Our Beliefs -
'My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.'
(Job 23:11-12 - Holy Bible, New International Version).
Labels can sometimes be unhelpful, but other times they can bring a sense of belonging; shared values and beliefs that unite us around a common cause.
The labels we apply in Church are often just like that. St John's identifies itself as 'Evangelical', a word that means 'Good News'. To be Evangelical is to have a particular focus on the bible as God's inspired and authoritative word to us. It also means that we understand that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ requires a personal response. That response leads to personal transformation through God's Holy Spirit as we are forgiven our sin, and given the assurance of a place in Heaven in the future (which we call 'salvation'), and the hope of wonderful relationship with our Heavenly Father now. A neat summary of the main strands of Evangelical understanding of the Christian Faith can be found in the Evangelical Alliance Basis of Faith here.
St John's is part of the Church of England, whose statement of beliefs, rooted firmly in the teachings of the Bible, are found in two places:
The first is called the Creeds. They are a set of statements the early Church formed to help them understand in a definitive way who Jesus was, and what He had done for us. The main creed is called the Nicene Creed, named after the place it was agreed. You can read more about the creeds here.
The second place is something known as the Thirty Nine Articles. They are a set of statements that formed the theological foundations of the Church of England when it was formed under Elizabeth I. The Articles of Religion remain the doctrinal basis of the Church of England to this day. You can read them in both their orignal 16th Century and modern 21st Century English by clicking here.
