Our Identity
Metrolina Church gathers regularly in homes, restaurants, clubhouses and schools for worship, discipleship and fellowship. We are a group of Jesus followers who, TOGETHER, are committed to loving God, loving others, and making disciples. Our House Churches exist to praise God together, study and proclaim His Word together, disciple one another, love one another, share meals and life with one another, and care for the poor, elderly, vulnerable, sick, and dying together. We laugh together, cry together, and serve God together in our community and around the world. We forgive one another, are patient with one another, and challenge one another to love Jesus with all our hearts.
Our Mission
House Church is not a “one-day-per-week” church meeting, but a LIFESTYLE of following Jesus together. The Book of Acts describes church like this: “believers met together constantly,” “shared their meals with great joy and generosity,” “the building where they were meeting shook,” “many miraculous signs and wonders,” “believers greatly increased.” What Christian wouldn’t want to experience that?!
Does “going” to a house church “guarantee” this? Not at all! BUT House Church life IS about pursuing what God intended the church to be: which is not a PLACE or a one hour per week feel-good experience, but a loving-God-and-others LIFESTYLE.
Our Mission includes: Weekly House Church Gatherings (8-16 people)
“And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Messiah is Jesus.” (Acts 5:42)
o Praying Together (Acts 1:14) They all met together and were constantly united in prayer. Praying for one another and over one another is a primary focus of the church. We get to know one another and disciple one another more deeply when we pray for one another in community.
o Worshipping Together (Acts 2:46-47) "They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity — all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved." The House Church model allows everyone to participate in worship, not just a few people on stage. For example, you could:
▪ Express appreciation & gratitude for what God has/is doing in your life
▪ Confess our sins, our lack, and our need of Christ Jesus
▪ Declare His attributes
▪ Declare His promises
▪ Speak words of praise and worship toward God
▪ Speak words of love and affection toward God
▪ Read a psalm
▪ Sing a worship song or hymn
The power of house church is that each one can bring something to contribute. As each one looks for something that leads others to worship, the whole body of Christ is greatly built up.
o Learning Together (Acts 2:42) "All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer." House Church allows you to move from a "presentation” teaching format where only one person does all the teaching/talking to a “participatory” format in which every person engages in the process of digging into Scripture and drawing out truth from God’s Word. This is encouraged by having a daily Bible reading plan for everyone to follow during the week and then discussing at our House Church gatherings how God spoke to us through our daily scripture reading.
o Sharing Meals Together (Acts 2:42) "All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer." We enjoy a simple shared meal every week in which we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Jesus designed the Lord’s Supper to be an intimate act of remembering His broken body and shed blood. But Communion is not just about intimacy with Jesus; it’s also about intimacy with one another. Jesus gave this command to the church right after He had washed the disciples’ feet and commanded them to love one another just as He loved them. It was immediately after this that He told them to remember His broken body and blood as a reminder of HOW He loved them. As we share Communion together and look around the room, we should be asking ourselves, “Am I willing to love the people in this room to that extent?” Our love for Jesus and for one another should make us willing to literally go to the cross for one another.
o Sharing the Gospel with Others (Acts 20:21) "I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus . . ." We are encouraged and equipped to share the saving message of Jesus to our family, friends, neighbors and world. We do this individually by inviting people to "come and see," by praying for the lost, and by sharing our story of how Jesus changed our life. We do this corporately through community outreach events, feeding the poor and vulnerable, and by supporting and participating in mission work around the world.
Our Beliefs
Metrolina Church Statement of Faith
3.1 The Scriptures. We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as originally written were God-breathed, both verbally and in every part. We believe God, Who is Truth, communicated through Spirit-controlled men so that the Scriptures are without error and authoritative in all they teach. We believe the Bible is the supreme revelation of God’s will for man and constitutes the only infallible guide for faith and life.
3.2 The Trinity. We believe there is one, and only one, true and living God; that there is indivisible unity in the Godhead, yet existing in three separate persons-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-equal in every divine perfection, of the same essence and executing distinct, but harmonious, offices in the great work of both creation and redemption.
3.3 God the Father. We believe God, the Father, is spirit infinite, eternal and unchangeable in all of His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. He is the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of the universe, Giver of all life in sovereign authority over all created beings, the Keeper over the nation Israel and the Father and Disciplinarian of His chosen in Jesus Christ.
3.4 The Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary as no other man was ever nor can be born of a woman. He is fully God, being “God manifest in the flesh.” He lived a life of absolute sinlessness and in His death made a full and vicarious atonement for our sins, dying not as a martyr, but as a voluntary substitute in the sinner’s place. He rose bodily from the dead on the third day and ascended into heaven where He now sits at the right hand of the Father as our High Priest, interceding and preparing a place for us. He shall appear in the air to rapture His saints, and after seven years, shall come again with the saints to set up the throne of David and establish His millennial kingdom.
3.5 The Holy Spirit. We believe that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person possessing all the attributes of personality and deity. He is equal with the Father and the Son and is of the same nature. His relation to the unbelieving world is that He convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment. He is the agent of the new birth, and His work among believers includes His sealing, indwelling, infilling, guiding and teaching them the ways of righteousness. There is a new and unique work of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Body of Christ. We believe that the Holy Spirit fills and empowers believers with service gifts.
3.6 Man. We believe the Scriptures teach that man was created by a direct act of God and not from any previously existing form of life; and that all men are descended from the historical Adam and Eve, first parents of the entire human race. By voluntary sin man fell from his sinless state, in consequence of which all men are now sinners by nature and by choice, utterly devoid of the holiness required by God’s law, positively inclined to evil, and under just condemnation to eternal judgment and everlasting existence separated from God without defense or excuse.
3.7 Satan. We believe the Scriptures teach that there is a personal devil, a created angel who through pride became the enemy of his Creator. Satan is “the god of this age” and “the prince of the power of the air,” who seeks continually to frustrate the purposes of God and to ensnare the sons of men, and who was conquered by Christ on the cross and condemned to everlasting punishment in the Lake of Fire.
3.8 Salvation. We believe the Scriptures teach that Christ died for the whole world and that salvation of sinners is divinely initiated, wholly of grace, and accomplished only through the mediatorial work of the Son of God. It is wholly apart from works and is upon the sole condition of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and never without genuine repentance. In order to be saved, the sinner must be born again, personally receiving Christ as Savior, being regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Him and becoming the recipient of a new nature. The great gospel blessing which Christ secures to believers is justification, that judicial act of God accompanied by the pardon of sin and the imputation of divine righteousness, solely through faith in the Redeemer’s death and resurrection. The true believer that has received Christ is eternally secure.
3.9 The Church. We believe the Scriptures teach that the Church of Jesus Christ began at Pentecost and will be completed at the Rapture. It must be considered in two aspects; the “local” church and the “universal” church. The local church is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by a covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel, observing the ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws and exercising the gifts, right and privileges invested in them by His Word. The Scriptural officers are pastors, elders, and deacons, whose qualifications, claims, and duties are defined in the epistles to Timothy and Titus.
3.10 Baptism and Communion. We believe the Scriptures teach that Christian baptism is the single immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem his identification with the crucified, buried, risen Savior, thus illustrating the believer’s death to sin and his resurrection to a new life. It is a prerequisite to membership in a local church. We believe that communion is the commemoration of His death until He comes and should be preceded by self-examination and confession of known sin. We believe every believer has been given the authority of Jesus Christ to conduct and participate in these ordinances and their exercise is not the sole right of the clergy to carry out (Matthew 28:18-20).