About Us

The vision of the Crossroad Hindi Church is to be a platform for Hindi speaking in Bangalore where people from all walks of life come, meet Jesus, undergo intentional discipleship, and be equipped to develop a missional life.

OUR BELIEFS

The Bible

We believe that all sixty-six books that comprise the Bible are the Word of God. The Bible is inspired (God-breathed) and is therefore without error in the original documents (2 Timothy 3:16). It is the complete revelation of God’s will for the salvation of men, and it is the divine and final authority for all Christian faith and practice.

GOD

We believe in one God (Deuteronomy 6:4), Creator of all things, infinitely perfect. God has eternally existed in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14; Matt 28:19-20). God created all things out of nothing, and He sustains as well as actively governs all His creation for His good purposes.

Salvation

We believe that the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross, His atoning blood shed on behalf of us and His resurrection from the dead provide the only ground for justification and salvation for all who believe (Hebrews 9:22–28; Romans 4:25). Only those who being born of the Holy Spirit, receive Jesus Christ, become the children of God (John 1:10–13; John 3:5–8).

The Crossroad Church subscribes to a “Reformed Soteriology.” In humility, we accept the doctrine of sovereign unconditional election to be true. Though there are aspects of this doctrine that are mysterious, we wholeheartedly believe and teach all that has been clearly revealed in the Scriptures while relying on the Spirit of God to help us understand it better as we grow in our faith. The doctrine of God’s Sovereignty in all things including salvation, is not purely an intellectual exercise but has practical bearings on the life of a believer, especially providing assurance and comfort in times of trials. Acceptance of this doctrine is not a prerequisite to become a member or leader of this church. Albeit, we encourage our members and leaders to study the scriptures with an open mind and prayerful heart, trusting the Lord will reveal all truth in His time and according to His will.

Further,

• We believe that a person is saved once and for all when they truly repent, and make a sincere, Spirit-enabled profession of faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour. Therefore, there need not be any further effort made to perfect or complete this salvation. In other words, we do not believe in a two stage salvation.

• We believe that a person who is truly born again does not lose his salvation. The Crossroad Church believes in the security of a believer’s salvation. (Phil 2:5-7; 1 Cor 1:8-9)

• A person is saved/justified by grace, continues/sanctified by grace, and is glorified by grace. We do not believe that sanctification is the sole work of a believer and thereby, we do not insist on outwardly changing human behaviour. We do believe, that in sanctification the believer is called to respond in obedience, but on the basis that it is the grace of God that enables this response and obedience. (Phil 2:12-13)

• The ultimate purpose of a believer is to bring glory to God and enjoy his relationship with Him.

Jesus Christ

We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who became a man at his incarnation. As such, He is true God and true man. He lived a perfect and sinless life, died on the cross, as a substitutionary sacrifice for us and our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3; 20:24–29), was bodily raised on the third day and ascended into heaven (Acts 1:1–9). He is now at the right hand of God the Father (Colossians 3:1) and is our High Priest and Advocate (Hebrews 7:25-26; 1 John 2:1; Philippians 2:5–7). He will come again to judge all people, living and dead, unto eternal life or eternal condemnation (John 5:22-29)

Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit is eternal (Gen 1:2; Job 33:4), all knowing (1 Cor 2:10-11), present everywhere (Psalm 139:7-11), and one of the Three in Godhead (Matt 3:16; Matt 28:19-20; 2 Cor 13:14). The Holy Spirit is neither inferior to the Father or the Son nor separated from them (Matt 3:16; Matt 28:19-20; John 14:16; John 14:26; Acts 2:17; Acts 2:33; 2 Cor 13:14). Just as the Father and the Son have been active, the Holy Spirit has been active from the beginning of history—to name a few: creation (Gen 1:3; Psalm 104:30), revelation (2 Sam 23:2; 2 Peter 1:20-21), and special missions (e.g. Exod 35:30-31).

The descending of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost on the followers of Christ marked the beginning of the Church and inaugurated the reign of Jesus Christ on those who believe in His birth, death, burial, and resurrection (Acts 2:17; Acts 2:33). The Holy Spirit seals (2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:14) a believer at the time of conversion. The “seal” refers to Jesus’ ownership of the believer. The Holy Spirit helps the individual or the local church to (1) grow in one’s relationship with Christ (John 14:26; John 16:8; John 16:13), (2) understand the whole truth of the Gospel (1 Cor 2:10-13; 1 Tim 4:1-3), (3) spread the Gospel (Acts 1:8; Acts 13:1-13; Acts 16:6), and (4) be spiritually fruitful (Gal 5:22).

The phrase “baptism of the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8; Acts 1:6) means “eschatological forgiveness” to those who believe in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not take place more than one time—it happens at the time of one’s conversion. In the same way, the phrase “filling of the Holy Spirit” simply means “yielding to the control” of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it does not mean “more” of the Holy Spirit. The Crossroad Church does not teach its members “second baptism” as a doctrine due to lack of Scriptural evidence.

Creeds

We subscribe to the Apostolic and Nicene Creed. However, we have made a minor change in the Nicene Creed regarding the ordinance of baptism to read as follows: “We acknowledge one believer’s baptism to testify publicly one’s internal transformation because of the Gospel.”

The Church

We believe that the Church is the community of those who have placed their faith in Christ, have had their sins forgiven, and have a new life through the Holy Spirit. All believers are placed by the Holy Spirit into the Church, also called the Body of Christ. Local churches are a visible expression of this Body. The local church is a gathering of believers in a particular geographical area for the purposes of worship, prayer, the Lord’s Supper, service through the use of one’s spiritual gifts, and caring for one another. The Crossroad Church seeks to apply the various truths of the Gospel in all areas of both private and church life. Hence, we identify as a Gospel centred church.

We believe in the priesthood of all believers, which implies that believing men and women are equal in their spiritual status by virtue of being in Christ. They have an equal access to God and are both gifted by God to play a vital role in the life and mission of the church. We also believe that the Scriptures, in keeping with God’s creation-design, reserve the office of the elder for men (1 Timothy 3). Thereby, we are generally inclined towards male servant-leadership when it comes to leadership roles within the church.

Man

We believe that man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) but fell into sin (Genesis 3) and is therefore eternally separated from God and under condemnation (Romans 5:12–21), which is death and eternal death. Own his own man cannot save himself from his predicament. Therefore, he was in need of a savior to save him from the punishment and re-establish his relationship back with God. Jesus, the Second Person in the Godhead, is the Savior to rescue man from his helplessness and re-establish him back to God. We believe in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross for the sinful humanity, His atoning blood shed on behalf of us and His resurrection from the dead provide the only ground for justification and salvation for all who believe (Hebrews 9:22–28; Romans 4:25).

Sin has wrought in man a pervasive depravity affecting all human faculty. In this state, he is unable to get back to God on his own or make any effort to receive the Gospel unless the Holy Spirit of God regenerates his heart Sensus Divinitatis (Titus 3:5; John 3:3-8; Ezekiel 36:26-27). Man’s salvation then, does not ultimately depend on the ability of the presenter or in the willingness of the hearers of the Gospel. It is purely based on the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit of God. He is both the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2).

Ordinances

We believe that Water Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances to be observed by the Church during the present age (Matt 28:19-20;1 Corinthians 11:23–26). They are, however, not to be regarded as means of salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9)

• We do not treat ordinances as sacraments. They do not in any sense impart a meritorious grace of God, but they are observed because the Lord Jesus commanded his disciples to observe them and in doing so we honour God.

• We believe that the Communion is a memorial meal in which any genuine believer may participate having examined himself before God.