What We Don't Believe

Ames Community Church Distinctives...

To help clarify our beliefs we believe it may also be helpful to declare what we do not believe. In stating what we are not, we do not seek to attack those who disagree with us, but rather distinguish ourselves so that others considering joining our church or working along side us are aware of who we are as well as who we are not.

• We are not progressives or theological liberals who embrace culture without the uniqueness of the gospel. We are Christians who believe the truths of the Bible are eternal and therefore fitting for every time, place, and people.
• We are not fundamentalists who retreat from cultural involvement and transformation, but rather missionaries faithful both to the content of Scripture and context of ministry.
• We are not isolationists and seek to partner with like-minded Christians from various churches, denominations and organizations in planting church-planting churches.
• We are not hyper-Calvinists who get mired down in secondary matters, but rather pray, evangelize, and do good works because we believe that the sovereign plan of God is accomplished through us, His people.
• We are not eschatological Theonomists or Classic Dispensationalists (e.g. Scofield/Ryrie) and believe that divisive and dogmatic certainty surrounding particular details of Jesus Second Coming are unprofitable speculation, because the timing and exact details of His return are unclear to us.
• We are not egalitarians and do believe that men should head their homes and male elders should lead their churches with masculine love like Jesus Christ. We are not ashamed to be complimentarians.
• We are not Open Theists and believe in the sovereignty and foreknowledge of God in all things.
• We are not religious relativists and do believe that there is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ alone.
• We are not nationalists seeking to simply improve one nation but instead ambassadors of the King of Kings commissioned to proclaim and demonstrate the coming of His kingdom to all nations of the earth.
• We are not moralists doing good for the sake of goodness sake, but instead evangelists laboring that people would become new creations in Christ.
• We are not relativists and do gladly embrace Scripture as our highest authority above such things as culture, experience, philosophy, and other forms of revelation.
• We are not Universalists and do believe that many people will spend eternity in the torments of hell as the Bible teaches.
• We are not naturalists and do believe that Satan and demons are real enemies at work in this world and subject to God.
• We are not rationalists and do believe that not everything can be known but that God calls us to live by faith with mystery and partial knowledge regarding many things.
• We are not evangelical feminists and do believe that God reveals Himself as a Father and is to be honored by the names He reveals to us without apology.
• We are not embarrassed by the bloody death of Jesus Christ and do believe He died as a substitute for the sins of His people in selfless love.
• We are not ashamed and do proclaim a loving gospel of grace which sounds like foolishness and offensiveness to the unrepentant while also saving multitudes with ears to hear good news.
• We are not polemicists who believe that it is our task to combat every false teaching but are passionate about preserving the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• We do not believe in baptismal or decisional regeneration. View this video to learn more.
• We are not an emergent church. We're not quite sure what that is but know for sure we're not that.

We are Missional

• We believe that our local churches must be faithful to the content of unchanging Biblical doctrine (Jude 3).
• We believe that our local churches must be faithful to the continually changing context of the culture(s) in which they minister (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).
• We believe that our mission is to bring people into church so that they can be trained to go out into their culture as effective missionaries.