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Statement of Faith
With the whole Christian Church the United Reformed Church
believes in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The living God, the only God, ever to be praised.
The life of faith to which we are called is the Spirit’s
gift, continually received through the Word, the Sacraments, and
our Christian life together.
We acknowledge the gift and answer the call, giving thanks
for the means of grace.
The highest authority for what we believe and do is God’s
Word in the Bible, alive for his people today through the help
of the Spirit.
We respond to this Word, whose servants we are with all God’s
people through the years.
We accept with thanksgiving to God the witness to the
catholic faith in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. We
acknowledge the declarations made in our own tradition by
Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Churches of Christ in
which they stated the faith and sought to make its implications
clear.
Faith alive and active: gift of an eternal source, renewed
for every generation.
We conduct our life together according to the Basis of Union
in which we give expression to our faith in forms which we
believe contain the essential elements of the Church’s life,
both catholic and reformed; but we affirm our right and
readiness if the need arises, to change the Basis of Union and
to make new statements of faith in ever new obedience to the
Living Christ.
Our crucified and risen Lord, who leads us in our faith and
brings it to perfection.
Held
together in the Body of Christ through the freedom of the
Spirit, we rejoice in the diversity of the Spirit’s gifts and
uphold the rights of personal conviction. For the sake of faith
and fellowship it shall be for the church to decide when
differences of conviction hurt our unity and peace.
We commit ourselves to speak the truth in love and grow
together in the peace of Christ.
We believe that Christ gives his church a government distinct
from the government of the state. In the things that affect
obedience to God the church is not subordinate to the state, but
must serve the Lord Jesus Christ, its only Ruler and Head. Civil
authorities are called to serve God’s will of justice and peace
for all humankind, and to respect the rights of conscience and
belief.
While we ourselves are servants in the world as citizens of
God’s eternal kingdom.
We affirm our intention to go on praying and working, with
all our fellow Christians, for the visible unity of the Church
in the way Christ chooses, so that people and nations may be led
to love and serve God and praise him more and more for ever.
Source, Guide, and Goal of all that is: to God be eternal
glory.
Amen.
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