Our Mission
The mission of the church is to believe, live, and teach the gospel so that people will be saved and become fit, and fruitful, and fully developed in Christ.
Downcity Church had the great joy of declaring the gospel of Jesus in the heart of Providence from 2009 – 2023. Over those years, many people were saved and their lives were transformed. Today, the congregation has been dispersed and continues to share the good news of Christ all over Rhode Island, America, and the world.
Our Essential Practices
The Bible presents one answer for reconciliation with God and eternal life and happiness, and five practices which cultivate that life in us once it has been received:
The gospel is the complete source for genuine, sustained human happiness. The gospel is the good news that God the Father has arranged a plan to bring people into a right relationship with Him, that God the Son has accomplished that plan, and that God the Spirit applies the benefits of that plan to all who believe the gospel by faith. Jesus, God the Son, fulfilled God the Father’s plan to bring people into a right relationship with Him for their eternal happiness and His eternal glory. Jesus did this by shedding His sinless blood on the cross to cover and remove our sins, and then resurrecting from the dead. His sacrifice on the cross was so great, so perfect, and so acceptable to God the Father that it overcame and overcomes all our sin, which separated us in the past or could separate us in the future from God. Not only have we experienced this incredible degree of forgiveness and cleansing, but now we can know, trust, honor, and obey God from our heart like we never could before! His resurrection stands as the final proof that God’s plan for our salvation has succeeded, and sin and all its horrible effects have truly been conquered for all who believe. Surely in our case, where sin has once abounded, grace now abounds even more. Presently, it is God the Spirit’s special ministry to cause us to experience, believe, and live in this reality. As we grow in our understanding and reliance on all that Christ accomplished for us and yield to the Holy Spirit’s leadership, our lives are being wonderfully transformed.
The Bible describes Jesus as the “Word”, i.e. the final and full revelation of God. On the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus told those who believed and would believe in Him as God’s anointed Savior, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” He was teaching them and all of us who would believe in Him in the generations to come, that once you have believed in Him as the Savior, you need to stay attached to Him going forward. For, it is His life in us that transforms our lives. Further along in that same conversation Jesus prayed to God the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth”. So, God uses His word, the Bible, to keep the truth about Jesus flowing into and renewing our hearts. Therefore, reading and studying the Bible is very important to us.
The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to all who repent toward God and put their faith in Jesus Christ. He is our Helper and Guide Who empowers us to live out God’s wonderful plan for our lives by reminding us of all the things freely given to us by God in His Son. God the Spirit brought us to this new life, and God the Spirit fosters this new life within us. As we learn to be sensitive to and yield to our lifetime Companion, the Holy Spirit sanctifies our hearts, transforms us into the likeness of Jesus, fills us with joy, hope, and faith, and guides us day by day. We have learned that apart from Him we can do nothing.
Jesus told His disciples, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Now that we have put our faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection for us, our heart has been inclined toward God. However, our bodies are still susceptible to temptation. As long as we are in this world, we will face great tests of our faith. Therefore, throughout the Bible we are exhorted to pray for God’s strength to resist temptation. Also, prayer is the blessed privilege of communicating directly with God about all our joys, concerns, and needs. Because Jesus has given us direct access to God by removing our sin and God has adopted us as His own children, we can speak directly to our Father, the Creator of the universe about all that is going on in our lives and in our world. It is a great joy to communicate directly with God. We have seen God the Father do so many mighty things for us through prayer!!
The Bible describes all who believe in Jesus as the Savior as a “body”. Like a human body is made up of many members, so the church is made up of many members. Each member is necessary for the health and growth of the overall body. Every local church is a microcosm of the universal body of Christ. We each take our responsibility as a member of the body of Christ very seriously. It is our great joy to help one another flourish in the grace of Christ.
It is our unanimous experience and testimony that if you will believe the gospel, you will know God like you never have before and experience a joy and peace you have never known. You will be just what the Bible says, “born again.” Then, after this new birth, if you will attach yourself to Jesus through the Bible so that His truth will be regularly flowing into your heart, be filled with the Spirit, develop a strong life of prayer, and commit yourself unreservedly as a member of a local body of believers, you will be wonderfully transformed!
Testimony of Faith
We believe all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. It is perfect reviving the soul.1
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good.2
But, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. By nature, our hearts are deceitful above all things and are desperately sick. Therefore we also were once disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. We followed the prince of the power of the air, Satan, the spirit who energizes all who disobey. Our guilty deeds had made a separation between us and God, and the wrath of God abided on us.3
But God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who are under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Although Jesus existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, and was born in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. When He died on the cross, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Indeed, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.4
And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.5
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. For if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.6
God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and of death. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and the new has come. God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for us.7
We have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. And, the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us. Since we have been brought new life by the Holy Spirit, we are learning to live under His control each day, so that we will no longer live enslaved to sin like people who have not received Jesus as Lord and Savior.8
Christ has gone to prepare a place for us, and He will come again and receive us to Himself, so that where He is, there we will be also. According to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, He will deal out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. When He comes He will be glorified in His church, that is, all who have believed on Him, on that day.9
In summary, we believe:
- The Bible is the only Word of God and is without error.
- God created the universe and it was completely good.
- Sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death spread to all men, because all have sinned. All men are sinners by nature and in need of salvation.
- Jesus, who was God in human flesh, came to the earth to save mankind from our sin and its penalty taking God’s wrath for us in our place when He shed His sinless blood on the cross.
- There is salvation in no one else but Jesus.
- Salvation is by grace through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as our full atonement and ransom.
- All who turn from their sin and put their faith in Jesus and His finished work on our behalf have eternal life.
- The Holy Spirit, who is God, lives in every believer sealing us for heaven and transforming our lives into Christ-likeness.
- Jesus is coming again, and when He does He will bring eternal judgment on everyone who has rejected His salvation and He will bring all those who have believed on Him to heaven, where we will forever be with the Lord.
1 2 Timothy 3:16; Psalm 19:7.
2 Hebrews 11:3; Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 1:31.
3 Romans 5:12; Romans 3:23; Jeremiah 17:9; Titus 3:3; Ephesians 2:2; Isaiah 59:2; John 3:36.
4 Galatians 4:4, 5; Philippians 2:6-8; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:5; John 3:16; Romans 6:23.
5 Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5.
6 Galatians 2:16; Galatians 2:23; Galatians 3:24; Romans 5:1-2; Romans 10:9-10, 13.
7 1 John 5:12; Romans 8:1, 2; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Peter 1:3-4.
8 Ephesians 1:13-14; Romans 8:11; Galatians 5:25; Ephesians 4:17.
9 John 14:3; 2 Peter 3:13; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10.
