What Kind Of Church Is Immanuel's Church?

thoughts by Charles P. Schmitt, founding pastor

Immanuel's Church is an evangelical church. By this we mean that the evangel, the good news of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, is to be clearly and continually held forth in the midst of all that we say or do. The necessity of a sincere commitment to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith is likewise continually urged upon all we come in contact with, in the confidence that those who do, by the grace of God, repent and believe the gospel, will be born anew by the Holy Spirit. Immanuel's Church, for this reason, is associated with the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) here in the U.S.A.

We believe that the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ is, therefore, composed of all those who have thus been “born again and washed in Jesus' blood”, and that our mission as an evangelical church is to help spread the knowledge of this saving grace of our God throughout the world and to see the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ built up in every place.

Immanuel's Church is likewise a deeper-life, Spirit-filled fellowship of believers. By “deeper-life” we mean that every believer in Christ, having been freely forgiven and justified by faith in Jesus' precious blood, is likewise called to be sanctified (or, made pure in heart) by God's grace, through faith in the inner work of the Spirit of Christ.

Consequently, we believe that every believer, having been regenerated by the Spirit of Christ, is to be filled (and filled to overflowing) with that same Holy Spirit. We believe the normal Christian life is the Spirit-filled life.

Out of respect for the authority of the Holy Scripture, which is the inspired Word of God, we not only expect to see the fruit of the Holy Spirit borne in our lives (Galatians 5:22,23), but also to see the empowering gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit operative in and through our lives (1 Corinthians 12:4-11,28) – all necessary to edify the church and to reach the lost.

Historically, therefore, we identify ourselves squarely with the apostolic church of the First Century, whose precepts and practices are faithfully recorded for us on the pages of the New Testament. We likewise historically identify ourselves with the cardinal Sixteenth Century Reformation doctrine of justification by faith through the merits of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the cardinal Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century restoration of the doctrine of sanctification by faith through the inner work of the Spirit of Christ, and with the cardinal Nineteenth and Twentieth Century restoration of the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

We identify ourselves with the Reformation-Holiness-Pentecostal-Charismatic River of grace that flows through the history of these restoration centuries, down to this present hour. This River of grace largely accounts for the current exponential growth of the Kingdom of God in the earth. And, it is within the banks of this great River of God's renewal, restoration and revival power that we, as a church, willingly and joyfully find ourselves moving.

This is the kind of church that Immanuel's Church is—and by the grace of God shall continue to be.