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Statment of Faith
- In life and in death we belong to God.
- Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
- the love of God,
- and the communion of the Holy Spirit,
- we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel,
- whom alone we worship and serve.
- We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God.
- Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:
- preaching good news to the poor
- and release to the captives,
- teaching by word and deed
- and blessing the children,
- healing the sick
- and binding up the brokenhearted,
- eating with outcasts,
- forgiving sinners,
- and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.
- Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition,
- Jesus was crucified,
- suffering the depths of human pain
- and giving his life for the sins of the world.
- God raised this Jesus from the dead,
- vindicating his sinless life,
- breaking the power of sin and evil,
- delivering us from death to life eternal.
- We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father.
- In sovereign love God created the world good
- and makes everyone equally in God's image,
- male and female, of every race and people,
- to live as one community.
- But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator.
- Ignoring God's commandments,
- we violate the image of God in others and ourselves,
- accept lies as truth,
- exploit neighbor and nature,
- and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.
- We deserve God's condemnation.
- Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.
- In everlasting love,
- the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people
- to bless all families of the earth.
- Hearing their cry,
- God delivered the children of Israel
- from the house of bondage.
- Loving us still,
- God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant.
- Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child,
- like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home,
- God is faithful still.
- We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life.
- The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith,
- sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor,
- and binds us together with all believers
- in the one body of Christ, the Church.
- The same Spirit
- who inspired the prophets and apostles
- rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture,
- engages us through the Word proclaimed,
- claims us in the waters of baptism,
- feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation,
- and calls women and men to all ministries of the Church.
- In a broken and fearful world
- the Spirit gives us courage
- to pray without ceasing,
- to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
- to unmask idolatries in Church and culture,
- to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
- and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
- In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit,
- we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks
- and to live holy and joyful lives/
- even as we watch for God's new heaven and new earth,
- praying, "Come, Lord Jesus!"
- With believers in every time and place,
- we rejoice that nothing in life or in death
- can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.*
* Instead of saying this line, congregations may wish to sing a version
of the Gloria.
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