What we believe.

The scriptures were written by people, but breathed out by God. They are sufficient — meaning we don't need to add new revelations or new authorities to know God, follow Christ, and live faithfully. They are also clear enough that ordinary believers can read, understand, and be shaped by them.

This is why preaching at St. Paul stays close to the text. We don't gather to hear a pastor's opinions. We gather to hear scripture explained and applied — verse by verse, book by book — because that's where God speaks.

This is the central mystery of the Christian faith. Not three gods, not one God wearing three masks, but one God in three persons. We confess this not because it's tidy, but because it's what scripture reveals — and because the gospel itself depends on it.

The Father sends. The Son comes. The Spirit indwells. The whole story of redemption is the work of all three.

This is the heart of everything. We are sinners. God is holy. Left to ourselves, we have no way to cross that distance. But God did what we could not — sending His Son to take on our humanity, to live the life we should have lived, and to die the death we deserved to die.

The resurrection isn't a metaphor. Jesus actually rose. That fact is the foundation of our hope, the proof that the cross worked, and the promise that what He did for Himself He will do for everyone who trusts Him.

Salvation comes by grace, through faith — not by anything we earn, achieve, or accomplish. It is God's gift to anyone who receives it.

The Christian life isn't lived by gritted teeth. It's lived by the Spirit. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in those who follow Him, transforming us slowly but really into the people we were made to be.

The Spirit gives gifts to the church — teaching, serving, leading, encouraging, giving, caring — so that the body can build itself up in love. Different gifts in different members; one Spirit in all.

Baptism doesn't save anyone. It is the public, visible declaration that someone has already been saved. We baptize by immersion because that's what scripture shows and what the word itself means in the original Greek — "to dunk under." The image is of going down into death with Christ and rising up into new life with Him.

If you've trusted Christ but haven't been baptized as a believer, we'd love to talk with you about that. Learn more →

We celebrate communion on the first Sunday of each month. The bread and the cup are signs — not magical, but meaningful. They point us back to the cross and forward to the day when Christ returns and the great supper of the Lamb begins.

The table is open to any baptized believer in Christ, regardless of whether you're a member of St. Paul. If you're not sure whether to participate, simply pass the elements along. There is no pressure, only invitation.

The church is not a building. It's a people. A church is a family of believers who covenant together to worship God, build one another up, and reach the world with the gospel. We celebrate, we demonstrate, we communicate, we assimilate, we educate — these are not slogans, they are how the family functions.

Every local church is autonomous, governed by its members under Christ. We belong to the broader Baptist family through the National Baptist Convention of America, but our congregation makes its own decisions, calls its own pastor, and answers ultimately to Christ as head.

If you're considering joining the family at St. Paul, learn about membership →

History is going somewhere. The story has an ending — and that ending is good. Christ will return. The dead will be raised. There will be a final accounting. Those who are in Christ will be welcomed into the joy of their Lord. Those who have rejected Him will be eternally separated from Him.

The new heavens and new earth are not a vague metaphor. They are God's promise that creation itself will be redeemed, restored, and renewed — and that we will dwell with Him there, face to face, forever.

This hope is not escapism. It is fuel. It steadies us in suffering, frees us from fear, and sends us back into the world to live faithfully now in light of what we know is coming.

This is not a footnote to the gospel. It's the foundation. Every person we meet — the stranger at the door, the neighbor across the street, the unborn child, the elderly saint, the prisoner, the immigrant — bears the imprint of the God who made them. To love God and love neighbor are not two commands. They are one fabric.

For more than seven decades St. Paul has been a refuge in this neighborhood for people the world too often overlooked. That is not incidental to who we are. It is who we are.