What We Believe
The following is what we believe about theology and psychology as we gather from all over the world, seeking to learn how to live practical and effective lives. We all have situational and relational challenges and benefit from having other people bringing insight and care. Caring for others is what this community does best.
Life Over Coffee exists to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation.
Our Passion
We believe the gospel speaks to all areas of our lives, and many Christians want to know how to connect the gospel to what they do on a day-to-day basis. Our aim is to serve the body of Christ by helping them make those “gospel connections” in real, practical, and specific ways.
We believe the best place, outside of the home, for transformation to take place is within the context of a local church. Although we are a para-church organization, we maintain a high view of the local church and encourage our community of friends to be actively involved in the ministries of their local churches to mature and progress in their sanctification.
We believe if people can practically apply the gospel to their lives, while contextualized in a Christ-centered local church, they will then be able to love God and their neighbor in more effective ways (Matthew 22:36-40).
We are a highly skilled organization that summarizes it’s purpose in the following three sentences:
We fulfill our passion by training people to bring real and practical care to those in need, regardless of where they live in the world. Through the use of technology, we are reaching new levels of advancement, efficiency, and productivity in the area of discipleship. Real lives are experiencing real, practical, and sustainable change.
Our Core Values will help you understand the heart of our mission, as it pertains to theology and practice. The first group of values lays out our understanding of theological doctrine. The second group of values presents our view of sanctification.
Our Statement of Faith
The following is a brief summary of the doctrinal core beliefs of Life Over Coffee. It is not an exhaustive statement, but a framework to give you a point of reference regarding our beliefs about God and those who live in His world.
Christian Theology
About the Bible: We believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore, is the real center of the Christian union, and the supreme standard by which accurate judgment comes to all human conduct and beliefs.
About God: We believe the One and only true God is triune; He exists as three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; all three are eternally equal in nature, attributes and perfection and as such are equally worthy of our worship, love, and obedience.
About Man: We believe God created humanity in His image, but because of Adam’s fall into sin, it is a marred image; human nature is depraved and separated from God and thus, can be said to be spiritually dead.
About Jesus Christ:
- His birth: We believe the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus of Nazareth through the Virgin Mary, and Jesus received a human body and a sinless human nature.
- His life: We believe Jesus Christ experienced all the normal temptations of human existence, yet was without sin. We believe He showed Himself to be the Messiah of Israel and the divine Son of God by His teachings and His miracles.
- His death: We believe when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He provided the substitutionary, vicarious atonement for man’s sin.
- His resurrection: We believe Jesus Christ arose physically and bodily from the grave after being dead for three days.
- His return: We believe in the visible and personal return of Jesus Christ.
About Salvation: We believe salvation is through the means of grace, by the power of the transformative gospel, plus nothing and minus nothing. The conditions to salvation are repentance and faith, which are granted by God as a part of His divine kindness to those whom He chooses.
About the Local Church: We believe the local church is God’s primary instrument for His work today; that every believer should be an active member of a local assembly, supporting its worship, ministry, fellowship, discipleship, and evangelism by his/her time, talents and offerings. The ordinances of the local church are baptism and the Lord’s Supper and belong exclusively to the local church.
About the Eternal State: We believe in the everlasting conscious blessedness of the saved and the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.
Christian Discipleship
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. – Romans 12:1-2
Christian psychology (discipleship) is unique in restoring relational and situational difficulties of people. The unique components of Christian psychology are set apart from secular or integrated models by the following ways.
- We recognize the essential workings of the mercies of God in the life of the believer. The most important of these operations is salvation through Jesus Christ—what fellowship has the light with darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14)?
- We believe these mercies God gives to a believer refer to the promise Jesus makes to send the Comforter, Who ministers to us as well as teaches us in our sanctification (John 16:7-13).
- We strive to help the believer to think and live a lifestyle acceptable to God. We do this by helping him/her recognize a proper view of God and how that view should manifest itself as we grow in knowledge, confess our sins, repent, seek forgiveness, and put on Christ. A proper view of God will, among other things, facilitate His desire to conform us to the image of Christ. The secular approach strives to show their counselees a void of sin while becoming conformed to an image of self.
- We believe in the transformation of lives by the renewing of the mind. We believe first, because God tells us so and second, because of what we have witnessed in our lives and the lives of others.
- We believe God uses Christian discipleship to help prove what the will of God is. We believe Scripture shows us that the will of God is always good, acceptable and perfect.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. – Colossians 2:8-10
The essential core value of Christian psychology is Jesus Christ and the teachings of Scripture. This value is contrary to the philosophy and traditions of secular counseling, which they base on some very specific principles:
- Humanity is his/her god; therefore, humanity is the source of their answers.
- There is no God—at best, a higher power.
- There are no absolutes.
- Guilt is not real, merely a feeling projected by the out-of-date mores of the church.
- The self-actualized, self-gratifying person is the desired result of counseling.
There are other views, but these will suffice to demonstrate the difference between secular and Christian psychology. Our answers to the secular on these points are the following:
- All people are sinners in need of a Savior and, as such, are powerless to initiate or implement a complete, life-changing direction on their own. – Romans 3:10-12, 23, 5:5-8; Ephesians 2:8-10.
- There is a God—the God revealed in the Bible, Who, in His manifestations as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, can create complete, life-changing directions in a person’s life. – Genesis 1:1, 26-27, 2:7; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Timothy 1:12-17.
- God, in His grace and mercy, has established certain absolutes, which guide us in our walk in this life. – Exodus 20:2; John 3:16, 14:6; 1 John 1:7-10; Galatians 6:7.
- Guilt is a real entity, experienced when we sin against God and others. You can only eliminate it by humble confession, repentance, and by seeking restoration of fellowship with God and others. – Romans 2:14-15; 2 Corinthians 7:8-10; James 4:10; 1 John 1:9.
- The desired result of Christian psychology is to see the individual live a life conformed to the image of Christ. – Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 1:28; Ephesians 4:22-24; 2 Corinthians 3:18.