Belief is not simply knowledge we carry in our heads. It motivates how we show up in our community and live out our values. This page names what we believe as a shared foundation we stand on together as we seek God, practice love, and learn how to live faithfully in the world.
Providencia WPB is affiliated with ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
Providencia WPB affirms the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed.
ECO core values
Jesus-shaped Identity: We believe Jesus Christ must be at the center of our lives and making disciples of Jesus at the core of our ministry.
Biblical Integrity: We believe the Bible is the unique and authoritative Word of God, teaching all that is necessary for faith and life. The prominence of God’s Word over our lives shapes our priorities, and the unrivaled authority of the Bible directs our actions to be in concert with Christ’s very best for our lives.
Thoughtful Theology: We believe in theological education, constant learning, and the life of the mind, and we celebrate this as one of the treasures of our Reformed heritage.
Accountable Community: We believe guidance is a corporate spiritual experience. We want to connect leaders to one another in healthy relationships of accountability, synergy and care.
Egalitarian Ministry: We believe in unleashing the ministry gifts of women, men and every ethnic group.
Missional Centrality: We believe in living out the whole of the Great Commission—including evangelism, spiritual formation, compassion and redemptive justice—in our communities and around the world.
Center-focused Spirituality: We believe in calling people to the core of what it means to be followers of Jesus—what “mere Christianity” is and does—and not fixate on the boundaries.
Leadership Velocity: We believe identifying and developing gospel-centered leaders is critical for the church, and a great leadership culture is risk-taking, innovative and organic.
Kingdom Vitality: We believe congregations should vigorously reproduce new missional communities to expand the Kingdom of God.
Learn more about EOC
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Community and belonging
At Providencia, we want you to know that you don’t have to believe to belong here. Church is not a place for people who have it all figured out—it’s a family where questions, doubts, and searching are welcome.
We believe Jesus meets us where we are. Some come with deep faith, others with honest skepticism, and many somewhere in between. Our desire is not to pressure or perform, but to walk together as we discover more of who God is and what He has done through Jesus.
Belonging means you have a place at the table regardless of where you are on the spiritual journey. You are invited to worship with us, serve with us, ask hard questions, and build real relationships. Our hope is that, in time, you would experience the love of Christ through these experiences together—and come to know that God’s grace and love are present for us all.
If you have any follow up questions or would like to speak further about these values, contact one of our staff members or email us at info@providenciawpb.org.
Women in leadership
At Providencia, we often receive questions about how women and men participate in the life and leadership of the church. While Scripture speaks about many important matters, we address this here not because it overshadows those themes, but because it is an area of frequent curiosity and conversation in our community.
We believe that women and men are equally created in the image of God, sharing the same dignity, value, and worth. Equality does not mean sameness. God has given unique expressions of His goodness through both women and men, and together they reflect His beauty more fully than either could alone.
When it comes to leadership, we believe God calls people on the basis of grace, character, gifting, and obedience to Jesus. Because of this, we affirm that women and men alike are called to lead, preach, pastor, and serve. We believe the church flourishes most when women and men minister side by side, sharing the work of shepherding God’s people.
For this reason, we embrace and celebrate the leadership of both women and men in every role of the church, including the role of elder. This is not simply permitted—it is a joy and a conviction we hold, trusting that God designed His church to thrive through the gifts and voices of both women and men together.
Sexuality
Sexuality is a tense topic to discuss in our world and is also a critical aspect of the human experience. Rather than putting out a statement of beliefs stating a list of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”, we wanted to share values that we believe creates a pathway of integration leading towards wholeness, holiness and embodied faith and sexuality. Rather than focusing on the “what” to do, we wanted to look at the “why” and “how.”
As an act of clarity, it is important to disclose that we are part of a denomination which holds to a traditional view of marriage as a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman. As a local community, our church is made up of people with a wide range of views and beliefs.
It’s very possible you may feel uncomfortable with some of these statements. Or you may wish we had stated something that we haven’t. We invite you into curiosity when discomfort arises to look at what is bringing it up.
These values encourage us to know our sexual stories (where we are and what led us here) and see the goodness that God desires for us to experience in our sexualities.
Our guiding values
God cares about our sexual ethics and our bodies.
Sexuality and gender reflect the Image of God in humanity.
God intended sex to emphasize dignity, build intimacy, for pleasure, and bring about life. Sadly, sex can also be a vessel of degradation, isolation, shame and violence.
Healthy sexuality flourishes within commitment, boundaries, and faithfulness.
Sex and marriage are limited parts of the human experience but intimacy is not.
Our desires are not always meant to be satisfied in the ways we would initially want them to be. Curiosity about our desires can lead us to understand our stories and move toward growth.
God’s sexual ethics for our lives are meant for our flourishment and God’s glory. At the same time, none of us live out our convictions perfectly, but God’s presence in our lives is not contingent on our perfection.
Vulnerability and honesty in a safe community is a valuable tool to combat shame in our sexuality.
The weaponization of the truth to control others’ bodies is one of the greatest dangers to the Gospel and how it is lived out within us.
As a church, we are committed to create spaces of safety, honesty, and curiosity within our diverse community that empowers us to faithfully love God, others and ourselves.
Diversity
We believe diversity exemplifies God's creativity and the richness of God's Image reflected in us all. Diversity is not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be received. Every person is worthy of dignity, belonging, and care regardless of their background.
We believe the Church is at its best when it becomes a community where people do not have to erase parts of themselves to belong. Unity does not require sameness. Faithfulness does not demand uniformity. Instead, we are formed together as we learn to listen across differences and practice love that makes room for one another.
We believe diversity shapes our spiritual formation. It challenges our assumptions, exposes our blind spots, and expands our imagination for who God is and what God is doing in the world. Following Jesus draws us toward people who are different from us, not away from them.
At Providencia, we commit to cultivating a community where difference is honored, voices from the margins are taken seriously, and love is practiced with courage and compassion. We do not believe diversity weakens the Church. Instead, it reveals the breadth of God’s Kingdom.
Sin, shame, and dignity
We can all agree that the world we live in is not as it should be, stuck in cycles of violence, addiction, heartbreak and loneliness. Sin is simply a spiritual word that names this system of harm and isolation. It names the ways we become disconnected from God, from one another, and from our own true selves. The ways we protect our fragmented hearts through addiction, indulgence, and selfishness.
We believe shame is a root cause of the harmful cycles our world is stuck in. Shame tells us that we are the problem, that our very selves are defective, unlovable, or beyond repair. Shame drives us into hiding, secrecy, and isolation. We believe shame is a spiritual and relational force that keeps people from God rather than drawing them closer.
We believe dignity is not something we earn or lose. It is never erased by sin, failure, or brokenness. Even in our most painful places, God does not withdraw love or turn away in disgust. In Jesus, we see a God who moves toward a fractured world with love and compassion.
At Providencia, we seek to be a community where the dark parts of our hearts can be named honestly, healing can happen safely, and dignity is fiercely protected. We believe spiritual formation happens not through fear or control, but through being seen, known, and loved into wholeness.