What We Believe

The following are the core beliefs of Surf Church Phillip Island based on the foundational truths taught in the bible. All of our teaching and ministry is rooted in and flows out of these biblical doctrines.

There is one God – creator of all things. He exists as three persons: Father, Son and Spirit. All are equal all are God. Like water, ice and steam all persons are of the same substance yet all have functions and characteristics of their own.

God the Father; He always was always is and always will be. His  character is both loving and just. He is all powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and exists outside of space and time. Yet He is closer than each heartbeat and He knows the number of hairs on our heads. (Psalm 139)

God’s only son, born into this world as fully God and fully man. Jesus lived a sinless life, died a horrific death on a cross and after three days He rose from the grave. In this miraculous extension of God’s grace, Jesus self-sacrificial love defeated death and made a way for us to be with Him forever.

The Holy Spirit is God’s own spirit living within us. The spirit is the same action of God the knitted all creation together and keeps planets in orbit and  oceans at bay through Its mighty action on the Earth. As we trust in Jesus, The Holy Spirit gives us an ability to understand the Bible and its message of love, forgiveness and redemption. It empowers us with spiritual gifts that build up the church and enables us to reflect God’s glory as we are transformed into His likeness.

The bedrock of our faith is the Bible. We believe it is God breathed. It is God’s authoritative word inspired by the Holy Spirit and penned by human hands. It is a love story of a God who would do the most incredible and self-sacrificial of things, time and time again, to win the hearts of His children.

We are created in God’s image, created for relationship and partnership, created for Eden.  But we fell, choosing to do it our way and leave God out of the picture. By doing this we chose destruction and death the consequences of an existence void of God. But in Gods eyes this isn’t the end of road for people. He says it himself “He wishes that none would perish.” (2 Peter 3:9)

The good news is that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him Jesus will not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16) It is totally God and nothing we do that enables us to be made right with Him, to restore that relationship and a chance for eternal life in His kingdom to come . The only path to freedom is to have faith in Jesus alone for our salvation, believing that He lived, died and rose again from the grave for our sake. As soon as we trust Jesus as Lord and Saviour and choose to follow Him as one of His disciples we are made right in God’s sight and welcomed into our destiny with Him. 

All people called by Jesus and all who respond are the Church. He is our head. We exist to glorify God through constant worship, fellowship and mission. We are Gods children, and together we are Gods family and our mission is to bring light to the darkness, hope to the hopeless and peace where there is trouble just like Jesus does. We do this by loving God and loving people and creating opportunities for people to start their life following Jesus too.

We believe that just like Jesus was we also will be resurrected, raised to life on the final day to spend all eternity with Him and each other. He's coming back for us and to establish his eternal kingdom here with us. What a glorious day that will be.