La Vina Covenant Church

Kerman Covenant Church was established in 1970 through the vision of local individuals who wanted to impact Kerman for the Kingdom of God. Our denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, has its roots in historical Christianity as it emerged in the Protestant Reformation, in the biblical instruction of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, and in the great spiritual awakenings of the nineteenth century. We are an apostolic church. We confess the historic faith of the apostles as recorded in Holy Scriptures. We believe the authority of the Bible is supreme in all matters of faith, doctrine, and conduct, and is to be trusted. "Where is it written?" was and is the Covenant's touchstone of discussion with regard to faith and practice. We are a catholic church. The word catholic literally means universal. This means we understand ourselves to be a part of the community of believers that began with Jesus' first followers, is alive today, and will continue until Christ comes again. We are a Reformation church. We stand in the mainstream of a church renewal mo vement of the sixteenth century called the Protestant Reformation. Especially important is the belief that we are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone, not by anything that we can do. Covenant Church is also shaped by Pietism, a renewal movement that originated in seventeenth-century Europe and emphasized the need for a life that is personally connected to Jesus Christ, a reliance on the Holy Spirit, and a call to service in the world. We are an evangelical church. A series of religious awakenings flowered in Europe and America during the nineteenth century and provided rich soil for the early growth of Covenant Church with our passion for mission. Evangelicals historically have been characterized by a strong insistence on biblical authority, the absolute necessity of new birth, Christ's mandate to evangelize the world, the continuing need for education and formation in a Christian context, and a responsibility for benevolence and the advancement of social justice.