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WHAT WE BELIEVE |
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What Lebanon CRC believes and teaches
There are a lot of things that we could say about what we believe. We could write pages upon pages. One the one hand the gospel is fairly simple "For these things were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31, NIV) or "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9)
But then there have to be questions, especially to someone who is not familiar with the Bible. Questions such as "who is Jesus?" "What is a Christ?? "Why do this passages in the Bible speak of Jesus Christ as being raised from the dead by God?", "What does it mean to have life in him" will come up.
In that sense the gospel becomes incredibly deep and involved. In many ways every Sunday morning and evening we at the Lebanon Christian Reformed Church, as well as Christian churches everywhere are examining what the gospel means for us today.
Probably the best thing we can do is simply tell the story of the Bible-the whole story. However, we do have some helps to tell the story in a faster way than reading the whole Bible at one time. These are our Creeds and Confessions.
We are Christian: We believe in one God who reveals Himself in three persons, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. To this end we along with the rest of the Christian Reformed Church accept the Apostle's, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds as faithful summaries of what the Bible says about God. Creeds do not have the same status or authority as Scripture, but they are helpful in putting into a nutshell what we need to know about God.
We are Reformed: We are a confessional church. We do not come to the Scriptures all by ourselves; we come as part of a larger group in time and space. The Reformed confessions (The Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dordt) are our hermeneutic (rules for interpreting Scripture). These confessions do not have the same authority as Scripture or even the creeds. Confessions are often updated and clarified whenever one portion or another is not as faithful to what the Bible teaches. However, confessions do protect us from charismatic individuals who "have it all figured out" who would otherwise amok with crazy doctrines in our churches.
Confessions provide some accountability in our interpretation of God?s infallible Word. Another source of accountability is the fact that we are not an isolated congregation, we are a part of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. Our positions on most ?hot button? issues are in line with the positions outlined or allowed by our bi-national synod. Our practices are in accordance with those of our regional classis (Classis Iakota). Therefore as we serve God, the other brothers and sisters in our denomination make sure that everything we do is a faithful follow-through of God?s instruction.
Our recently adopted congregational core values are:
1. True, biblical teaching and preaching
2. Faithfulness to sacraments
3. Reformed heritage and sound doctrine
4. Family-centered community of believers that includes all generations.
5. Minister to those in need
6. Prayer
7. Christ-exalting worship
8. Fellowship
9. Christian education in the church, home and school
10. Stewardly use of time, energy and resources
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