One: Believers want to know and obey God; therefore the issue of ministry is to remove obstacles and provide opportunity to know and obey God. Effectiveness in ministry depends on a single focus on Jesus. Ministry is effective when specific.

Two: Personal sanctification and right living come through the process of identity which is the result of a relationship rather than the process of law. Our aim in working with people is to convince them of biblical values that will ultimately change their behavior.

Three: The quality of our lifestyle leads to quantitative growth. Reaching people should be a natural result of a quality lifestyle. 

Four: Entering Christ’s rest releases us from all "outer" pressure to conform to a standard of excellence and produces an "inner’ motivation to enjoy and express the excellence of Jesus’ life. 

Five: Suffering is a part of life. For the Christian, it can become the path of knowing Christ better. It is not necessarily a manifestation of lack of faith or evidence of sin. 

Six: Church order is based on the kingdom principle of mutual submission - structure, order and authority. 

Seven: Our view of God must be: that He is for us and not angry with us (reconciliation); that He has forgiven us (justification); that He has received us (redemption); and that He has changed us and is now helping us to realize it (sanctification). 

Eight: The kingdom of God - not self-preservation and perpetuation - is the primary vision of church life. This higher vision will eliminate sectarianism and release us to enjoy the spiritual unity of all believers. The church is a living organism, and each local expression is free to have differing forms of style and personality best suited to that particular group. 

Nine: Church life should equip people to manifest the kingdom as Jesus described it. The move is toward a "people-centered" ministry rather than a "staff-oriented" ministry. 

Ten: The kingdom conflict is a reality that cannot be escaped. There are opposing kingdoms - Christ’s and Satan’s. This conflict will be manifested regularly for those who take the kingdom of God seriously. 

Eleven: All true ministry is directed by the Holy Spirit. He is the source of our ability to minister and is free to do His special, and sometimes surprising, work in the church. His work is not always spectacular, is never manipulative, but is always supernatural. 

Twelve: Our personal devotion should be a priority of life characterized by intimacy. This intimacy involves communication with Him, both speaking and hearing (enjoying and expressing Him). 

Thirteen: The ministry of healing takes place in an atmosphere of love and acceptance. Love is the primary foundation for healing in all dimensions. (Placing expectations or preconceived actions upon others works against healing.) 

Fourteen: Our public gathering time will be our primary method for equipping and counseling. The primary responsibility for fellowship and personal growth rest with the individual. (We believe something happens in the way of healing when the body worships and interrelates, something that doesn’t occur in a staff-to-member counseling relationship. Counseling takes place each time we meet. Health is found in the presence of Jesus.) We meet to celebrate, congregate and care. 

Fifteen: Worship is vital and brings us into the manifest presence of God. (Worship shows appreciation for the blood, applause for our King, adoration for our Lord and acceptance of our Savior. Our expressions are responses to His revelation.) 

Sixteen: Missions will be a natural outgrowth of a healthy relationship born through the grace of God. (The Holy Spirit produces a thoroughly spiritual and genuinely natural person.) 

1. The purpose of Restoration Fellowship of Pagosa Springs is to worship God in spirit and in truth and glorify Him by proclaiming and representing Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6; Philippians 2:16);

2. To bring about restoration of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission as God intends it to be for this generation (John 13:34, Matthew 28:19-20);

3. To help restore back to the Church (the body of Christ) those truths that have been forgotten, neglected, resisted or stolen (Acts 3:17-21);

4. To carry on the commission of Jesus Christ to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to set the captives free, to heal the sick, to proclaim that now is the time to act (Luke 4:18-19).

1. We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as being verbally inspired by God and completely inerrant in the original writings and of supreme and final authority in faith and life.
Matthew 5:17-18                II Timothy 3:16
Luke 24:27, 44                 II Peter 1:21 John 10:35

2. We believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:18-19               Acts 5:3-4
Mark 12:29                    Hebrews 1:1-4
John 6:27                     II Corinthians 13:14

3. We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary and is true God and true man.
Matthew 1:16, 20-25           John 11:35
Luke 2:40, 52                Philippians 2:5-8
Luke 7:48

4. We believe that man was created in the image of God; that he sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but also that spiritual death which is separation from God; and that all human beings are born with a sinful nature and in the case of those who reach moral responsibility, become sinners in thought, word and deed.
Genesis 1:26                     Psalm 51:5
Genesis 2:17                     Romans 3:10-19
Genesis 6:5                      Romans 8:6-7
Psalm 14:1-3                     Ephesians 2:1-3

5. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, and that all who believe in, trust in and rely upon Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood.
John 1:29                          Romans 3:25-26
John 3:16                          II Corinthians 5:21

6. We believe in the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His ascension into Heaven, and His present life for us as High Priest and Advocate.
John 20:20                         Hebrews 7:25
Acts 1:9-11                        I John 2:1

7. We believe in "that blessed hope," the personal and imminent return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. (The church’s official position is the pre-millennial return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but this is not a condition of membership.)
John 14:1-3                 I Thessalonians 4:13-18
I Corinthians 15:51-57          Revelation 20:4-6

8. We believe that all who receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ are born of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God and are transformed into a totally new creation in Christ Jesus. We believe that they can have assurance of that relationship, the transformation and of having eternal life.
John 1:12                         Romans 8:28-39
John 10:28-30                     Titus 3:5
Acts 16:31                        Luke 24

9. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the justified and of the unjustified; the everlasting blessedness of the saved; and everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.
Luke 16:19-26                      II Thessalonians 1:7-9
John 5:25-29                       Revelation 20:11-15

10. We believe that the Holy Spirit has endowed upon the Body of Christ all the spiritual gifts for the manifest work of God’s presence, power, holiness and glory to advance the gospel of His Kingdom.
Acts 1:8                     Romans 12:3-9
I Corinthians 12:1-11             Ephesians 4:7-13

11. We believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to anoint believers with power for service and for holiness, to work the full gospel in His Kingdom. One may receive many fillings of the Spirit of God to manifest His power, presence, holiness and glory. The evidence will be according to the Word of God.
Acts 1:8                            Acts 11:15-17
Acts 2:1-4                          Acts 19:4-7
Acts 2:42-43                        Galatians 5:16-26
Acts 8:14-17                        Ephesians 5:17-18
Acts 10:44-48

12. We believe that Divine Healing is the manifest power of Christ to heal the sick in answer to the prayer of faith.
James 5:14-16                      Isaiah 53:5
Mark 16:18                        I Peter 2:24
Matthew 8:17

13. We believe in the ministry of Deliverance of demonic spirits in accordance with the teaching practice of Jesus to advance His Kingdom and set the captives free.
Matthew 10:1, 8                    Luke 4:18-19
Mark 16:17                        Luke 9:1-2

14. We believe that water baptism demonstrates our identity with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the outward demonstration of a person’s faith in Jesus that brings a person to repentance and conversion to Christ.
Matthew 28:19-20                  Colossians 2:8-15
Acts 8:38                         Romans 6:1-4
Acts 16:31-34

15. We believe that all the promises of God are "Yes" and "Amen" in Christ Jesus and that we can enjoy the benefits of His promises directly, to the degree that we are able to receive them by faith.
II Corinthians 1:19-20              Hebrews 11:1
Hebrews 6:11-15

 COVENANT OF FELLOWSHIP

By the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we covenant to make it our goal:

1. To walk together in Christian love.

2. To exercise Christian care and watchfulness over one another.

3. To pray with and for one another, sharing our burdens, sorrows and joys.

4. To be thoughtful and courteous to one another, to be slow to anger, and to be quick to forgive and to seek forgiveness. We're to comfort those we forgive.

5. To guard the spiritual and scriptural purity, peace and prosperity of the Church and its growth in scriptural knowledge and godliness.

6. To assist, as the Lord enables, in the work of the Church and to promote its usefulness as a witness to the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus.

7. To contribute, as the Lord directs, to the financial support of the Church, the relief of the needy and the evangelization of all people.

8. To love and to pray for all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

9. To engage individual and/or family devotions where possible.

10. To bring up such children as may be entrusted to our care in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

11. To walk circumspectly in the world, to provide things honest in the sight of all men, to be faithful in engagements, exemplary in deportment, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts.

12. To endeavor by example, by word and by prayer to win others to an acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." (I John 1:7).

13. To be filled with the Holy Spirit and to walk in the Spirit at all times.

14. To carry out the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-30; Mark 16:15-18).

Adopted 2006