Our Faith
What We Believe
At the heart of our faith we believe in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And as Christians we believe that Jesus is God’s Son. Do we ever honestly completely understand this probably not? However we do believe and trust in this and it is what we refer to as our faith. It is the knowledge of being known and loved by God, and of loving Him in return.
As Christians, we believe that it is part of our reason for being here on earth, to praise God. And as we do we begin to acknowledge more and more that everything comes from God and that we should feel increasingly more thankful and full of praise.
Worship helps us to recognise who God really is, it opens our hearts to what is good. It is something we are called to do every day of our lives and is achieved in many ways in our daily prayers and when we say the Lord’s Prayer.
We believe that love is at the heart of God’s will for our lives – love for God and love for others.
Jesus was once asked to name the greatest commandment. His reply was this:
The first commandment is this:
‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
The second is this:
‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.
As Christians these two commandments are central to our belief and we should not make out at any time that they are easy commandments to keep. Loving God and our neighbour can be very difficult at times for us all. However God knows that we are far from perfect and make mistakes every day of our lives. But we know that He is a God who understands our mistakes and because of the sacrifice our Lord Jesus Christ made for us on the cross forgives us.
The Baptist Denomination Structure
Equality
In the Baptist movement everyone is equal. There is no hierarchy of bishops or priests exercising authority over members or churches. Our structure exists to help and support one another as fellow believers.
Congregational
Baptists are congregational this means each church is self-governing and self-supporting, made up of members, each with a role to play. Those attending are encouraged to become church members through baptism. This entitles them to vote at the church meeting where all decisions are made. Final authority rests not with the minister or deacons but with church members at the meeting. It appoints ministers, elders, deacons and others who take a leadership role, agree financial policy and determine mission strategy.
Interdependent
Despite their autonomy, local Baptist churches have always come together in regional, national and international associations for support and fellowship. Baptists believe that churches should not live in isolation but be interdependent.
Technically there is no such thing as a Baptist denomination. The organisation has a ‘bottom up’ rather than ‘top down’ approach. However, in the UK most Baptist churches belong to the Baptist Union. This isn’t a central authority but a central resource for assisting churches.
Priesthood of all
Baptists believe everyone ordained or lay, is responsible before God for his/her own understanding of God’s word and what it means to them. We believe God created every individual as competent, with the skills to be a priest for themselves and others. That means that a minister, he or she is an equal member in the church meeting but with special responsibilities as outlined by the congregation.
Technically there is no such thing as a Baptist denomination. The organisation has a ‘bottom up’ rather than ‘top down’ approach. However, in the UK most Baptist churches belong to the Baptist Union. This isn’t a central authority but a central resource for assisting churches.
The Bible
Every Church service will involve a reading from the Bible. More often than not the sermon will be based on the reading and the preacher will explain in their own words how they see the reading relates to our lives today and what the message is for the people present. Most Christians will also read the Bible at home, often influencing them in their daily lives.
The reason the Bible is so important is that Christians believe God reveals Himself through its pages. The Bible tells of God’s encouragement and inspiration it often guides Christians through predicaments they find themselves in, and shapes their views and beliefs. Above all, it tells of the presence of God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Bible is printed as a single book, but in fact it is a collection of sixty six books that were written over the course of a thousand years, from about 950 B.C to 100 A.D. The first three-quarters of the Bible is the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible): a record of the Jewish nation and the old covenant (promise) between God and his chosen people, Israel. For Christians it describes how God prepared the people for the coming of his chosen representative on earth, the Messiah. The New Testament is a record of how God went a stage further by delivering a new covenant for the entire human race, through his Son Jesus Christ.
Amongst the books of the Bible are a wide range of, dramatic poems, lyrics, ballads, songs, proverbs, meditations, prayers and letters. As well as reflecting the culture of their times, the words of the different books inevitably reflect the authors’ limited knowledge of the world at that time. Many of the stories in the Bible were passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and were not written down until much later. The Church has studied these sacred texts for nearly two thousand years and there is a lot to be gained from the biblical writers and scholars of every era. Christian belief is that through all of the Bible’s diversity, and the range of human beings involved in its writing, when we study, read and hear the Bible, God is talking to us through its pages.