We are a church of Jesus Christ.
The one God we know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the God we worship and serve. Christ is the center of our faith and practice. We seek the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, the Living Word among us, in our shared and individual lives.
We are a church of the Bible.
The Bible, as the written word that witnesses to the Living Word, is our guide for faith and practice. We bring the best of biblical scholarship to bear upon our understanding of scripture, prayerfully seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our interpretation.
We are a faith community in the Presbyterian tradition.
Our theology is Christian in its commitment to the God of Jesus and reformed in its commitment to salvation by grace and a call to grateful obedience in all of life. The way we govern ourselves is representative. We are affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, USA. The great ends of the church as defined by the denomination’s Book of Order (1) guide the church’s programs and mission. We seek to serve our denomination and tradition primarily through the building of our congregation as a community of faith. Our witness is to the whole of the Gospel; therefore, we do not traditionally identify with any special interest organizations within the church.
We honor tradition.
We value wisdom as passed down or newly gained. We utilize forms of worship and study that have nourished Presbyterian churches for centuries while still open to innovation that honors God in new and relevant ways.
We are an accepting church.
Second Presbyterian honors the grace of God in Jesus Christ by accepting all those who look for a church home. We are a church for those who are single, married, divorced or widowed; for those who are childless, have children at home or children grown; for those who are happy or hurting; for those with great need and those with great resources. We seek to be a church where children know they are valued and where the elderly know they are not forgotten. As far as possible, we wish to honor diversity of opinion within our membership. At Second Presbyterian, we accept each other for who we are and who, by God’s grace, we will become.
We are committed to transforming lives.
Our prayer is to be God’s instrument in reaching and transforming lives, helping members and visitors grow in their Christian faith. We seek to help each other understand what it means to be obedient to the ordination of our baptism.
We are a high commitment church.
We are committed to following in the way of Jesus by providing ministries through which people may grow in grace and express love of God and God’s world. We promote healthy stewardship of resources which includes proportionate giving of one’s time, energy and money to the ministry of the church as an expression of one’s faith (2).
We are a servant church.
We equip members to serve neighbors near at home and far away, proclaiming the justice and compassion of Jesus Christ through word and deed.
We are a metropolitan church.
We are a downtown church with members from all over the Roanoke Valley. People find Second Presbyterian Church because they seek a faith community with a broad vision and a ministry that reaches the valley, nation and world.
1 The great ends of the church are the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.
2 A guide for proportional giving that the church suggests is this: Seek a level of giving that avoids the guilt of giving too little and the anxiety of giving too much. Find the level of giving that is a joyful expression of your faith. Find the level of giving that helps you know you are a generous person, not a greedy one, a giver and not a taker, the steward of your resources rather than its slave. Seek to grow in God’s grace, and then reflect that growth in your stewardship.