Confessional Church Symposium

Confessional Church Symposium - January 15th


Mark your calendars for Sunday, January 15th to attend this symposium in the fellowship hall following worship where we will view the PC(U.S.A.) Theoacademy’s presentation of what it means to be a confessional church. 

As our world evolved, major events and ideologies challenged our faith and the church soon found it necessary to say more than simply “Jesus is Lord.” These creeds, confessions and catechisms from around the world and over the centuries not only prove that we are reformed, and ever-reforming, but they also clarify and shore up the foundations of the Christian faith we build our lives on. Together we will explore why we use the theological documents that are the first part of our Constitution of the Presbyterian Church as an interpretive key to scripture. Please join us, won’t you?

 
 

We are incorporating more creeds, confessions and catechisms, both historic and contemporary, as the statements of faith in our worship services. We hope this deepens our understanding of Presbyterian Reformed traditions, prompts questions and discussions and enriches our faith journey.

 

Introduction to The Confession of 1967

Introduction to The Confession of 1967

As Presbyterians we have tenets expressed by the confessions of our church contained in The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). If we become ministers of word and sacrament, elders or deacons we take vows to do all of these things. Yet many of us are quite unfamiliar with these tenets. Though we are supposed to be instructed, led and guided by them in our lives and in our work. To aid in the continual formation of our shared faith we will begin exploring excerpts from The Confession of 1967 as part of our statement of faith.

The Confession of 1967 is built around a single passage of scripture: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…” (2 Cor. 5:19, NRSV). The confession addresses the church's role in the modern world by asking us to “approach the scripture with literary and historical understanding”. It is calling us to obedient action to social problems such as discrimination, nationalistic arrogance, and family and class conflict. It sees the life, death and resurrection and promised coming of Jesus Christ as the pattern for the church's mission today and calls all Christians to be reconciled to God and to one another. Without understanding all of our creeds and confessions would be equivalent to not reading and understanding the entire bible. We simply would not know the whole story.

In Christ,

Wendy Jewell

Co-chair of Music and Worship Committee

 

We are incorporating more creeds, confessions and catechisms, both historic and contemporary, as the statements of faith in our worship services. We hope this deepens our understanding of Presbyterian Reformed traditions, prompts questions and discussions and enriches our faith journey.

 

The Brief Statement of Faith

In 1983, our General Assembly devised a plan to form the Presbyterian Church  (U.S.A.) by joining the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and the Presbyterian Church in the United States.  Realizing the diversity and disagreement in the church, a brief statement of faith was written to identify the common identity Presbyterians share.

According to our Book of Confessions, The Brief Statement of Faith is distinctive in several respects.  Unlike the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creeds, which move directly from Jesus’ birth to his death,  this statement focuses on the significance of Jesus’ ministry in Judea and Galilee.  This confession is gender inclusive and also emphasizes both the roles of men and women in God’s covenant by using feminine as well as masculine imagery of God, thereby affirming the ordination of both men and women. The Brief Statement of Faith is a Trinitarian confession in which the grace of Jesus Christ has first place as the foundation of our knowledge of God’s sovereign love and our life together in the Holy Spirit.  

The Book of Confessions reminds us that no confession looks only to the past, rather every confession seeks to cast the light of a priceless heritage on the needs of the present moment, and in doing so shape the future.  It may even reform the tradition itself in the light of the word of God.  From the beginning, the Reformed churches have insisted that the renewal of the church must become visible in the transformation of human lives and societies.  It also states that the church is not a refuge from the world. Rather an elect people is chosen for the blessing of the nations.  Therefore the confessing church itself becomes the body by which Christ continues the blessing of his earthly ministry.  


 

We are incorporating more creeds, confessions and catechisms, both historic and contemporary, as the statements of faith in our worship services. We hope this deepens our understanding of Presbyterian Reformed traditions, prompts questions and discussions and enriches our faith journey.

 

Incorporating More Statements of Faith Into Our Worship Service

We all are familiar with the Apostles Creed, but did you know that the Presbyterian Church actually has eleven confessional statements? As written in The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Confessions, the church declares to its members and to the world who and what it is, what it believes, and what it resolves to do. These statements identify the church as a community of people known by its convictions as well as by its actions. They guide the church in its study and interpretation of the Scriptures; they summarize the essence of the Reformed Christian tradition; they direct the church in maintaining sound doctrines; they equip the church for its work and proclamation.

This fall we will incorporate portions of these statements of faith into our worship service. As we move through the various creeds, confessions, and catechisms you'll notice that each comes out of a particular time, place, and circumstance in history; beginning with the Nicene Creed in A.D. 381 after Emperor Constantine won a battle and attributed his victory to Jesus Christ. It then carries us through the reformation in Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland, then onto WWII's resistance of the German Christian accommodation to National Socialism, followed by the racial discrimination of the 1960s and most recently apartheid. These creeds, confessions and catechisms are both historic and contemporary. None have been altered to conform to today's theological, ethical or linguistic norms. They represent the living word – a snapshot of a particular moment. We hope this deepens our understanding of Presbyterian Reformed traditions, prompts questions and discussions and enriches our faith journey. Join us, will you?!

Respectfully Submitted,

Wendy Jewell

Co-chair of Music and Worship Committee