20 years ago — January 15, 1996
An individual preparing to be ordained for the gospel ministry is required to share a statement of personal faith … . Generally it includes a formulation of what one believes about God, Jesus Christ and the Spirit … the church, the sacraments, the Bible … as well as other fundamental subjects. … Possibly as pastors and officers approach a new year it might not be a bad time for us to write new statements of faith, to compose new confessions rather than new resolutions. Rather than trying to alter a few bad habits we might find more powerful change taking place in our lives and ministries if we rethink what we really believe and try to put our faith into new words. Perhaps then
we would not express what we have been taught about faith but what God has revealed to us; not what we want to be but what God has called us to be … . In such a way we might find ourselves heading, not for new suggestions, but new lives.
From the article “New Year’s Confession” by Earl S. Johnson Jr.
