GOD
God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable in his power and perfection, goodness and glory, wisdom, justice, and truth. Nothing happens except through him and by his will. There are three persons in the one true and living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

HUMANITY
God created all things by his powerful Word, and all his creation was very good; everything flourished under his loving rule. God created us male and female in his own image to know him, love him, live with him, and glorify him.

THE FALL & SIN
Human beings were created to glorify God by enjoying him, loving him, trusting him, and by obeying his will, commands, and law. However, because of their disobedience, our first parents—Adam and Eve—and all of creation is fallen; we are all born in sin and guilt, corrupt in our nature and unable to keep God’s law.

Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, rebelling against him by living without reference to him, not being or doing what he requires in his law—resulting in our death and the disintegration of all creation. There is no person, group, or institution that has not been corrupted by the fall or bear the ongoing effects of sin.

SALVATION
God is rightly angry with our sin and will punish it in his just judgment. Yet, God has made a way to escape this judgment, for our lives to be renewed, and to be restored to a right relationship with him. God himself, out of mere mercy, reconciles us to himself and delivers us from sin and from the punishment for sin, by a Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Since death is the punishment for sin, Christ died willingly in our place to deliver us from the power and penalty of sin and bring us back to God. By his substitutionary atoning death, he alone redeems us from hell and gains for us forgiveness of sin, righteousness, and everlasting life. Not only this, but Christ’s death is also the beginning of the redemption and renewal of every part of fallen creation, as he powerfully directs all things for his own glory and creation’s good.

JUSTIFICATION
Justification is our being declared
righteous before God, made possible
by Christ’s death and resurrection for
all those whose trust in him.

SANCTIFICATION
Sanctification is our gradual, growing
righteousness (living rightly out of
love for God and love for others, for
his glory and our good), made
possible by the Holy Spirit’s work
in us.

CHURCH
God chooses and preserves for himself a new community in Christ elected for eternal life and united by faith; a people from all peoples and nations who love, follow, learn from, and worship God together. God sends out this community to proclaim the gospel and prefigure Christ’s kingdom by the quality of their life together and their love for one another.

SCRIPTURE
The Bible—consisting of the Old and New Testaments—is the infallible, authoritative Word of God. It contains everything that people—of all ages, nations, backgrounds, and walks of life—need to know concerning the nature of God, humanity, and salvation. We call the Bible God’s Word, believing that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God continues to speak to us through this book.

SACRAMENTS
The sacraments are those practices given by God and instituted by Christ. Our church recognizes two sacraments: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are visible signs and seals that we are bound together as a community of faith by his death and resurrection. By our use of them the Holy Spirit more fully declares and seals the promises of the gospel to us.

BAPTISM
Baptism is the washing with water in
the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit; it signifies and seals
God’s promises to us, our adoption
into Christ, our cleansing from sin,
and our commitment to belong to
the Lord and to his church. Though
we believe baptism to be a means of
grace, it does not save us—the
person and work of Christ alone
saves.

LORD’S SUPPER
The Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal
remembering Christ’s atoning work; a
celebration of the presence of God in
our midst; bringing us into
communion with God and with one
another; feeding and nourishing our
souls. It also anticipates the
day when we will eat and drink with
Christ in his Father’s kingdom. Like
baptism, we believe the Lord’s Supper
to be a means of grace but it, by no
means, adds anything to Christ’s
atoning work.

LAST THINGS
Christ will one day return to judge the living and the dead. Those who have rejected Christ and are not united to him by faith will be raised to everlasting death. They will be cast out from the favorable presence of God, into hell, to be justly and grievously punished for their sin. Those who receive Christ and are united to him by true faith will be raised to everlasting life in the world to come. They will once again live with and enjoy God forever in the new city—in the new heaven and the new earth—where they will be fully and forever freed from all sin and will inhabit renewed, resurrection bodies in a renewed, restored creation.

[Language adapted from The New City Catechism (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017)]

We believe that the Bible is the infallible, authoritative Word of God. It contains everything that people—of all ages, nations, backgrounds, and walks of life—need to know concerning the nature of God, humanity, and salvation. We call the Bible God’s Word, believing that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God continues to speak to us through this book.

The story of the Bible can be understood in the following five movements*:

Creation
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The first man and woman enjoyed a perfect relationship with God. Everything in the universe was in harmony and good.

Curse
But everything fell apart. Adam and Eve rebelled. Because of Adam’s sin, we are all sinners, by nature doing and thinking what is bad for us and the world, and displeasing God by rejecting His intent for our lives, individually and collectively. No person, creature, or institution is free from the effects of sin, and the results are evident in such things as greed, violence and oppression, as well as pollution, sickness, and death.

Christ
Despite this, God refused to surrender this world to the powers of sin, death, and decay at work within it. So He sent His Son, Jesus Christ—full of grace and truth, power and perfection, humility and holiness—to make a way for sinners to be redeemed and reconciled to God.

Cross
Jesus died for our sins on the cross, bearing the punishment we deserved. He rose again on the third day, demonstrating His triumph over the powers of sin, death, and the evil one, and revealing that the Kingdom of God has broken into our present age.

(re)Creation
Just as God raised Jesus to new life, so God is making all things new. He gracious restores us to be able to live as we were created to live by the working of the Holy Spirit. One day, Jesus is coming back to extend God’s reign over all the earth. In that day, there will no longer be any sin, sickness, suffering, or death. God’s people will live and reign forever—in peace and the fullness of joy—with God in the New Heaven and New Earth.

[This is truly a gospel (good news) story for all who would turn from their sin and trust in Jesus Christ.]

*Adapted from “The Story” by Good News Tracts

Vision
To be a Global spiritual family of disciple makers, fully obedient to Christ.

Mission
To love and serve God daily and witness to Christ under the guidance of Holy Spirit through worship, discipleship, and fellowship with the aim to equip disciples of all nations for service in God’s Kingdom.

We have three core values at SIF:

1. Love God
   We seek to glorify God and enjoy Him forever through our worship—both gathered worship on Sundays and in our vocations throughout the week—and obedience to Christ according to God’s Word.

2. Love People
   We seek to be a global spiritual family that does life together through fellowship, discipleship, outreach and service. In these ways, we seek to be a blessing to the world as we witness to Christ and the Kingdom of God in word and deed.

3. Serve the Nations
   We seek to witness to Christ, make disciples, and equip leaders from all nations. Our church seeks to be an international, multicultural community in Christ that testifies to the power of the Gospel in bringing together a diverse group of people, ultimately to be sent back out to serve to all corners of the world.