These Biblical principles drive our mission and influence every aspect of our work:

1. The necessity of conversion. Man is conceived in sin and born an enemy of God, under sentence of death and Hell. The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper do not save him. His parents' faith and his own good deeds do not save him. The sinner's prayer or membership in a particular church do not save him. Rather, man is made acceptable to God when he is born again of the Holy Spirit, repents of his sin, and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. The necessity of faith in Jesus Christ. There is no way to be reconciled to God apart from living faith in Jesus Christ alone. When a man repents and believes in Jesus Christ, he is justified once and for all. But saving faith is no mere mental assent. Rather, true faith transforms lives and produces fruit. Always.
3. The necessity of personal holiness. It is the nature of true faith to bear good fruit in the lives of believers as they walk according to the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible makes it crystal clear that without such holiness no one will see God. This does not mean that we can become sinless in this life, but it does mean that we will make progress as we live our lives in imitation of Jesus. Yes, we fail. Yet despite our failures, the work of the Holy Spirit is apparent in the life of every true believer, making him holy as God is holy.
4. The power of the Holy Spirit. Because we are born depraved sinners, we need God to intervene in our lives. It is only by the work of the Holy Spirit that we repent and believe in Jesus. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we walk in obedience to God. It is only through His indwelling presence that we are able to have fellowship with God. And it is only by His guidance that we are granted wisdom to understand and apply the Scriptures.
5. The power and sufficiency of Scripture. Although the knowledge of God we receive through nature is enough to condemn us, it's not enough to lead us to salvation. Praise God, He has not left us ignorant, but has spoken to us in the Bible. The Bible is no ordinary piece of literature. It is God's Word and it is powerful, clear, authoritative, without error, and sufficient for all we need to know to believe on Jesus Christ and to live a godly life.
6. The centrality of the local church. The local church is at the heart of the life and mission of the Christian. It is the household to which every Christian belongs. Like any household, each church has her failures. Nevertheless the Christian is commanded by God not to forsake the assembly. The early church father, Cyprian, warned no one can have God as his Father who refuses to have the Church as his mother. Down through the centuries, church fathers (including John Calvin) have repeated this warning—that ordinarily, there is no possibility of salvation outside the Church.
7. The centrality of true preaching. True preaching is neither a lecture nor a motivational pep talk. God's spokesman is not to suggest things for the congregation's consideration. He does not submit theories to the congregation for their evaluation. Rather, he proclaims God's truth making piercing applications of that truth to the consciences of particular people. In the Name of Jesus Christ, he commands men to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and, believing, to understand and obey every word recorded in Scripture.
8. The centrality of true pastoral care. Faithful pastors and shepherds are not defined by their Sunday morning sermon, but by their 24/7 faithful care for the sheep God has given them charge over. Biblical churches are not preaching points, but households of faith, and the fathers of the household serve the family as spiritual fathers. Thus pastors must have constant interaction with the souls in their flock. Pastors will soon give an account to God for their care for those for whom Christ died and such care must spring from an intimate knowledge of church members, applying God's Word to specific individuals by teaching, exhorting, and encouraging them "from house to house," "day and night, with tears (Acts 20)."
9. The call to stand in the gap. There has never been a time or place in the history of the Church when God's truth has not been under attack. Although it is true there are no new heresies, each generation has its own battles. Ministers of the Word and Sacrament must be trained to cultivate their ability to recognize where God's enemies currently seek to destroy the faith, piety, and happiness of God's adopted children. Shepherds must stand precisely at those points, contending for the faith with humility and courage.
10. The call to evangelism. Jesus commanded His disciples: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you..." (Matthew 28:19,20a). This means that evangelism is the work of God's church—an inescapable call that is at the heart of all Christian obedience. By Jesus' definition, true evangelism calls men and women to become Christ's disciples, to be baptized in God's Triune Name, and to live a new life of obedience. It does not call souls to a cheap intellectual assent to propositional truth, but to the life of Christian faith that is always growing in obedience and holiness.
11. The importance of doctrine. As it's commonly used and understood today, the saying "Christ unites, doctrine divides" is false. Jesus is not opposed to doctrine, nor is there any possibility of Christian unity outside of submission to the specific doctrines taught in the Bible. ClearNote holds to the most widely used doctrinal summary of Scripture's truths in the English-speaking world, the Westminster Standards. We believe true Christian unity has the greatest hope of prevailing as churches join in affirming these doctrines.
12. The importance of contextualization without compromise. God's truth is not bound to any particular culture. It is our work to proclaim God's truth faithfully, uncompromisingly, and unashamedly in a way that is understandable to our hearers. At the same time, we must never pander to the world by cutting out, minimizing, or avoiding any aspect of God's truth to make it more palatable to anyone. The Gospel transcends all cultures and is universally uncool.