacrifice for our sin
We believe that the Holy Spirit convicts people of sin, affects the New Birth, and by indwelling the believer, gives guidance in life, empowers for service, and enables perseverance in faith and holiness.
We believe that God made man in His own image, with a free will, a moral character, and a spiritual nature. We believe that man, through unbelief and disobedience, fell into sin bringing depravity and death upon the human race; that man as a sinner is self-centered and self-willed, unable to redeem himself.
We believe that there is one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, Who shed His blood and died on Calvary to redeem us from sin. He rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and is sitting at the right hand of the Father interceding for us.
We believe that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ—a free gift bestowed by God on all who trust in Christ, repent of their sins and are born again to walk in newness of life.
We believe that those who repent and believe should be baptized with water as a symbol of their new birth in Christ. Baptism is a spiritual picture of death, burial and resurrection identifying us with Jesus as He went through the same to give us new birth.
We believe that once a person places their faith in Christ alone, He will eternally keep us and gives us His Holy Spirit to indwell us until we meet Him.
We believe in a literal heaven and a literal hell. Upon death, those who have trusted in Christ will join Him in heaven, and those who are unrepentant and refuse Christ will be separated from Him eternally in hell.
We believe that the church is the body of Christ, and that all those who are born again and walk in obedience to the Word of God, constitute the true church of which Christ is the Head. We believe that Christ commissioned the church to evangelize the world, make disciples of all men teaching them to follow Him in a Biblical walk of life, and to minister to the needs of all people.
We believe in the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ which is the blessed hope of believers. He will raise us to a new life with new bodies. When He comes back to earth, Christ will judge the world and will ultimately create all things new, including heaven and earth.