We Believe
In the fragments of hymns that we find among some New Testament letters and the great Creeds of the early Church, all the way down the centuries to the Confessions, Catechisms and Statements of faith, Christians have codified, summarised and published what they believe.
Sometimes, as in the famous Nicene Creed of AD 325 , ‘ We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen…’. These affirmations of essential doctrine have been in response to wrong thinking about God.
Sometimes, as in the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith, a specific historical situation like the English Civil War, gave rise to a series of beliefs on issues of worship, doctrine, government and Church discipline.
Then there are Christian agencies and denominations who have pulled together articles of faith which indicate what they believe to be from the Bible and Church history. These are the essential doctrines of the Christian faith by which their organisation is to be held accountable.
Last but not least there are Churches like Lansdowne who have a Doctrinal Basis of faith as part of their Constitution. If you are technically minded, the Basis of Faith is Appendix 1 of our Constitution.
This is not to suggest that what we believe is somehow an add on which you may or may not want to be aware of and that you can either take or leave!
In a key sense our Basis of faith is much more important than the Constitution that the Lansdowne Church Members formally adopted on July 8 2014. The Constitution is the legal mechanism by which as a Charity we necessarily operate. But such Constitutions are man made and open to amendments.
But it is the Bible which gives us the basis for our beliefs and values as a Church Community. It is therefore a sacred text which we mess with at our peril, as Revelation 22:19 warns us!
The benefits of such a Basis of Faith are many and can be surprising.
I was present at a recent Newcomers evening when one of those with us commented that they had joined Lansdowne after reading the Basis of Faith!
When I asked what he meant by that, he replied “I saw that what the Bible said the Lansdowne Basis of Faith said”
The Bible of course covers a lot more than any Basis of faith does. It’s one of the things we need to be mindful of and careful about as we read and reflect upon it.
No Doctrinal Summary, Creed or Confession, however good and biblical, can be to us what the Word of God is . So we must always read a Basis of Faith in the light of the Bible, not the other way around.
It’s why article two of the Lansdowne Basis of Faith says about Scripture:
“God has revealed himself in the Bible, which consists of the Old and New Testaments alone. Every word was inspired by God through human authors, so that the Bible as originally given is in its entirety the Word of God, without error and fully reliable in fact and doctrine. The Bible alone speaks with final authority and is always sufficient for all matters of belief and practice.”
Anyway, that being the case, there is still great value in exploring and understanding what it is we believe as a Church and how that relates to the Scripture from which it is derived.
So to help us do that we are going to be looking at each article of our Basis of Faith in a Sunday evening series starting on September 3rd.
I think it will be helpful for several reasons. What we believe about God, the world, humanity, salvation and the future, we believe together in community.
Our basis of faith is something generations of Christians have believed. We believe in the truth not on our own but with others. We are part of a long tradition of faith stretching all the way back to Abraham “the Father of all who believe” .
This is important both for our encouragement and perspective.
Encouragement, because just as we sing together and pray together, so we believe together. The expression of that corporately is what we do when in Small Groups we study the Bible together, when we sit together under God’s Word as it is preached. There is a tradition in some churches that when the Bible is read in a Church service the congregation stand as it is spoken.
Perspective, because we see our faith not as some odd, eccentric system of belief that has come from nowhere and belongs to no one else, but as the product of the apostolic gospel, the “faith delivered once for all to the saints” - Jude 3 vs 1.
That puts us within a rich, centuries old, family who have maintained the gospel and passed it onto others.
Perspective, because there are some weird and wonderful things that people believe out there. Just go to You Tube and you will hear the most amazing rubbish that purports to be Christian and Biblical!
So this series is going to be useful as a check and a balance against the nonsense that sometimes fills the airwaves and the Christian Church. Come and find out what we believe… more than that… come and rejoice in the God in whom we believe and in His Word which is our sure and certain hope.
Peter Baker
Senior Minister