We Believe

Hello, I’m new to the blog, but I am a friend of Bill’s. I thought this would be a good time to contribute and respond to the We Believe issue. I trust my thoughts are worthy.
I might sound negative in my assertion, I believe pragmatic would be a better term, but I don’t think the average Joe or Jane in pews care one iota about We Believe. I say this for a couple reasons. I’ve been a member of a COG for close to 30 years and have taught Sunday School classes for over 25 years. I have used We Believe to help define and refine what the COG positions are on various doctrinal issues as they relate to Scripture. Most of the time this is met with casual indifference I never get the sense that many people know or study We Believe to get a better understanding of what the COG believes. I think for most people it’s far more important to know, study, and believe God’s Word and apply it accordingly to their lives, than to be aware of denominational distinctions found in We Believe.

I believe most believers shy away from and are even intimidated by the term doctrine. When one hears the term doctrine, the immediate perception is that of making faith too complicated or too scholarly. Most people in the pews do not have time for religion that makes them think. They feel that life is too complex as it is, and faith between God and them should be simple. Using terms such as sanctification, justification, and regeneration are impressive concepts for the pastor to use and know, but they don’t hold much meaning for the average believer. This is because most churchgoers today are interested in a faith that makes them “feel” good as opposed to a faith that causes them to think too deeply.


We Believe does have merit in a new members class to help potential new members understand the difference between the COG and other denominations such as the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Mennonites etc. However, I don’t believe We Believe has much influence in deciding whether a person becomes a member of a COG church. Church membership has far more to do with the fellowship within the body of believers, and the church acting like the body of Christ than the doctrinal stance of We Believe.
In addition, I believe We Believe should contain a more on the history of John Winebrenner and how he came to begin the Churches of God (by the way according to Winebrenner the only true name for the church). Having an understanding of why Winebrenner believed what he believed can help us better establish our identity, in a time when many denominations want to downplay what makes them unique.

The Toviah/Ben Thread that may Revolutionize the CGGC

Ben,

Your posts are extremely thought provoking but, much more than that, they are radical, dude! Your first post may very well be the most important one every entered on this blog!

Tell me how I am mischaracterizing your thinking in the following. You are saying:

It is true that John Winebrenner said,

“The Church of God has no authoritative constitution, ritual, creed, catechism, book of discipline, or church standard, but the Bible. The Bible she believes to be the only creed, discipline, church standard, the test-book, which God ever intended his church to have,”

but we have moved beyond that.

What was true in his day is no longer true. We already have a creed. In its latest form, we call it WE BELIEVE. We should embrace the reality that we have become a creedal church and not be afraid to continue to develop our creed and, as a church, intentionally work on becoming all that a creedal church can be.

That is how I read you when you say,

“Let’s accept it: we ARE creedal. You will disagree with me about my next statement: we SHOULD be creedal.”

In any way that I have mischaracterized what you have written, please correct me.

Assuming that I am reading you correctly, let me just say that you are one courageous, deep and radical thinker, Ben.

And, as I’m sure you know, I love courageous, deep and radical thinking.

In the past, I've had to muster courage to post what I've posted and I love the courage that it took for you even to get to the point that you would allow yourself to think these thoughts as a CGGC person.

But, what I really love is not the permission you have given yourself to think in this way but that you have thought these thoughts and not pulled back from them but have developed them as cogently as you have.

But, even more than that, I love, admire and respect you beyond words that you have had the courage to articulate your bold and radical thinking in so public a forum. AND, on top of that, in response to my thread that is so outspoken in making the exact opposite point.

I love you, man! You are one awesome dude. We need a ton more people exactly like you!

However, of course, as much as I love, admire and respect you for your courage, I couldn’t possibly disagree with you more. You are my brother. I know that now more than I ever have. But, our understanding of the church could not be more at odds.

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But, here’s the thing, gang: Ben has opened a very important door to a thoughtful and honest discussion.

Ben argues that we are not in any way what we once were. We are no longer what we claim we are. We are not--and, for a long time, we haven't been--disciples of John Winebrenner.

We are now a creedal church.

Having a creed was anathema to Winebrenner. But, we have become something different than the church Winebrenner envisoned.

I argue that we need to rediscover Winebrenner and repent of our creedalism and return to the days in which the Bible was our only rule of faith and practice. Ben says, as I read him, that we need to acknowledge our creedalism and to repent of our lingering Winebrennerianism.

Most of our leadership won’t acknowledge the reality that Ben describes:

We are functioning as a creedal church and have been for a long time. We walk one walk but actually talk a different talk.

Ben has the courage to say that 2.0 and is, very simply, misrepresenting the truth when it says,

“We believe the Bible is the inspired, infallible authority, the Word of God, our only rule of faith and practice.”

Ben says, “No. We ‘ARE’ a creedal church. We have a creed. WE BELIEVE is that creed. He says that we have a creed is a good thing. To say that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice is not true and we shouldn’t want it to be true.

I love you for saying that, Ben. You don’t know how much I love you for saying it.

Here’s what I hope:

I hope, Ben, that you will continue to say what you have said. We ARE a creedal church. We ARE! I agree with you. That is the 1925 to 2009 CGGC truth in full. Period. I don’t know how anyone can read all of the faith statements we have written since 1925 and deny that truth.

What I want to do, Ben, is to debate you on the point, as you said it: “…we SHOULD be creedal.”

There’s a lot of creeping creedalism and denial that’s been going on in the CGGC since 1925. Let's you and I call an end to that. Let’s stand together and say that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.

Then, let’s all--the two of us and the whole CGGC body--have an honest dialog about whether our Body should accept our creedalism and develop our church as a creedal body.

Let's have a debate that is honest!

What do you think?

Thank you for your honesty and insight and courage, Ben. You have done us a great service.

Thank you, man.

I love you!

Cliches That Bug Us

In the spirit of Grinch, I invite you all to share common church cliches that bug you, and the reasons why. Perhaps our shared irritations can help bring us together! (Plus, I'm trolling for fellow curmudgeons. So ignore this if you're too serious-minded.)

1. Here's my current, most annoying favorite: "It is what it is." What the heck is that supposed to mean? Are we talking about accepting the sovereign will of God, warts and all? or is it some buzz phrase used in place of "Que sera, sera"?

2. This isn't so much a cliche, but it is a common idea: "If even one person is saved, then the x amount of dollars we're going to spend is worth it." Of course, this avoids the fact that Jesus has already purchased our salvation with His blood, so perhaps salvation isn't the real goal. It sounds like rationalization to buy a new toy to me. Closely related to this is: "You gotta spend money to make money."

Let 'er rip!

We Believe 2.0

Gang,

I’ve been reading over the new version of We Believe since it was first posted on line in early October. I have four comments and I hope that they will evoke important and meaningful dialog about who we are as a body.

-----------------------------------------

In my opinion, We Believe 2.0 must be sent back to the drawing board.

Let me say from the beginning that I know some of the people are who are on the committee who put this draft together. I consider several of them to be my friends. I love all those people and I respect them. I believe that they are all deeply committed to the Lord. I know that they love the CGGC and the whole Body of Christ. What I write here is not personal criticism. However, I think that the document they presented for our consideration will be bad for the CGGC.

Here are my four comments:

1. We Believe 2.0 diminishes the authority of the Word.

When John Winebrenner was leading the Church of God and the Church of God was a vital, edgy Spirit-empowered movement, Winebrenner described us in this way:

“The Church of God has no authoritative constitution, ritual, creed, catechism, book of discipline, or church standard, but the Bible. The Bible she believes to be the only creed, discipline, church standard, the test-book, which God ever intended his church to have.”

We Believe is something on that list of things Winebrenner says we don't have: A creed or a church standard or a test-book. Whatever it is, its role is to stand between the Bible and us. From the beginning, we have opposed the creation of that sort of document.

There is something about a movement that makes institution people uncomfortable. There is, in a movement, what looks like disorder and chaos. The church in the New Testament was a movement. Read Acts 1-15. There was so much leading of the Spirit that, as Reggie McNeal puts it, the disciples were struggling to catch up.

The New Testament church never made a concerted effort to codify the content of its faith.

Recently, we have invited Reggie McNeal to speak at IMPACT and at several of our Conference Sessions. We’ve booked him to resource the Missional Leadership Initiative. Ed Rosenberry appeared at the Eastern Regional Conference this year encouraging the delegates to read Alan Hirsch’s great book, The Forgotten Ways.

McNeal and Hirsch share an emphasis that was core to Winebrenner’s thought: The Western Church must throw away the Christendom version Christianity.

The new We Believe and its predecessor advocate Christendom.

Has it occurred to you that the Christendom Era began in AD 313 with Emperor Constantine and that the first major achievement of Constantinian Christianity was the creation of the Creed?

One of the most amazing realities of human history is that the Jesus movement was just that for almost 300 years. It was a movement. It had no creed. Emperor Constantine’s first success in transforming Christianity from movement to institution was to begin to codify the content of Christian faith. That’s what the Nicene Creed began to do.

John Winebrenner knew that efforts to codify belief kill Spirit, kill passion, kill movement.

Since 1925 the Churches of God has played a clever semantic game. It has said, “We don’t have a Creed. We have a Doctrinal Statement.”

Hogwash.

Winebrenner knew how to start and continue a movement. If we want to become a movement again, we need to heed his words and take radical action to make them true once again:

“The Church of God has no authoritative constitution, ritual, creed, catechism, book of discipline, or church standard, but the Bible. The Bible she believes to be the only creed, discipline, church standard, the test-book, which God ever intended his church to have.”

We Believe codifies the content of our belief. It institutionalizes our faith. It creates order. It promotes tranquility. It dulls edge. It quenches spirit. It steals from us the need to do what Winebrenner did in the late 1820s, that is, to read the Scriptures on his knees. We need to get rid of our creed. We need to foster raw faith in the Word. We need to open our Bibles and fall on our knees again.

We Believe makes it possible for us to be a homogenous institution and gives us no room for the raw and edgy spirituality of a movement. It is spiritual Prozac. It gives a peaceful mind but not necessarily peace with God.

If we want to be a movement again. If we want to shed the shackles of institutionalism, we have to send We Believe back to the drawing board.

2. We Believe 2.0 is sectarian, church-centered and internally-focused, not Kingdom-oriented.

There are two passages in 2.0 that I embrace. If we send 2.0 back to the drawing board, I would want both of these statements to rule 2.1. One of the two appears in the section on Last Things. This is the statement:

“We believe there are honest differing understandings regarding details or how last things will unfold.”

This is a Kingdom-focused sentence. It connects us to the rest of the Body. It doesn’t distinguish us from it.

In recent years, we have invited Reggie McNeal to motivate us to build the Kingdom. Two times, we have made his books Book of the Year. We have promoted and discussed Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways and we have valued, in theory at least, the call to build Christ’s Kingdom.

Yet, read 2.0. That one sentence in the section on Last Things is the only sentence I found that respects what we have in common with others in the Kingdom more than it focuses on puny differences that separate us.

There are points at which 2.0 is so sectarian that it is actually offensive to me. The section on Feetwashing is one example.

The Church of God was the first among many recent movements to teach that followers of Jesus practice Feet Washing.

We can take some pride in the fact that much of the new life in the body of Christ since the early 1800s, especially in the West, follows John Winebrenner on Feet Washing. Much of the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements understood, as Winebrenner did, that people who live out a radical New Testament lifestyle need to take John 13 literally.

Honestly, the Feet Washing section of 2.0 breaks my heart.

I agree with Winebrenner that to follow Jesus in a radical way requires obedience to His words, “Now that I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also should was one another’s feet.” And, to be fair, 2.0 does affirm Feet Washing.

But, 2.0 affirms Feet Washing in a hyper-sectarian way (as does the original for that matter). It ignores the amazing reality that millions of brothers and sisters share our conviction on Feet Washing. It makes an issue of one point of difference that distinguishes us from every other believer in Jesus Christ on the earth. It argues that we believe that Feet Washing commemorates the incarnation. (More about that later.)

The new We Believe could affirm our connection to the larger community of believers. It could even proudly affirm our important leadership in this area of belief. But, it chooses to emphasize our disagreement with the rest of Christ’s Body. In this way it is sectarian. It works to diminish Kingdom, not to build it.

The new We Believe is all about how we are distinct. It sets us apart as insular. It is all about CGGC as church. It highlights ways we are different from the rest of the Kingdom. It is aggressive sectarianism. It will serve to kill Kingdom thinking in our body.

Gang, if you care about Kingdom, you cannot let this stand.

3. We Believe 2.0 is irrelevant.

I said that there are two passages in 2.0 that I love. One of them is in the last section. The other is in the Introduction. The Introduction is a marvelous beginning to the document. It sets the correct tone. It says,

“As the family of God moves forward on its journey each generation needs to come to grips anew with the faith once delivered to the saints.”

Amen.

And, when I first read the Introduction, I was thinking about the things we say we are for now:

Movement
Kingdom
Mission

Based on the Introduction, I expected that this document would be—to use Winebrenner’s term—a “manifesto" that would empower us to shift from institutionalism to movement, from internal to external focus and from church-centric thinking to Kingdom orientation and from tired traditionalism to missionality.

This document is not about movement or Kingdom or mission. It ignores the challenges of our day. It merely re-answers questions that were hot 80 or 180 years ago.

When I read Winebrenner’s 27 Points from the 1840s I know exactly what the point is. The point is that the Church of God strives to be the New Testament Church in its time and place.

When I read the 1925 Doctrinal Statement, I know exactly what the point is. In the midst of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Debate, the Churches of God declared, as clearly as it could, that it proclaims the historic Christian message.

When I read the original We Believe I have no difficulty knowing what the point is. The point is that we’ve had a liberal seminary in the recent past have flirted with liberalism but our conservatives have won. We’ve also noted the emergence of Evangelicalism from the womb of Fundamentalism and we have chosen a very moderate, shepherd-oriented way of being Evangelical. That’s the point of the original.

In each of those statements of our faith and practice there was a point—one controlling truth that was clearly proclaimed.

In our own time we are struggling with life and death issues of institution v. movement, church v. Kingdom, internal v. external focus and missionalism v. the Christendom model of the church. In any other age, a Church of God statement of faith and practice would have taken a clear stand on those issues.

I defy you to characterize for me where 2.0 comes out on any of these defining issues of this generation.

The new We Believe is irrelevant. It says nothing to our age. If you care about the CGGC facing its future with clarity and focus, you need to send 2.0 back to the drawing board.

4. We Believe doesn’t describe what we believe.

That wouldn’t bother me, if it was leading us.

Winebrenner’s 27 points and the 1925 Statement and the original We Believe didn’t actually describe a consensus. They cast vision for a new consensus. If 2.0 cast a vision for what we hope to become, I’d be shouting halleluiah. If it described a future CGGC—a missional, Kingdom-focused movement I’d be praising it.

But—and I’m speaking very personally here—in the ways it fails to represent our consensus it merely serves up moldy leftovers.

Here are two connected examples.

First, the new We Believe joins the original and insists that C. H. Forney’s fivefold definition of an ordinance is what we believe.

Perhaps you don’t even know what that means. Rejecting Winebrenner (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, in an attempt to correct Winebrenner), Forney argued that an ordinance is defined by five characteristics. It:

Is commanded by Divine Authority
Involves Material Elements
Portrays Redemptive History
Denotes Spiritual Experience
Requires Formal Observance.

I don’t believe that.

Based on 35 years of whispered conversations with others in ministry in the CGGC many of you don’t believe it either. You may pay lip service to it to receive and maintain credentials, but many of you honestly don’t believe that.

And...

...John Winebrenner didn’t believe it either.

I am so purely Winebrennerian on this issue that you couldn't tell his thought from mine. But, according to 2.0 (and the original as well) what I believe is not what we believe.

Second, I don’t believe that the ordinance of Feet Washing commemorates the incarnation of Jesus—another idea we take from Forney. 2.0 says, “We believe in the ordinance of feetwashing as a celebration of the incarnation.”

I don’t believe that. I suspect that many in the CGGC don’t believe that and John Winebrenner certainly didn’t believe it.

According to Winebrenner, Jesus created the ordinance of Feet Washing, “To symbolize or represent the two cardinal graces of the Christian character--humility and love”

And, that is what I believe.

Neither version of We Believe describes what I believe or what others who whisper to me believe. But, more to the point, it opposes what John Winebrenner believed. It leaves no room for a person in the church to be a Winebrennerian.

It cannot be, therefore, what we believe. If you care about what we believe, I hope you will join me in the opinion that this draft has to be sent back for more work.


So, I have problems with the draft of 2.0 that is being circulated. I love the people who put it together but I love the Lord, the mission and the Kingdom more. I think 2.0 is bad and wrong and that it casts the wrong vision for our future.

Please care about this. Please care about the raw authority of the Word. Please care about Kingdom. Please care about relevance. Please care about the consensus we hope to build for this generation.

Read the draft over. Tell us if you agree that the draft must be redone.

2.0 must go!

Defining (and Defending?) Cultural Relevance

I graduated from Winebrenner Theological Seminary in 1999. Over the past ten years, a cornerstone of my philosophy of ministry has been a high level of commitment to a church that embraces the notion of being "culturally relevant." This post is not my announcement that I now dismiss those notions as incorrect; but I will openly admit that I've embraced many ideas and approaches in the name of cultural relevance without first fully thinking through the decision.

From my vantage point, two principles are non-negotiable:

• Jesus commands us to share the message of his life, death, and resurrection (Mt. 28:18-20).
• Expanding upon that idea, Paul demonstrates how important it is to identify with those groups trying to be reached (1 Cor. 9:19-23).

Beyond these two imperatives, things begin to get dicey. Nowhere does Jesus say "Do whatever it takes to reach everyone"; nor does Paul write "become like a homosexaul to win the homosexuals..." So, it appears as though it is necessary to draw a line about what those actual limits are.

This conversation could go in a dozen different directions, but I'm going to focus on just one element of the equation: technology. For those who read the previous thread (The Role of Technology in the Church), you know this is something that I have multiple opions about. But I will try my best to simplify and clarify my concerns.

The metaphor that has been very helpful to me invokes the idea of environmental ecology (there is actually a field of study called "media ecology."). Imagine for a moment a virgin forest that has never encountered a specific form of termites. Once the invasive species is introduced, the forest is no longer the old forest plus the termites - it is an entirely new habitat. If you can see the analogy, that is all I am suggesting when I say I believe that technology is not morally neutral. Without trying to overstate my point, by its mere introduction new technologies alter our very form of existence. How can they therefore be "morally neutral"? If you genuinely believe that God created the computer, then maybe you can build a case, but if you believe that computer technology was created by man (using his God-given free-will), then my points remain part of the discussion.

So...when discussing cultural relevance, these are things I am not suggesting:

• that churches shouldn't use PowerPoint
• that churches shouldn't have websites
• that pastors shouldn't blog

But, what I am suggesting is that we too often embrace what's new without first asking what we are giving away as the trade-off. The minute we embrace something for no other reason than it exists we are surrendering ourselves to our cultural - that is definitely NOT being culturally relevant in a biblical sense.

Would Jesus Twitter? Would Paul have a blog? Before you quickly reply "Of course! How can you even ask those questions?" I would encourage you to seriously consider the questions further.

The Role of Technology in the Church

Over the past week I've been exchanging emails with one of the pastors at our church. He delivered a sermon last week that prompted a variety of thoughts. Since things have been slow here lately, I thought I would post our conversation. I'm posting my two replies to his emails (you'll be able to tell from my replies the basic concerns in his reply).

While many topics are explored, the main focus of the conversation addresses the role of technology within a Christian context.

Brent

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Pastor D-,

Great sermon on Sunday.

Anytime that it prompts me to sit down and type out a few reactions it has cleary had an impact on my thinking. Two thoughts... First, I was pondering your statement (my paraphrase) that consumerism is an enemy of the church. I agree. But I sometimes wonder if we (as the Church) are taking aim at the right target. From my experience and research, a consumer culture is a by-product of a technologically-driven culture. The invention of the standardized clock, the industrial revolution, the assembly line, etc. are all contributing factors to consumerism. Jumping to 21st century inventions, the cell phone, internet, iPod, etc., are products of this technologically driven culture. So...we take aim at consumerism (the effect) but we never call out the use of technological innovation (the cause). Sometimes it strikes me as a bait and switch technique. We (the Church, not just our church) say "don't be driven by consumption" but never hit the heart of the issue - the over-reliance on technological innovation. I've followed the trail of technology in the name of "cultural relevance" - and many things that I've probably done in the past I now would find suspect. Yes, this could mean that our Blackberries and Twitter accounts are the real culprits. To use strong language, the enemy may be technology not consumerism.

Second, and related, you said about speed being the enemy of empathy. Again, we promote all our ministries on the latest technology without apology, BUT doesn't this promote the very speed you are attacking? Doesn't the fact that my students expect instantaneous replies to their emails contribute to their inability to recognize that I may have other priorities beyond them? Email and cell phones invite immediacy. Unless I directly address these items the users never recognize that they are being driven by the technology rather than the other way around. If this makes any sense, we can talk further. If this just sounds like crazy-talk, so be it. Oh yes, I recognize the irony that I am emailing you this as opposed to talking face to face.Enjoy your week.

Brent

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Pastor D-,

I also enjoy a good, thoughtful conversation.

I agree with much of your assessment of Paul. Acts 17:16-34 illustrates how engaged he was with the contemporary culture. And he definitely used a primary communication tool of his day – letter writing – to convey his message. Paul may have been willing to use email and video, but I can’t believe he would have done it unreflectively. I read his notion of taking every thought captive for Christ as an indication that we must thoughtfully engage culture and not just accept something because it exists.

I also agree that while the printing press was demonized when it was first invented, it has created many new opportunities for spreading the message of Jesus.

To echo you, “That being said – I disagree with many of your conclusions.”

Although it may appear as though I am anti-technology, that is not the case at all. I’ll focus my primary concerns into two major categories.

First, I am deeply concerned about the unreflective use of technology. Too often I hear the question “How can I use this new technology?” before hearing that same person ask “Should I use this new technology?” Too often I have seen the Church embrace a new technology in the name of cultural relevance. Just to focus upon the emerging internet technologies, I am thinking of Facebook/MySpace, Twitter, Blackberries, etc. Yes, does that provide an opportunity to reach a potentially unreached audience, absolutely. But where are the voices asking should we be using these resources? What about the trade-off? Back to your sermon on Sunday – to suggest that we should slow down in the name of empathy but not call out the specific technologies that cause us to speed up stops short of addressing the whole issue.

My second, and probably great, concern explores the question who/what controls who/what? Just because something is created by a technology guru doesn’t mean that it should be used. Just because Twitter is available doesn’t mean that it should be utilized. While I believe that all truth is God’s truth and creation can be redeemed by the Creator, just because a new technology emerges doesn’t mean that it should be embraced. I can say more on this, but I’ll stop there.

But, perhaps the part of your email that I find most troubling is the notion that technology is morally neutral. On that point, I could not disagree more emphatically. You use the example of Columbine. Perhaps the students would have found a way to commit their evil deeds using another form of attack. But, how many other forms of attack are idolized through TV, movies, and video games? Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel talks about how the invention of the gun changed the form, speed, and entire nature of cultures. It wasn’t just the former cultures plus guns – entirely new cultures emerged. The same can be said for computers, TV, radio, etc. Our culture today is not just 1980 plus the internet. We are living in an entirely new culture. Technology is not just about how we use it – once it enters the culture it changes the nature of that culture. Another example – so many men struggle with pornography. I do not believe that every man who views porn on his computer would have also gone to the bookstore and took a sneak peek at those same types of magazines. The invention of the internet has completely changed the nature of the discussion. To suggest that technologies are morally neutral is as dangerous of a proposition as a pastor could make (within the context of our discussion – I am not suggesting this is the most looming evil in all creation). I’m not trying to overstate this issue – but I firmly believe what I just wrote.

A few questions that I think about often:
What does it mean to be human? How does technology help or hinder our ability to be human? What are the trade-offs involved in using a new technology? Are convenience and efficiency alone enough to justify embracing a new technology?

One final thought (and you may have done this before) – ask your staff to take a 24 – 48 hour technology fast and watch the reactions you receive. If there are any lingering doubts about who controls who, I think that exercise may confirm my earlier comments.

Thanks for the reply – I’ve been thinking about your email over the past few days. I take your comments and insights seriously and appreciate your willingness to engage in the conversation.

Have a good weekend.

Brent

The Forgotten Ways of Jesus

Fran wrote a book. You should buy it!

A Combination Creed

For some time we've liked the idea of occasionally using a creed in our worship gatherings. One struggle has been that the historic creeds are very limited in what they express. They were written at a time the church was defending against particular heresies related to the nature of God and the person of Jesus. They say GREAT things, but they say little about the way of seeing and living that Jesus worked so hard to impart to us. So I decided to try incorporating some of Brian McLaren's Jesus Creed into some of the form and language of the historic creeds. I just thought you guys might like to see it. I think we'll try using it at LifeSpring-- the timing seems right as many of us in the church try to recover the Way of Jesus along with the historic orthodoxy we still hold to.

A Creed for those on the Way
We believe in God, the Father,
Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God—
God from God, light from light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in essence with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was born of the Virgin Mary and became truly human.

We have confidence in this Jesus
…who healed the sick and even raised the dead;

…who cast out evil powers and confronted corrupt leaders;

…who cleansed the temple, favored the poor,
turned water into wine, and calmed the seas;

We have confidence in this Jesus
…who taught with words and signs meant to awaken us,
on hillsides, from boats, in the temple, in homes, at parties,
along the road, on beaches, by day and by night;

…who taught us the way of love for God, for neighbor,
for stranger and for enemy, for outcast and for foreigner;

…who called disciples, led them, washed their feet,
gave them new names and new purpose,
called them his friends, taught them to pray,
and sent them out to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom.

We have confidence in this Jesus
…who loved, rejoiced, wept, sang, and feasted.

And so we seek to let our hearts be awakened,
to abide in him as a branch in a vine, and to follow him and live by his example.
We have not seen him, but we love him, and to know him is to know the true and living God.

For our sake he was crucified, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again as the Scriptures had foretold.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his Kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, who makes known the Father’s presence to us,
and who works to bring forth the new creation within us.
He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and with the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

We believe in one holy community of Jesus, his body,
marked by baptism and forgiven of our sins.
We are his hands and feet in the world.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and for the day when all fears will flee,
all pain will fade away, and all tears will be wiped from our eyes
as we rise into the goodness and wholeness and life which will never end.
Amen.