May we introduce ourselves?

We are the Eastside church of Christ (non-denominational), and we are a group of dedicated Christians who desire to worship God in the way we can read about in the New Testament. We would like to extend this invitation to you to browse through our web site, place a request for study materials, or attend our services, and to join with us in studying God's Word, the Bible. We want to help you in any way that we can to come to a knowledge of God's Will for you and all mankind.

Non-denominational - what's that?

We identify ourselves as the "church of Christ" because that is one of the names for the church that we can read about in the Bible (Rom. 16: 16). When we say that we are "non-denominational", that means that we do not follow any man-made denominations, or any creeds, confessions of faith or anything similar of human origin.

When we look at the Bible, we only see one church described. Jesus said "I will build my church" (Matt. 16: 18). He didn't say "my churches" - in fact, not one modern denomination is mentioned in the Bible! The Bible actually instructs us that we should all speak the same thing in religious matters (I Cor. 1: 10). We can certainly see that the modern religious world of denominationalism was not what God had in mind!

How could this have come about? The differences between denominations today are there because man has put them there - men have insisted on adding to or taking away from the pattern that God gave, and so modifying the plan that God gave for His church.

But what if we just ignore all those additions of men? What if we put aside all the creeds and confessions of faith, and only depend on the Bible? In the New Testament, Christians were told:

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness (Rom. 6: 16-17).

If those people back then were made free from sin when they obeyed the "form of doctrine" (that is, the New Testament), would it not follow that we can be made free from sin, and added to the one, original church that Jesus founded, if we simply follow that very same form of doctrine that they did? Yes, we can! And that is precisely what we at the Eastside church of Christ are striving to do - by simply following the pattern in the New Testament, free of any human addition and subtraction, we strive to be the church that God founded nearly two thousand years ago.

What will I find at the church of Christ?

In our meetings, you will find that we worship and study God's Word in a simple and dignified way that reflects the pattern of worship found in the New Testament. You won't find thumping rock music, screaming and wailing, rolling on the ground or any of the other bizarre things that men have added to God's simple plan. Instead, you'll find that we worship by preaching and teaching from the Word of God, singing a capella (without musical instruments), a freewill collection from the members every week, prayers and the celebration of the Lord's Supper each week - each one of these things is taken from the pages of the New Testament.

You'll also find a few other things that might seem different to you - we have no 'clergy', as such a class is not found in God's pattern. In fact, we have no organisational hierarchy at all - individual congregations of the church of Christ are independent, owing no allegiance except to their head, Jesus Christ himself. All this is for one reason - because this is the way God wanted it, and the way He described His church in the pages of the New Testament.

How can we help you?

In this website we have provided a few Bible study materials which we hope you will find interesting and useful. There are also some useful links to Bible study sites which we have found helpful, some idea of our activities and objectives, as well as the opportunity to request a Bible study, face-to-face, by correspondence or by e-mail. We hope you enjoy the site, and we hope to hear from you soon!