What is an Evangelical?
Being evangelical is not about politics or about belonging to a specific denomination, especially at ECC. There are evangelicals who are conservatives, liberals, libertarians, and just about every other political label you can think of. And there are evangelical Presbyterians, evangelical Methodists, evangelical Baptists, and evangelical Catholics.
Rather, evangelicals are people who do the following things:
- Look to the Bible as their ultimate guide for life and doctrine
- Believe that Jesus is the only hope of humanity -– that his life and death provide the only path to reconciliation with God
- Emphasize the need for a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ
- Believe that it is their responsibility and privilege to share the good news of Jesus with the world
In a way, you could say that evangelicalism is more about commitments than doctrines, though evangelicals affirm the historic core of Christian doctrine, including belief in the Trinity, the authority of Scripture, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The evangelical movement has roots in the revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries, but evangelicals also trace their lineage to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. You could go even further and connect evangelicalism to the early church, where its doctrinal core was expressed in statements such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.
The word “evangelical” has biblical roots, coming from the Greek word euangelion, meaning “good news.” So if you want to define Evangelical Community Church as the Good News Community Church, we won’t complain about that at all.