ABOUT US

We are a Scripture-guided, Sacrament-grounded, Spirit-gifted family of disciples living in union and on mission with Jesus to the glory of God the Father.

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Scripture

We are a Biblical church. We teach the Bible in various settings, understanding it to be the authoritative and infallible guide to faith and life for the church. We understand the Bible to be a great gift from God and thus one of our goals is to restore biblical literacy among the people of God.

 

Sacraments

We hold a high view of the sacraments. Sacraments are visible and tangible “means of grace” by which God makes his presence available to his people. In particular, we hold that God comes near in baptism and in the Lord’s Supper. We join with the church historic in proclaiming these events as moments of divine encounter.

 

Spirit

We seek to be a place of freedom for the Spirit to move. We know that the church cannot be what it is meant to be unless the Spirit of God is its energizing power. In this knowledge, we seek to empower every member to be a minister according to the Spirit’s gifting and we seek to make every gathering an occasion for the Spirit’s guidance.

 

Family

The New Testament envisions the church as a family, not as a business or a club or a classroom. To be a family, we understand that life must be lived together. Thus, we make it our aim to increasingly share life with one another in deep and meaningful ways, knowing that Christ is present among us as we are present to one another.

 

Living in Union with Jesus

We believe that union with Jesus stands at the heart of discipleship. We are not called merely to “be like” Jesus, but also to “be with” Jesus; we are not called merely to imitate Jesus’ behavior, but also to participate in his divine life. The three avenues of pursuit specified above (Scripture, Sacrament, and Spirit) are in fact three historic avenues by which the church has sought to live in union with Jesus. From such a union, a life of loving, obedient discipleship overflows.

 

Living on Mission with Jesus

To be with Jesus, we must join him on his mission. As a church, we are always seeking to understand what Jesus is doing in the city of Irving and across the globe so that we can participate with him. We believe that the light of Christ is the brightest light to ever shine in our world and consider it a great privilege to join with many other churches in spreading this light to a desperate world. You can check out some of the things we are currently doing here.

 

To the Glory of God

Our ultimate goal is to bring glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in all that we do. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen,” (Rom 11:36).

 

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A Word About Our Background

 

At present, Irving Church is an independent church with no denominational affiliation. Our background, however, is in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. With appreciation for the many good features of this movement and the many good people we have known within this movement, we decided a number of years ago to move away from direct identification with this fellowship. As an independent body, we are able to draw from the deep wells of historic and global Christianity in forming our identity, beliefs, and practices. In other words, we are free to learn from the various and rich expressions of Christianity down through the ages and to appropriate for our present context those things that seem good and biblical.

 

Ironically, by becoming an independent church, we believe that we are better able to align ourselves with one of the original goals of the Restoration Movement: to seek unity with all our fellow believers in Christ. This noble goal is a passionate commitment of Irving Church. We believe that the pervasive fragmentation of the body of Christ is a gross perversion of God’s intent and we are seeking to do our part to bring inter-denominational healing and reconciliation. Rather than trying to establish unity on the shaky grounds of thoroughgoing doctrinal agreement, we instead propose to live and work in harmony with all those who confess the basic Christian gospel and ecumenical creeds and who are striving to maintain basic Christian morality. In the much simpler terms of John Wesley, we say to all our orthodox brothers and sisters, “If your heart is as my heart, take my hand.”