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Sometimes a faith community is criticized for being all talk but no action. Other times a faith community is criticized for being all action but without foundation. The former criticism guards against hypocrisy while the latter guards against burning people out.
While both critiques are necessary, both dimensions of faith are very much required for focus in a healthy church. There is no being without an active outward expression and there is no living without an understanding of one’s own identity.
This theme for our English congregation is to give focus to a more holistic view of growth as it continues to build on our earlier theme of Ekklesia – being a community called out for Jesus Christ.
To inspire, enable, and develop people to grow in their understanding of Kingdom values, and to use their God-given gifts to live out those values in all spheres of life.
As baptists, we believe that Jesus Christ is eternally God. As a result, as faithful followers of Jesus, we believe that every aspect of a believer’s life is subject to Jesus’ lordship and is subject to His control. He is the one assigned by God the Father to rule with authority over all of creation.
We believe that He is the only begotten Son of God. He is fully God and fully man. During Jesus’ earthly ministry was the fully incarnate, fully human and the one true perfect visible expression of the invisible God, who through His life, death and resurrection, by the power of God, effectively procured salvation for all creation through his death, burial and resurrection.
We believe that God communicates with His people through Scripture. We believe that the writings in the Bible, in all their varied genres, are God-breathed, and the inspired Word of God. They are useful for teaching and helping people, for correcting our lives and for showing us all how to live. It is only under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit within the community of faith, the Word of God can be properly and responsibly interpreted. For baptists, the Bible is the final authority in matters of faith, church practice and our lives together and apart.
We believe that each person is created in the image of God who has agency and the power of their will to choose and act in response to the things of God as they can understand them. As a result we also believe that each person is morally responsible for his/her own nature and behaviour. Inherent in the worth of each person is also the right and competency of each person to personally to rightly relate directly with God through Jesus Christ. This principle also suggests our responsibility to serve other believers in intercession and nurture: we are called by God to be priests to each other.
Baptists believe that no group or individual has any right to compel others — forcefully or politically — to believe or worship as they do. The Bible affirms the value of everyone being rightly related to God without need for intermediaries and so have historically been champions of religious liberty as a result.
We believe that Jesus Christ chooses to form His church by bringing together believers for the purpose of worship, witness, fellowship, discipleship, mentoring and ministry in order to faithfully live out the spiritual and social call of God. It is only in this way that we can truly bring about God’s Kingdom as we enact His will. This is the value we profess through our understanding of the church as being visibly expressed through the credible and consistent witness of our local congregation as we learn to love God with all we are and have, and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.
Each local church must be made up of believers who with their profession of faith and their baptism (almost always by immersion), are incorporated into the local church through the activity of the Holy Spirit. Baptists recognize the church universal as all who truly profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Baptists believe that Believers’ Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two ordinances required by the New Testament and are to be administered by the local church.
We have a story to tell that is mandated by our Lord in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. Our calling is to share God’s message of love and salvation with each person. Each Christian has a duty to share their faith with others. Baptists continue to be very active in mission efforts, both in local and global contexts.
We recognize that mission is not just evangelism, but also includes promoting justice, social welfare, healing, education and peace in the world. It is a holistic approach that expresses care for both the needs of the human soul and the social needs that affect all of life.
Government in a local church is controlled by the principles of the priesthood of all believers, the Lordship of Christ, the authority of the Scriptures and the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. Christ, present in the lives of congregational members, leads them corporately to discover and obey his mind and will. Such ‘congregational government’ calls for and expresses the equality and responsibility of believers under the Lordship of Christ.
Baptist churches also recognize the need to temper the exercise of their autonomy in order to ‘associate’ by linking regionally, nationally and internationally for ministry, mission, support and fellowship.
Emerging from our convictions about the priesthood of all believers, we affirm that in Jesus Christ all people are equal. Each one is free to be in relationship with God and to express a faith that is not coerced. Faith cannot be predetermined by someone else, but is the right of and responsibility of each individual as they seek a relationship with God based on their own personal commitments.
A further extension of the principle of the Lordship of Christ and the priesthood of believers is to be found in the Baptist conviction that there must exist a separation between the church and civil governments.