About Us - Who We Are
Crossview Covenant Church is a community of disciples of Jesus Christ in the Mankato community located in south central Minnesota. As a body of believers we focus on our relationship with Jesus Christ, love for one another and preach from the Word of God. We have always had a focus on children and the youth, however we strive to serve the needs of everyone in our congregation. Our worship services feature contemporary music. You are welcome to join us as we respond to God's call on our lives, belong in fellowship and become mature disciples of Jesus Christ. We have a dedicated staff who seeks to serve the congregation and discover God's will for our community together. For more on the Evangelical Covenant of America denomination In addition, here is handy information on our community Mankato, Minnesota Crossview Covenant Church Beliefs
Covenant Affirmations (values that inform our denomination) Our church is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church of America denomination. Appreciating this classical Christian heritage and hungering for a vital experience of new life in Christ,we affirm a number of evangelical affirmations. Among these are: 1) The centrality of the Scriptures. The Old and New Testaments are the authoritative Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. We believe it is essential to the life of the Church that it be a company of people who want, above all else, that their lives be shaped by the powerful and living Word of God. The alternative is clear. Not to be shaped by the Word is to be shaped by the world. 2) The necessity of the new birth for entrance into God's kingdom, and the importance of continuing growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ for sound spiritual health. Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without beingborn again. John 3:3 TNIV). He also said, "If you hold to my teachings you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" John 8:31 -32 TNIV). 3) A commitment to the whole misson of the church. We have always been involved in missions both home and abroad. We understand that to involve evangelism, Christian formation as well as benevolent ministries of compassion and justice. We seek to follow the great commision (go and make disciples) and the great commandment (love your neighbor as yourself). 4) The Church is a fellowship of believers, characterized by mutual participation in and sharing of the new life in Christ. Membership is by confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. It is open to all believers. Considerations of class or race, education or pedigree, wealth or prestige do not enter. Uniformity in creedal details is not expected. What is required is that one have "new birth into aliving hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3 TNIV). "The doors of the church are wide enough to admit all who believe and narrow enough to exclude those who do not," said our forebears. We affirm no less today. 5) The ministry of the Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son calls the Church into being, empowers its witness, guides its mission, and supplies the gifts needed by the Church and its members to exalt Christ. 6) The reality of freedom in Christ, who delivers us from the power of sin and moves us by his grace into a whole new experience of obedience and life. This freedom creates an ecclesiastical climate which allows for differences of opinion in matters of interpretation, doctrine, and practice within the context of biblical guidelines and historical Christianity. Such freedom "is to be distinguished from the individualism that disregards the centrality of the Word of God and the mutual responsibilities and disciplines of the spiritual community" (Preamble to the ourConstitution). Summary Affirmations like these are not to be taken as creedal statements. They are rather to be understood as true and valid descriptions of what we believe and cherish as they continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of God, awaiting that day when "the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and hewill reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 11:15 TNIV). A fuller exposition of these principles is available in the Covenant Publications booklet "Covenant Affirmations."
Christian Foundations (historic roots) The Covenant has its roots in historical Christianity as it emerged in the Protestant Reformation, in the biblical instruction of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, and in the great spiritual awakenings of the nineteenth century. Apostolic We are an apostolic church. We confess the historic faith of the apostles. We believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God, our Savior and Lord. We accept the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, as "the Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct." Christian We are a Christian Church. We see ourselves to be part of the universal church of Jesus Christ from the days of the apostles until now. We are a Reformation church. We stand in the mainstream of the sixteenth-century Protestant movement which insisted on justification by grace alone through faith alone. Evangelical We are an evangelical church. We were born out of the revival movement that touched all of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and came to flower for us in nineteenth- and twentieth-century North America. For more information of the Evangelical Covenant of America click here.
