Baptist churches have much in common with many churches of other Christian denominations. A Baptist church generally has distinctive priorities or emphases in its belief and practice, which are common to Baptist churches.

 

Some of the most important areas we emphasise at RBC are as follows:

 

• Following Jesus. He is the centre of our life and worship, as our Saviour and Lord, and we encourage people to know him.

• Teaching the Bible, worship and prayer as the central activities when we gather together and to guide our lives.

• Believer’s baptism and Church membership. Baptism is a practice based in the Bible, in the New Testament particularly, where adult believers who publicly confess to following Jesus were baptised by immersion in water. Church membership is a means for people to express their commitment and belonging together as a local Church, with Jesus as the head of the Church.

• Mission – the command from Jesus to go and make disciples, both locally and globally. We actively support a range of mission activities and individuals. But every Christian is a missionary!

• The ‘priesthood of all believers’, another way of saying that all believers are equal under God. From this follows a model of church decision-making and leadership that makes decisions as a whole church gathered together, in the Church meeting. We also appoint a leadership team to provide direction and oversight.
   

As well as being a Baptist church we are an evangelical church, a member of the Evangelical Alliance.  An evangelical church is one that relies on and trusts what the Bible says and aims to follow it as God’s Word as our guide for life.

 

As a Baptist church we are affiliated to the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) and also our regional association, the London Baptist Association (LBA).