WHat we believe

What We Believe

Our faith is rooted in our beliefs as Christians laid out in the Book of Common Prayer. You can research more on your own or speak with Father Nathan to help guide you along your journey in faith. We are a proud to be a Parish of The Episcopal Church of the United States in the Diocese of Southwest Florida and a part of the Anglican Worldwide Communion. 

Like all churches, we are often asked, “What do you believe?” What Episcopalians believe is simple, to some extent, but not simplistic.

A true answer might be to say that we believe in God, in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and in the Holy Spirit.

But in our world today, full of division and uncertainty, many people find that simple answer unsatisfying. After all, don’t ALL Christians believe those things? People want to know precisely what a church believes about God, not just that we believe in God. People want to know specifics, so that they can decide if we’re “right” or “wrong,” if we have the right understanding, the right interpretation.

That is not how The Episcopal Church tends to approach faith and belief. Our list of “non-negotiable” points are very few, and largely shared with most every other Christian tradition. Those relatively few points are:

• There is one God, who is a Trinity of Persons.
• The First Person of the Trinity, traditionally called “Father,” created all things at the beginning of time.
• Jesus Christ, the very human rabbi from 2000 years ago, was and is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, and our Savior.
• The Holy Scriptures (the Bible) are the revealed word of God, written by human beings under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit, who is the Third Person of the Trinity. The Bible contains all things necessary for salvation.

Our worship (or “liturgy”) varies in style and outward appearance, according to the needs and tastes of each local community in its own place and time. But the basic format and structure of our liturgy is the same everywhere you go, and has its roots in the earliest known Christian communities. Our Sunday services are not essentially different from those recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and continually offered by Christians for the last two thousand years.