The Laurel church of Christ is a group of people drawn together by a common faith in Jesus Christ and a love for each other. This common faith leads us to a worship of God as He directs and to a service in Christ's name, to God's children. We enjoy a free fellowship in that only those who choose to be are members of it and are added to it through obedience to God (Acts 2:47). We wear no name excep
t Christian: yet, we do not claim to have attained everything that name represents (Acts 11:26). We are a free, independent, self-governing congregation under Christ alone. He is the head(Colossians 1:18) with no denominational affiliation or earthly headquarters, though we recognize a particular closeness to other churches of Christ. We are free to study, teach and work as the bible directs (John 8:32) We do not support the denominational divisions of today and we pray for the time when all professed Christians will divest themselves of all humanly devised barriers and come into the unity of faith that is in Christ (1 Corinthians 10:17, Ephesians 4:1-6)
We carry on our work and worship as we understand the scriptures to teach. We observe the Lord's supper each Lord's Day according to the example set by the apostles and the first century church (Acts 20:7). Our music is the praise of our lips and hearts without mechanical accompaniment. Our prayers, largely spontaneous, are intended to be an acknowledgment of God's blessings and to express our gratitude to Him (Matthew 6:9-13). The proclamation of the word is given a prominent place (2 Timothy 4:1-2). We believe that in Christian worship God always speaks through His word and that we must be attuned to hear(Acts 17:11). Our giving is liberal, personal and proportionate of all that we have and are. The entire worship is planned, but not rigid through a humanly devised liturgy (1 Corinthians 14:40; John 4:24). Acceptance into the congregation is by baptism or by transfer of membership of a baptized believer from another congregation of the Lord's church. Those who are not yet Christians, as the bible defines Christians, are taught to believe in Jesus Christ with their whole heart, to repent of their sins, confess Christ with their mouth and be baptized into Christ for the remission of sins, just as those in the New Testament were taught to do (Romans 10:9-10; Acts 2:37-38; Galatians 3:26-27). We do not practice infant baptism. We follow the guide of immersion of believers, the baptism instituted by Jesus and practiced by the early church. Immersion symbolized the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the Christ; the death of the believer to self and sin, his burial of the old man, and his resurrection to a new life (Romans 6:3-9). We do not exist for selfish purposes. We exist to follow Him who came to minister to mankind and to give His life a ransom for many. We exist to bring honor and glory to Him by exercising a heartfelt obedience to His will (Ephesians 3:20-21). Our desire is to follow the Christ's world-wide commission to preach the gospel to all the lost (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-16). Our hope is His everlasting Kingdom and the resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:24). Our message is Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Our prayer is His "That they all might be one..." Our plea is for you to be in His Kingdom with no one between you and God but Him (1 Timothy 2:4-5). All are welcome to be part of this fellowship in Christ.
