What is Church?

What are Baptists?

Baptist churches are part of the mainstream protestant church movement and we believe in One God, revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  However, our unique characteristic is born of a belief in five principles in which this faith is expressed.

• From the beginning Baptists have believed that the church should be completely independent from secular power and thus able to be an authentic prophetic voice for Christ. Baptists have campaigned for everyone to have complete freedom of conscience and have gone to prison (and worse) for it. The only recognised authority for the church is the Bible and it is up to each fellowship to discern the will of God for them and are therefore solely accountable to God for who they are and what they do.

• We believe in Believers' Baptism. In keeping with freedom of conscience, faith must be real to the person and therefore it must be they who desire to be baptised. We take seriously the command of God, which states in the Bible that, we should believe and be baptised; no-one can do it for you.

• We delight in recognising and celebrating Communion as it powerfully reminds us of all that Christ did on the cross, of our constant need of each other and the truth that Jesus Christ will return to gather his church and bring sin and all it's consequences to an end.
• We believe in the gathered community of believers. The full expression of faith can only be found when we live out that faith as part of a local fellowship being accountable to one another and to Christ who is Lord over His church; for Faith is no abstract ideal but a lived reality.

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• We are not isolationist, but recognise and actively embrace Christ's wider church. We do this by associating with other Baptist Churches, principally under the umbrella of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, and through ecumenical relationships with other churches.