Our Beliefs

We Are

Bartow Cumberland

         Presbyterian Church

A congregation within the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Cumberland Presbyterians. Cumberland Presbyterians grew out of the old Presbyterian Church on the American frontier, as the result of differences over theology, ministerial education, methods of ministry, and the Great Revival of 1800.

Presbyterian in government. We have four units of government: session, presbytery, synod, and General Assembly.

Evangelical. We believe salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ and that we have been commissioned to preach this good news to all the world.

A warm and welcoming congregation. We invite everyone to worship, study the scriptures, and serve our risen Lord with us.

​The Living God. By the word and action God invites everyone into a covenant relationship. God promises to be faithful to the covenant and to make all who believe his people All who respond with trust and commitment to God's invitation find the promise sure and rejoice in being members of God's people, the covenant community.

The Trinity. We believe in God as Creator and Caretaker, in Jesus Christ as divine Savior and Lord, and in the Holy Spirit as God present and at work everywhere in creation.

The Bible as holy scripture. God inspired persons of the covenant community to write the scriptures and they are the infallible rule of faith and practice, and the authoritative guide for Christian living.

Sin. Human beings disobey God, like Adam and Eve, and are in need of spiritual rebirth. Everyone rebels against God, rejecting their dependence on God, lose right relationship to God, and become slaves to sin and death. This condition becomes the source of all sinful attitudes and actions. The alienation of persons from God affects the rest of creation, so that the whole creation stands in need of God's redemption.

Salvation. God initiates salvation, sending the Holy Spirit to all persons, calling us to repentance and faith. "Whoever believes" is redeemed. Persons are set into right relations with God by faith, and not by works.  Salvation is a gift of God's grace, not something we earn or deserve.

The assurance of salvation. Once God made covenant with us, we will never totally fall away from the state of grace, nor withdraw permanently from God. God never forsakes us, and continually works to maintain the relationship. Believers who seek to know and to do the will of God, and who live in him as he lives in them may in this life be assured of salvation and thus rejoice in the hope of fully sharing the glory of God.

The Two Sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Sacraments are not essential to salvation but are central to Christian worship. The validity of the sacraments does not depend on the mode. All believers are welcome to the table of the Lord's Supper.

The Church. Our denomination is a part of the Church of which Christ is the head and all believers in Christ are a part. We believe in cooperation with all who accept Jesus as Christ and Lord.

The Death and The Resurrection. Eternal life is a gift from God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The Last Things. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church accepts what the Bible says about heaven and hell.