“Faith is not about information, it’s about trust in someone. It’s as if you were caught in the darkness of the hold of some sinking ship, and someone you can’t see is shouting instructions as to where you should step next. The Bible says faith means trusting that person; trusting his work as true and acting in light of those words.”

— Steve Constable / Senior Pastor

What does Stony Point Church believe?

We believe that we are sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope without His mercy. The gospel is the good news that God has rescued us from our sin, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GOSPEL

The way we put our faith into practice and represent it to our family members, neighbors, the city of Richmond, and our American culture can be described as “gospel centered.” What does a gospel-centered church look like?

How do we put our faith into practice at SPC?

Empowered Worship

The gospel changes our relationship with God from one of hostility or rule following to one of intimacy and joy. The core dynamic of gospel-centered ministry is worship and prayer. In worship, we experience the worth and beauty of God, and then give back to God suitable expressions of His worth. At the heart of worship is a message based on a Bible passage. The preaching should explain the text of Scripture and bring our focus to Christ and his work of salvation.

Evangelistic Effectiveness

We welcome skeptics, doubters, critics and searchers. We have a vision for a church that transforms lives — rich and poor, highly educated and less educated, men and women, old and young, married and single, secular and religious, liberal and conservative, and all races. A gospel–centered church should find people in its midst who are exploring and trying to understand Christianity.

Doing Justice and Mercy

God is concerned not only for the salvation of souls but also for the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice. The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unearned gift from God. Therefore the person who does not generously give away his or her wealth to others is not merely lacking in compassion, but is unjust. Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, and comes to wealth through giving all away. We cannot look at the poor and the oppressed and callously call them to pull themselves out of their own difficulty. Jesus did not treat us that way. Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace.

The Integration of Faith and Work

The good news of the Bible is not only about individual forgiveness but the renewal of the whole creation. Christians glorify God not only through worship, but also through their vocations of agriculture, art, business, government, scholarship — all for God’s glory and the furtherance of the public good. Too many Christians have learned to seal off their faith from the way they work in their vocation. We have a vision for a church that equips its people to think out the implications of the gospel in everything they do. Such a church will not only support Christians’ engagement with culture, but will also help them work with excellence and accountability in their trades and professions.

Counter-Cultural Community

Because the gospel removes both fear and pride, people should get along inside the church who could never get along outside. Because the gospel points us to a man who died for his enemies, it creates relationships of service rather than of selfishness. Because the gospel calls us to holiness, the people of God live in loving bonds of mutual accountability and discipline.

The gospel creates a community radically different from any society around it. Regarding sex, the church should avoid both the secular society’s idolization of sex and traditional society’s fear of it. Regarding the family, the church should affirm the goodness of marriage, but also the goodness of serving Christ as singles, whether for a time or for a life. Regarding money, the church should share radically with one another and also with the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, and the economically and physically weak. Regarding power, the church should be visibly committed to power sharing and relationship building among races, cultures, classes, and generations. Each church should seek to reflect the diversity of its local community, both in the congregation at large and in its leadership.