"God's gospel calls us to Christ-like living and witness to the world-- We believe that God's justifying grace in the gospel must not be separated from its sactifying power and purpose. He calls us to love the Lord our God will all our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves, acting with compassion toward the poor and needy, seeking justice for everyone... Since the age to come has already dawned in Christ, we are called to take the light of Christ to the world, bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed to every nation, people and language."I am very encouraged to see this reference to "compassion toward the poor and needy, seeking justice for everyone, bearing witness in word and deed." This is great progress in calling the Free Church toward outward focus that is not just foreign missions, but love for our neighbors. Great!
For those of you who care, this new statement also drops some of the "dispensational" language about Christ's second coming. It takes out the words "premillennial and immenent" in reference to His coming and simply says, "We believe in the personal and glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels, when He will espablish His kingdom fully and exercise his role as judge of all. This coming of Christ, for which we must be constantly prepared, is our blessed hope."
If you are a Free church member, get to the annual conference in June of 2007 (it will be introduced at the 2006 conference) and vote this one in!
1 comment:
thanks for mentioning this interesting addition to the Statement of Faith. join the (future) discussion of the SOF and potential revisions at http://freechurchman.blogspot.com
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