What we believe matters. Truth matters. Doctrine matters. What we believe ultimately comes out in our decisions, behaviors, priorities and life. At AHCC, we hold fast to God's foundational truths and seek to orient all of life and thought around them. See below for our core beliefs.
We believe that God exists, that He made us and the universe we live in, He did so for a magnificent reason; love. We believe He is perfect and holy in every way. For us to come to know Him, He reveals Himself as Father, so we might be His children, as Savior, so we might have a relationship with Him, and as Holy Spirit, so we might have His presence within us.
By accepting God as our Father, we know that He created us, loves us like a father, and longs to see us realize why He made us. As our Father, we trust Him to provide for us, protect us, instruct us, correct us, and discipline us when needed. He does all this for our well-being. We believe that His love is unconditional, unwavering and has only our good in mind.
By accepting God as our Savior, we acknowledge our need of being saved, and accept the work He accomplished to save us. We hold that His act to restore the relationship is greater than humanities turning away from it. We believe that what God did to reconcile us is the greatest act of love. We understand that His work of salvation impacts every part of our lives and is for the present and future.
By accepting God as our Holy Spirit, we invite Him to live in us, and when He does, welcome His sovereignty over us. We believe that our lives and relationships are better because of Him. When He dwells in us, we experience an ongoing work of transformation from the inside out. He changes our desires from those focused on self to others; He gives us abilities that we did not possess before; and He heals and touches our areas of need. His work in our lives not only transforms us, but empowers us to penetrate the culture with Christ’s scandalous love and heart-melting grace.
We understand that it is not God’s design for us to do life without others. To ensure this, He calls to Himself a people to live together with Him in community. He dwells in that community in a unique way and accomplishes His transforming work in and through our lives. With this same community, He continues His ministry to the world.
We believe the church is God’s visible hands, feet and mouth to the world. The church is a community of broken people, rescued by Jesus, healed and transformed by His Spirit and sent out into the world to display what God can do in and through human hearts. We understand church not as an event, or building, but an identity. This means our church is not exclusive to a Sunday morning, or physical location, but a group of people who scatter throughout West Seattle to join Jesus on His mission in every moment and every place.
We believe baptism is an outward expression of an inward regeneration and transformation of a person’s soul. Immersion in water baptism symbolizes the end of the old way of life. Coming up out of the water pictures the new life found in Christ. The person who was previously dead in sin has been made spiritually alive by the same power that raised up Jesus from the grave. United with Him, the believer is released from the power of sin in order to obey God (Romans 6:3-10).
Baptism does not save a person though, Jesus’ death and resurrection does. Baptism represents their desire to make a public declaration of their inward repentance from sin and faith and trust in Jesus. This is similar to a married couple wearing a wedding ring as an outward symbol of an inward commitment. (Ephesians 2:8-9, Acts 2:37-38, 8:38).
Though the Bible does not state a minimum age at which a person may be baptized, a believer should be old enough to understand the significance of baptism. We do not baptize infants, but only those who’ve made a personal decision to repent of sin and turn to Christ for salvation.
We encourage all who have trusted in Christ for eternal life to be baptized as a step of obedience.
We believe we are called by Jesus to take communion as a way to both remember what He did on the cross for us and proclaim His death until He returns. As Jesus indicated in Luke 22:19 and Matthew 26:28, the bread symbolizes His body being broken for our sin and the wine symbolizes His blood shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. It is a needed reminder of His death and substitutionary atonement for our sins (Luke 22:15-20, Matthew 26:26-29, 1st Corinthians 11:23-26).
Similar to baptism, taking part in communion does not save a person, only repentance from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord does.