What We Believe

The core convictions we build our life together on — and the wider family of churches we belong to.

Where we stand

Lighthouse is a Bible-teaching, evangelical church in West Sacramento. What we believe isn’t complicated: God loves us, Jesus came to rescue us, and a life of following Him is the best life there is. Everything else we do — Sunday worship, kids and youth, small groups, serving our Southport neighbors — grows out of that.

We don’t work all of this out on our own. Lighthouse is part of The Evangelical Covenant Church, a family of churches that, from its earliest days, has kept asking one another two simple questions: How goes your walk with Jesus? and What do the Scriptures say? Those questions still shape how and what we believe today.

The heart of it

We believe in one God, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe Jesus is God’s Son — that He lived, died, and rose again so that anyone who trusts Him can be forgiven and made new. We believe the Bible is the word of God and our guide for faith and life. And we believe following Jesus is not a private idea but a shared life: worship, friendship, growth, and love spilling out into our community.

If you’re still working out who Jesus is, or what it even means to be a Christian, you’re in good company here. This is a church for people who are further along and for people just starting to ask the questions.

The Covenant Affirmations

The Covenant has never reduced faith to a long list of required doctrines. Instead it holds to six affirmations — convictions that have shaped Covenant churches from the beginning:

  • The centrality of the word of God. Scripture is the word of God and our rule for faith and living. We open the Bible not just to study it, but to meet the living Christ in its pages.
  • The necessity of the new birth. Faith is a living, personal relationship with Jesus. Each of us is invited into new life in Him — born again by God’s grace.
  • A commitment to the whole mission of the church. Sharing the good news of Jesus in word and deed — evangelism and compassion, mercy and justice, held together and never played off against each other.
  • The church as a fellowship of believers. The church is a family, not an institution — believers who walk together, carry one another’s burdens, and grow side by side. Membership is by confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ, open to all believers, and every believer shares in the ministry of the church. We observe the two sacraments Jesus commanded — baptism and Holy Communion — and practice both infant and believer baptism.
  • A conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit. We can’t live this life on our own strength. We lean on God’s Spirit for new life, for growth, and for the courage to love and serve.
  • The reality of freedom in Christ. On the essentials of the faith we stand together; on the secondary matters we extend one another freedom, love, and grace.

Evangelical, but not exclusive

The Covenant likes to describe itself as “evangelical but not exclusive, biblical but not doctrinaire, traditional but not rigid, congregational but not independent.” That’s a good picture of Lighthouse, too. We take the Bible seriously and we take Jesus at His word — and we do it as a welcoming, family church where honest questions are safe and no one has to have it all figured out to belong.

The wider family we belong to

The Covenant is a big family, and a growing one. We’re one of more than 150 churches across Arizona, California, Hawaii, and Nevada in the Pacific Southwest Conference — one of eleven regional conferences that together make up the denomination, more than 870 congregations across the United States and Canada, with ministry partnerships across five continents.

It’s also a movement on the move. Begun in 1885 by a handful of Swedish immigrants, the Covenant has grown into one of the most ethnically diverse denominations in North America — more than a third of its churches are now ethnic or multiethnic, and that diversity runs strongest among the newest ones. Over half of recent Covenant church plants are ethnic or multiethnic, and about 60% of the leaders planting them are people of color. It’s a picture of the church we love: many peoples, one family, drawn together by Jesus.

Our aim on this page is to point the way, not to say the last word. We’d encourage you to read these convictions in the church’s own words:

That family is close to home, too. We’re grateful for our sister churches around greater Sacramento — if one of them is nearer to you, go say hello:

Come see for yourself

Beliefs are best understood in person, around real people. If you’d like to see what this looks like on a Sunday morning, we’d love to meet you — find out what to expect or join us this Sunday at 10:30 in Southport, West Sacramento.