Doctrinal Statement

God

God is the self-existent, triune Creator who exists free from the limitations of space and time. He is one essence existing eternally in three distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These three persons are equal in essence yet subordinate in function. In his infinite essence, God is unlike anything in his created order; therefore, in his total fullness, he is fundamentally incomprehensible to the finite mind.

God the Father: He is the Supreme Cosmic Regent, the Great I AM, the Almighty, and the Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of all things. For those who are "in Christ," he is intimately experienced as our Heavenly Father and our Abba.
God the Son: He is eternally begotten of the Father. Jesus is God incarnate, Lord of all, and the promised Messiah. For those united with him "in Christ," he is our personal Lord, Savior, King, Passover Lamb, Chief Shepherd, and Great High Priest. He is God’s definitive revelation to us—the Living Word, "God with us"—providing direct and exclusive access to the Father. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He holds the keys to death and Hades, and he will return to judge the living and the dead, reigning over all created order alongside redeemed humanity.
God the Holy Spirit: He eternally subsists and proceeds from the Father and the Son. He is the Giver of Life, to be worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. To the world and unredeemed humanity, he convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment. To those he has regenerated and joined to Christ, he is our Comforter, Guide, and Advocate. The Holy Spirit indwells, converts, empowers, cleanses, and illuminates the written Word to us, serving as the divine seal and guarantee that we belong to Christ.

God’s Special Revelation

God has specially revealed himself to mankind through the Living Word, Jesus Christ, and through his written Word—the canon of the Holy Scriptures consisting of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. The Living Word is the center and focus of the written Word. The Holy Spirit uses this scriptural truth to regenerate man’s spirit so that, upon conversion, an individual places their faith in Christ and his atonement for salvation. God’s written Word is entirely God-breathed, inerrant, infallible, and sufficient. Pursuit of More Ministries stands in full agreement with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

Man

Man is the only creature uniquely fashioned in God’s image and formed directly by his hands, whereas the rest of creation was spoken into existence. Human beings are not primarily "thinking things"; first and foremost, God designed men and women to be lovers and worshippers. Mankind fell into sin by believing Satan’s lie: that self-dependence and self-reliance were a better and more satisfying payoff than full dependence and reliance upon God. Consequently, without divine intervention, humanity is trapped in disordered worship, tragically exchanging the pursuit of God’s love for the pursuit of power.

Salvation

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed in the Scriptures alone, for the glory of God alone. In the economy of salvation, God predestined and elected his children based on his sovereign foreknowledge before the foundation of the world. Within time and space, his effectual call softens the human heart, his Holy Spirit regenerates the spirit, and man responds in faith upon hearing the Word of God.

Through this faith, a person is justified. This means they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, converted, clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ, and cleansed of all sins—both those they have committed and those committed against them. Furthermore, they are adopted into divine sonship, made co-heirs with Christ, transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, and safely kept until they are glorified.

The Sacraments

Baptism

The New Covenant sacrament of baptism is to be administered by water through full immersion for the child of God, regardless of age. Because it follows genuine conversion and is commanded by our Lord, it is rightly understood as a believer’s first public act of obedience to Christ. This sacrament is properly administered under the care and authority of the local church.

Communion

The New Covenant sacrament of Communion (the Lord's Supper) is a vital means of grace for the believer. While the bread and cup do not physically transform into the literal body and blood of Christ, we still prefer a reformed view that Christ’s spiritual presence is genuinely experienced when partaking of the elements in faith alongside a local assembly of believers.

The Church

The Body and the Bride

The universal Church is comprised of all true followers of Jesus Christ. It is his body and is central to the advancement of his Kingdom. Christ stands as the sole Head of the Church, and every individual believer is a vital member of his body, which will ultimately be presented as his immaculate Bride upon his return.

The Church Assembled

Wherever two or three believers gather in the name of Jesus, they manifest a visible expression of Christ’s body. It is natural for these gatherings to become missional, redemptive communities, which frequently give birth to the formal institutions we recognize as local churches (ekklesia).

The Institution of the Church and Membership

The institutional local church is an outstanding expression of Christ’s body due to its consistent assembly, administration of the sacraments, diaconal care, scriptural instruction, mutual accountability, and historic perpetuity. Pursuit of More Ministries operates alongside local churches to serve, strengthen, and support them as an arm for discipleship and domestic mission, dreaming of the day when local churches are universally known as "grace centers."

While we highly encourage formal membership and healthy submission to church leadership for spiritual sanctification, we explicitly reject the following practices:

We do not believe that Christ-followers enter into a binding, mystical covenant with a specific local institution when they join its membership.
We do not believe church leaders have the authority to bind the consciences of members. Scripture. Leaders must encourage believers to let their consciences be bound by God’s Word alone. Moreover, we interpret Hebrews 13:7 to mean that church leaders have “an authority of counsel,” not an “authority of command.”
We do not believe church leaders possess the spiritual authority to dissolve or absolve a husband and wife from their one-flesh covenant of marriage. In cases of domestic violence or illegal activity that threatens the safety of the home, pastors must immediately involve civil authorities to ensure protection, seeking the restoration of safety so that, if possible, the family might eventually be preserved.
We do not believe church leaders have the right to absolve parents of their God-given role to love, provide for, and parent their underage children, even when those children are living in active rebellion.
We do not believe a local church or its denominational hierarchy holds authority over the institution of the home. It should never encourage families to view themselves as fragmented, disconnected parts, nor should it instruct a husband and wife to view their spiritual status as "brother and sister" as something that trumps their one-flesh marriage covenant. While we recognize the reality that some spouses may choose to stay home while their families attend church, these instances must not redefine the metrics of membership or override the clear domestic blueprints outlined in Acts 16, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Timothy 2:11-14, Titus 2:3-5, and 1 Peter 3:1-4.

Institutional Offices and Structure

The biblical offices of the local church are bishop (episkopos, overseer) and deacon (minister/servant). In alignment with early church history, we view the "bishop" primarily as an evangelistic overseer who cares for multiple congregations, and the "deacon" as a minister serving the practical and spiritual needs of a local flock.

Under this framework, the modern phenomenon of megachurches (frequently found in the Baptist tradition) can be understood as an expression of a lead pastor gifted heavily as a regional evangelist, effectively building a "city within a city" across multiple campuses.

Kingdom Roles and Elders

The fivefold ministry gifted to Christ’s body consists of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers (Ephesians 4:11-13). These functions manifest through three primary leadership expressions: overseers, elders, and shepherds. These leaders carry a broader Kingdom authority that originates from God, rather than merely holding an office within a human institution. While churches may formally recognize them, God's calling, spiritual gifting, and their personal formation as apprentices of Jesus are paramount.

Therefore, Pursuit of More Ministries does not subscribe to the common evangelical view that "overseer, elder, and pastor" are completely synonymous, strictly confined to a single local church building, or that the gifts of apostle, prophet, and evangelist have ceased. Vesting "keys to the Kingdom" exclusively in a local institutional board frequently reduces the diaconate to a token title, turns pastors into corporate executives, and tempts leaders to view the congregation as a workforce to serve them, rather than shepherding and loving their members well.

Church Formation and Renewal

While formal denominations and local works serve a structural purpose, history shows that the greatest movements of the Holy Spirit consistently bypassed entrenched religious and ecclesiastical hierarchies. This is evident in Christ’s own three-and-a-half-year ministry, the Protestant Reformation sparked through Martin Luther, and the Great Awakening led by John Wesley and George Whitefield.

The universal Church was born in power in Acts 1–2 (circa 33 A.D.) and saturated the known world until the death of John the Elder (circa 90 A.D.) and beyond. During this highly fertile sixty-year era, the body of Christ expanded rapidly because it fully unleased the fivefold ministry model prescribed by the Apostle Paul.

Collaborative Parish Model

Pursuit of More Ministries enthusiastically advocates for a collaborative "parish church model." In this framework, churches act as focal epicenters of healing and restoration for their local municipalities and community. Those entrusted with Kingdom authority should actively claim the advancement of God’s peace (shalom) over their defined geographic proximity.

By strategically leveraging and stewarding local assets—including commerce, local government, schools, charities, natural resources, and institutional wealth—the Church can spearhead holistic community renewal and human flourishing. This includes equipping intact nuclear families, reconciling broken homes, empowering the vulnerable, advocating for public policies that lift up all socio-economic classes, and revitalizing community infrastructure and architecture.

Covenant

Our God is fundamentally a God of covenant, best expressed through his hesed—his fiercely loyal, steadfast, and enduring love. God initiated historical covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel (through Moses), and David, culminating in the New Covenant.

Theologically, these unfold across two overarching frameworks:

The Adamic Covenant of Works (Pre-Fall)
The Adamic Covenant of Grace (Post-Fall)

The Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic, and New Covenants are unconditional, everlasting partnerships that align directly under the Covenant of Grace. Conversely, the Mosaic (or Sinaitic) Covenant was a conditional arrangement designed for a specific historical dispensation. Though rooted in God’s grace by "getting Israel in" to relationship, it demanded strict obedience for "staying in" to receive specific blessings (the seed, the blessing, and the land), while delineating severe curses for disobedience—namely exile and captivity. Because the Mosaic law’s purpose was to rein in Israel’s sins, its structural security required sustained human cooperation and obedience from the heart; it echoes the foundational conditions of the Covenant of Works.

However, the Mosaic Covenant still beautifully reflected God's grace by providing a sacrificial system for temporary atonement. As the New Testament demonstrates (particularly in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews), the Mosaic Law and its 613 statutes served its historical purpose and has been fulfilled and superseded by a better covenant: the New Covenant.

The singular difference-maker is the person and work of Jesus Christ—hallmarked by his substitutionary death and decisive triumph over sin, Satan, death, and hell—and the active ministry of the Holy Spirit who actualizes our union with Christ. Because we are spiritually married to Christ and indwelt by his Spirit, we are finally empowered from the inside out to fulfill the very heart of the Old Covenant law: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The Covenant of Marriage

The covenant of marriage between one man (irreducibly a biological male) and one woman (irreducibly a biological female) was permanently instituted by God in Genesis 2: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." As Christ affirms in the Gospels, "What God has joined together, let not man separate." God is the author, witness, and mediator of this bond.

Humanly speaking, marriage is the only formal biblical covenant an individual enters into with another human being. While our union with Christ makes us members of his New Covenant body, Scripture does not teach that a believer is in an officially binding covenant with a local church institution. A signed, mutually reciprocal agreement constituting local church membership does not trump or compromise the covenant of marriage. Well-meaning leaders who conflate local church compliance with New Covenant membership create a dangerous, unscriptural friction between the institution of the home and the institution of the church.

The Home

God’s "Plan A" for making disciples is the institution of the home and the nuclear family. Scripture explicitly entrusts parents—and specifically fathers—with the primary responsibility of teaching God's Word to their children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) and bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). This foundational task belongs to the home, not to public schools or churches.

The home functions best when Christ is the center of the marriage. Mirroring the ontological equality and economic subordination seen within the Trinity, a husband and wife are completely equal in value and personhood, yet they carry distinct, functional roles designed to put all four types of biblical love on display for their children.

Submission is not a sign of weakness or inferiority; it is a display of spiritual strength. Scripture commands husbands and wives to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ as a general posture. Within the divine economy of the home, wives are called to respect and submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, and husbands are commanded to sacrificially love, lead, protect, and provide for their wives, children, and households.

Eschatology and Hermeneutics

Pursuit of More Ministries holds to a historic premillennial view of eschatology. We believe Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly to gather his elect from the four corners of the earth toward the end of the tribulation period, establishing his literal 1,000-year millennial reign upon the earth.

Regarding our interpretive framework, we read the Old Testament through the illuminated lens of the New Testament (as modeled in the book of Hebrews), recognizing the New Testament Church as God's primary covenant community during this present age, while remaining expectant for Israel's future spiritual renewal. Furthermore, we value the canonical approach to hermeneutics championed by Brevard Childs, focusing on the finalized text of the biblical canon as a cohesive whole, while honoring the historical and cultural contexts that shaped the text according to the original authorial intent.