I Love This Modern Paraphrase:
A modern summary of communal beliefs as found in the words of the ancient nicene creed (circa 451 a.d.).
We believe
in one God,
the father, the almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
He came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
He became incarnate from the virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under pontius pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
on the third day he rose again
in accordance with the scriptures;
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
we believe in the Holy Spirit, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father (and the son).
With the Father and the Son He is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic* and apostolic church.
we acknowledge one baptism and celebrate the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen!
*holy catholic = universal church
5 Comments:
How wonderful it was to open the planter today and find this creed! Len Sweet and others love the term Ancient-Future Church and I find myself more and more convinced that this ideal is going to allow God to remake the church. The use of weekly Eucharist, the creeds, the church season, liturgical readings and meditative moments in worship (rather than each and every moment filled with music, speaking or worse announcements :) usher people, dare I say post-modern people, into the presence of the Holy. I found myself engaged in a conversation over lunch this past week with a young man who is in the process of becoming a Muslim. I know some of his background (church growing up, Christian home,etc...). He had attended a mega-corporation gathering in KC but told me something was always missing. He found that something in Islam. I probed for a while and came to the conclusion that what he was missing was the "hard stuff" (my term) of spirituality. He desired sacrifice and the mega-corporation gave in small groups and basketball. He wanted to give himself up totally to God, he wanted to gather to prayer as a body in quiet Holiness but was given bands and hopelessly hip 40 something pastors (can we admit please that we are no longer in college and that we don’t look so hot in Gap or Banana Republic anymore) with his five points and a poem sermon. You can sense, Bob, that I am rather bitter about losing this good guy to a lie. The creeds must be taught, Communion must be the center of our worship experience rather than the pulpit prince, and the liturgy/readings must be brought back into the evangelical church so we hear the whole of God's Word rather than whatever the particular bias of the pastor happens to be this month. Add this all up and I end up back at the beginning (first century beginning) where disciples are made person to person apart from the polity and politics of church growth models and methods. Blessings to you, hope all is well. Peace
Jim: So Missionary Basketball is out?
You are right. We have for far too long required far too little of ourselves as Christians. I won't lay the entire blame at the feet of what Bob calls the Hagar System, because we are, each of us who claim Christ, all responsible for ourselves. Yes our shepherds guide us, but they don't know everything either. It is our responsibility, duty, to search out and investigate the truth, or lack thereof, that they preach to us.
We actually had a responsive reading in our service today -- that's a rarity. And not a single chorus (unless I'm forgetting...) also a rarity. I like choruses, I like readings, I like hymns -- but who cares what I like?
I too love the creed. I come from a very anti-creed background, so these things are all new to me -- and I loved it.
Mike & Jim, Hagar is what we taught our people. I'm grieved in my heart because for years I encouraged and perpetuated the Hagar system. It's the American Model for doing Church -it's the "Come and See" who has the best show. And, we do whatever we can to reach some people who "Come and See". We have so dummed it down and moved away from the one on one disciple making process clearly mandated in Scripture. Remember Hagar is based on what we can do. Jim talks alott about be disillusioned as I am with what we can do ourselves. If we ever needed God -we need Him to do what only He can do. Sarah needed what only God could do. We are so busy doing our stuff we have little room for God to do His stuff.
Jim, the person you described respesents hundreds and thousands who want to give their lives for something significant. We are for the most part not calling people to give of themselves. The truth is that 20 something's in America want to sacrifice, make a difference, and take up their crosses for something significant. We in the Hagar system are not asking for much of anything. Afterall, we need to keep them coming to Church and we do not want to offend. Instead we serve to please and impress ourselves.
Mike- Was the service an offering to God? I'm glad you liked the Creed. I'm also sure your worship was an offering to God. But was the service geared to give an offering to God or mostly to meet our own needs?
Jim, I'm totally with you on your responses and I resonate with joy your final sentence.
We must go back to the First Century Church and do what they did with even more vigor. I value the Supremacy of the Great Commission.
The Planter asked:
Mike- Was the service an offering to God? I'm glad you liked the Creed. I'm also sure your worship was an offering to God. But was the service geared to give an offering to God or mostly to meet our own needs?
Mike responds:
I'm not sure I know how to answer that. It was an offering to God from my POV, but I suppose there could have been folks there who used the service to meet their own needs.
I knew the answr and I appreciate you and your commitment to serving God with your whole life.
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