What We Believe:
With Christians of other communions we confess belief in the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We hold in common with all Christians a faith in the mystery of salvation in and through Jesus Christ.

We share the Christian belief that God's redemptive love is realized in human life by the activity of the Holy Spirit - both in personal experience and in the community of believers.
We understand ourselves to be a part of Christ's universal Church, when by adoration, proclamation, and service, we become conformed to Christ. With other Christians, we recognize that the reign of God is both a present and a future reality.

We share with many Christian communions a recognition of the authority of Scripture in matters of faith, the confession that our justification as sinners is by grace through faith, and the sober realization that the church is in need of continual reformation and renewal.
With other Christians, we declare the essential oneness of the church in Jesus Christ.

John & Charles Wesley were the founders of the Methodist Movement within the Anglican Church in England during the 18th century. This movement emphasized works of piety (working with the Holy Spirit to grow in personal relationship with God) and works of mercy (working with the Holy Spirit to help others grow in relationship with God by addressing their spiritual and physical needs). The doctrines and beliefs that came from John (and his brother Charles) through this movement have become the Wesleyan Doctrines of the United Methodist Church.

Grace: this is the unmerited favor and love of God which we all experience. In simpler terms, this is the love that God has for all of us, even though we do not deserve it because of our sinful nature. John Wesley believed that this one grace affects us in primarily three (3) different ways (Prevenient Grace, Justifying Grace, & Sanctifying Grace).

Prevenient Grace -
This is the divine love of God that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses and actions. This is the action of God taking the initiative to pursue a relationship with us and urging us to turn towards God (repent) so that we may be delivered from the bondage of sin and death through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We need God's initiative, because our human state prevents us from being able to turn to God on our own.

Justifying Grace - Justification and Assurance -
We believe God reaches out to the repentant believer with a grace of accepting and pardoning love. In justification, we are, through faith alone, forgiven and restored to God's favor through the action and example of Jesus Christ. As justifying text within a document puts all the words in line, justifying grace puts us "in line" with God.

Sanctifying Grace - Sanctification and Perfection -
We hold that the wonder of God's acceptance and pardon does not end God's saving work. Rather, through the action of the Holy Spirit, God continues to nurture our growth in grace in a continual journey toward "having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked." John Wesley would say this is our "going on to perfection" through the work of the Holy Spirit. The idea behind sanctifying grace is that God loves us just the way we are but too much to let us stay the same! God's sanctifying grace changes us and leads us to faith and good works. Just as a one-sided marriage fails, a one-sided relationship with God fails, also. We must participate in the relationship God offers us, and God's sanctifying grace leads us to do that.

Faith and Good Works –
We see God’s grace and human activity working together in the relationship of faith and good works. God’s grace calls forth human response and discipline as appropriate signs of faith. This can be seen through works of piety (our working with the Holy Spirit to grow in personal relationship with God) and works of mercy (our working with the Holy Spirit to help others grow in relationship with God by addressing their spiritual and physical needs).
Mission and Service -
We insist that personal salvation always involves Christian mission and service to the world. Scriptural holiness entails more than personal piety. Love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice, and renewal in the life of the world.
Nurture and Mission of the Church - Finally, we emphasize the nurturing and serving function of Christian fellowship in the church. The worshipping community nourishes the personal experience of faith.

-From The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church