My Statement of Faith

For anyone who is interested, this is what I believe:

I am a child of God, chosen by God in Jesus Christ from before the foundation of the world and called by the power of the Holy Spirit to trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, I believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and, in the communion of the Holy Spirit have as my chief task in life to glorify and enjoy God forever.

As a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) I affirm my faith and bear witness to God’s grace in Jesus Christ in the creeds, catechisms and confessions of this church contained in its Book of Confessions. In these confessional statements I declare to Christ's followers and to the world

* who and what I am,
* what I believe,
* and what I resolve to do.

In obedience to the call of Jesus Christ, I am part of a community of people called the church, known by its convictions as well as by its actions.

* The confessions of this community guide me in my study and interpretation of the Scriptures.
* The confessions of this community summarize for me the essence of the Christian tradition.
* The confessions of this community direct me in maintaining sound doctrine and prepare me for the work of proclaiming the good news of and about Jesus Christ.

These confessions are subordinate standards in the church, subject to the authority of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as Scripture bears witness to him. This means that the church, in obedience to Jesus Christ, must always be open to the reform of its standards of doctrine. The church affirms that it is “reformed and always reforming” according to the Word of God.

In this affirmation I give witness to the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church in its recognition of canonical Scriptures and its formulation and adoption of the ecumenical creeds, notably the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds with their definitions of the mystery of one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the incarnation of the Word of God in Jesus Christ who, as he is witnessed to in Holy Scripture, is fully human and fully divine, the one, true revelation of God, in whom alone we trust and whom alone we obey in life and in death.

In this affirmation I identify with the declarations of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant watchwords — sola scriptura, sola gratia and sola fide — embody principles of understanding which continue to guide and motivate me in the life of faith. Their focus is the rediscovery of God’s grace in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures.

I affirm that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the final authority for all matters of faith and practice. Scripture functions as the authoritative Word of God for me when, by the Holy Spirit, it becomes the basic story through which I understand my own experience and thought, and the foundation upon which I base my decisions and my actions. At the same time, I accept the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments fully and openly as works of fallible and culturally conditioned people whose approaches and understanding were governed by the general conditions within which they lived, colored by the specific issues and crises about and around which they wrote and shaped by the specific background and experiences of the individual writers.

In this affirmation I express the faith of the Reformed tradition. Central to this tradition is the affirmation of the sovereignty of God, who in perfect righteousness and love freely creates, sustains, rules, and redeems the world. Related to this affirmation of God’s sovereignty are other great themes of the Reformed tradition:

1. the complete and total falleness of all humankind,
2. the unconditional election in Jesus Christ of both men and women for salvation and service as God's covenant community,
3. the particular redemption fully accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross for God's people
4. the irresistible grace of God in saving God's people,
5. preservation of the saints in their salvation by the persevering grace of God.

In this affirmation I affirm the marks of the true church: right preaching of the Word of God, right administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, and church discipline rightly administered in a spirit of love, according to the Word of God.

In this affirmation I accept the call to a way of life that expresses gratitude to God by living faithfully according to the teachings of Scripture, ongoing repentance for what Scripture and the confessions of this church call sin and failure, along with a steady dependence upon God’s grace for increase in the “fruit” of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22 NRSV).

An important expression of the faith I affirm is this prayer, written by Reinhold Niebuhr, which I say nearly every day of my life:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph 3:20-21 NRSV)

Soli Deo gloria!