Who We Are

Our Mission

The mission of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, rooted in Wesleyan-Holiness theological heritage, is to provide opportunities for spiritual birth, growth, and renewal through worship, educational, cultural, and recreational programs for persons of all ages in a Christian seaside setting.

Our Vision

Be the seaside community where all generations can know and grow in Jesus.

Our Statement of Faith

HOLINESS TO THE LORD

In 1869, a group of Methodist ministers deeply committed to the doctrines of Salvation and Holiness, felt called to search along the New Jersey coast for a suitable location to establish a camp meeting where Christian religion and recreation could flourish hand-in-hand.  They consecrated the site we now know as Ocean Grove as “Holy Ground,” and in 1870, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association was chartered as a place for the perpetual worship of Jesus Christ.  Faithful to our Wesleyan-Holiness theological heritage and the vision of our Founders,  promoting  Salvation and Holiness remains central to our identity today, as the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association continues to extend opportunities for all people to experience spiritual birth, growth and renewal in a Christian seaside setting.  

Our faith is grounded in the authority of the Bible, which is the full and sufficient rule both of faith and of practice.  The Bible informs all that we believe and determines how we live.  We embrace the core Christian doctrines expressed in the historic affirmations commonly known as the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

Further, in keeping with our Wesleyan-Holiness theological heritage:

We believe:

The Triune God

God is one. Since before time began or creation existed God is co-equally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The reality and relationship within the Godhead is a profound mystery understood in our limited human capacity through the light of biblical revelation. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are neither three gods nor three modalities of one God. The Trinitarian persons are one in essence, nature, power, action, and will;

The Father

The first person of the Trinity orders and directs all things according to His own sovereign purpose, pleasure and grace. All of creation exists and is sustained by the Father. He graciously involves Himself in the affairs of humanity, hears and answers prayer, and saves from sin and hell, which is eternal separation from God, all who come to Him through His son, Jesus Christ;

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is God’s eternally begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, fully divine and fully human. Being sinless, He fulfilled all the messianic prophecies of Scripture. He was crucified, died, and bodily arose from the dead, defeating sin and death, and ascended to the right hand of the Father where He intercedes for us as Lord. He will return to judge the living and the dead;

Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit, eternally co-equal with the Father and the Son, is God present and active in the world.  The Holy Spirit was given to the church in His fullness at Pentecost. By the Spirit, Christ lives in the Church, the gospel is proclaimed, and the Kingdom of God is manifested in the world. The Holy Spirit, indwelling the Believer, convicts of sin, comforts, guides, and empowers us for a life of holy living;

Scripture

The Bible is God’s self-revelation, the only and sufficient rule of faith and practice, without error in all it affirms. We submit to the truth and authority of both the Old and New Testaments. This unchangeable and complete Word of God proclaims that truth to peoples of every age. 

Humanity

Human beings were created in the image of God, male and female.  Out of God’s love, He united the first man and first woman in a holy covenant, as a standard for all time, to be fruitful and multiply.  This image was marred through the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and fellowship with God was broken.

As a consequence of disobedience, sin entered the world and death came as a result. All humanity’s relationship with God has been corrupted.  We are born with a sin nature, and unable in our own strength to restore ourselves to a right relationship with God, nor receive salvation.  God, however, in His prevenient grace, restores moral sensibility to all humanity, and enables all to respond to His love and accept the gift of His saving grace, if they will.  

Prevenient Grace:  The Goodness of God

God is intrinsically good, and all humanity receives tokens of his grace before salvation.  Prevenient grace can be understood as the divine goodness and love that surrounds all humanity.  This grace precedes, or comes before, any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God's Word and will, and our initial conviction of having sinned against God.  God's prevenient grace awakens in us an earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death, and moves us toward repentance. 

Salvation:  Justifying Grace and New Birth; Initial Sanctification

God graciously justifies and regenerates all who trust in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for their salvation. Salvation is only through Jesus Christ. Christian believers become children of God, free from the guilt and eternal penalty of sin, and begin to live in holiness through their faith in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit;

Salvation:  Entire Sanctification

God calls all believers to entire sanctification in an experience of full surrender and faith.  Through sanctifying grace, the Holy Spirit delivers them from all rebellion towards God, and makes possible wholehearted love for God and for others. This is both a crisis and a progressive experience wrought in the life of the believer subsequent to conversion. This grace does not make believers faultless. Believers must live in the power of the Holy Spirit, who continuously gives them victory over sin, and the desire to lead a life of holiness;

Assurance of Believers

All believers can be assured of salvation by the inward witness of God’s Spirit with their spirits, by faith in the gracious promises of God’s Word, and by the manifestation of the gifts and fruits of the Spirit in their lives;

God’s Victory

We believe in God’s ultimate victory over Satan and all evil, and the establishment of God’s perfect Kingdom in a new heaven and a new earth.

Therefore, our response to God, Holiness in Heart and Life:

We affirm God’s design for holy living, and seek to create a Christian community in Ocean Grove where Holiness of Heart and Life can be lived out and experienced. This is the faith we profess and seek to live out as the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association.

SO BE YE HOLY.  AMEN.

For scripture references please click the button below.