Our Faith
Photo by Josh Applegate
We Episcopalians believe in a loving, liberating, and life-giving, Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. —The Episcopal Church
If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned to outright disgust. —Martin Luther King Jr.
At its heart, all true Christianity is about the gospel, the good news about what God has done in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the good news about what God is doing in the person and work of the Holy Spirit. It’s that good news about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that is central to our faith and life at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist. This good news is life bringing together belief and action, faith and love, prayer and commitment to the kingdom of God breaking into this world bringing heaven to earth. Without this, the church is dead (James 2:18-19).
1. We believe the Christian Story.
We believe that the Bible reveals real history, that Jesus came, died, and rose again for the forgiveness of sins, to renew the world, and empower us to live in anticipation of his return. This is the ancient faith taught in the Apostle’s Creed, and we as a church believe this creed that unites all true Christians.
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth;
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
The story matters. It shapes us, inspires us, and gives us a common vision to pursue God’s desire in the world. Stories provide a holistic world with the power to capture our imagination. The gospel is the story we tell and the story we seek to live; it’s the story that is big enough to embrace all of our personal stories and bringing us together to be a community on a mission. It’s this ancient faith, this historical work of God in Jesus and through the Holy Spirit that we believe provides hope, healing, and meaning for our lives and our world.
2. We believe that our praying shapes our faith.
As Anglicans, we believe that the way we pray affects the way we believe. Because of this, our tradition puts a high emphasis on the Book of Common Prayer. Drawing up the language of Holy Scripture and the best of early Christian teaching, the prayer book helps conform the heart of our worship and prayer to Scripture. Unlike many Christian traditions who define their faith in confessional statements, we Anglicans have chosen a different path, one in which we pray our theology and our theology is prayer.
For example, consider this Easter prayer:
O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
In our worship, the seasonal rhythms of the church calendar and the call and response of our prayer book service help us to put our theology to prayer and our prayer in line with the Father’s will so that we might experience the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. As Anglicans, we are committed to a peculiar Christian path that emphasizes spiritual formation, prayer, and justice. It’s not a perfect path, but it’s a good path. Sometimes the prayerbook can feel more like a hindrance than an aid, but other times, when life is hard and the church is struggling to maintain its witness amidst the difficult trials of life and society, in these times the prayer book has helped us to limp along in our Christians walk and find the courage to stay faithful to Jesus.
3. We believe in the kingdom of God.
When Jesus described the character of his ministry he spoke in word pictures about the kingdom of God breaking into this world. For Jesus, the kingdom of God was at the heart of his ministry, and it was a message about God making the world right, showing mercy and grace to sinners, outcasts, and the poor. When describing his ministry Jesus says,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
At the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist, we seek to live out the story of Jesus by living into the kingdom of God and demonstrating the reality of that kingdom here and now. This message of the kingdom of God is the good news of Jesus Christ, and it’s a message that we believe and strive to live as we pray and worship, trusting that God transforms us by the power of the Holy Spirit to love and serve the world.
We invite you to join us in a more beautiful way of life, a way of love, living God’s story, trusting that God has begun to renew the world.