LNPC Confession of Belonging
Approved by Session, November 2024
We all belong to God, and we all belong to each other. This is unequivocable and irrevocably true. All humankind is made one human race by the God who creates, claims, redeems, and calls us to minister to one another. Humankind is made in God’s image. The image of God is exquisitely reflected in vast human diversity, a breathtaking array of cultures and customs, heritages and histories, personal experiences and communal rituals. The fundamental identity, dignity, and belonging of each person is not determined by human belief or behavior but only by the grace, design, and agency of God.
Anything that degrades the humanity of any individual person or group of people, or denies any person’s belonging to God and all others in the human family, is sin, and antithetical to gospel of Jesus Christ. All human systems of prejudice and preference are sinful violations of our fundamental humanity, desecrations of the image of God.
The Church is not centered on any philosophical, ethical, political or moral perspective, but only on Christ Jesus, God incarnate. As human beings, we encounter Christ, who came to be with and for us, when we are with and for each other.
In the person of Jesus Christ, all that separates us from God and each other has been taken into the heart of God and destroyed on the cross. We are in Christ. No longer bound to live in sin; we are forgiven, freed, and empowered to participate in the healing of the world through the Holy Spirit’s work in and through our ordinary lives. We join in God’s salvation of the world and our own lives through ongoing confession (acknowledgment our own participation in sin), repentance (trading our way of seeing and living for God’s way), forgiveness(letting go of keeping track), and ministry (caring for others, upholding God’s belonging of all people in the human family).
As the community of eschatological imagination, the Church lives in active anticipation of and participation in God’s promised future unfolding in the world even now, where all barriers will be torn down and all persons upheld in the love of God without end. Joining in the restorative work of God and living in our mutual belonging means opposing all forms of discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice, hostility and hatred, and advocating for just, fair, and equitable policies and practices in society for all human siblings. All that we do begins with and remains in prayer, and returns us again and again to a stance of least resistance to what God may want to do in and through us.
All Praise and Thanks be to God!
We all belong to God, and we all belong to each other. This is unequivocable and irrevocably true. All humankind is made one human race by the God who creates, claims, redeems, and calls us to minister to one another. Humankind is made in God’s image. The image of God is exquisitely reflected in vast human diversity, a breathtaking array of cultures and customs, heritages and histories, personal experiences and communal rituals. The fundamental identity, dignity, and belonging of each person is not determined by human belief or behavior but only by the grace, design, and agency of God.
Anything that degrades the humanity of any individual person or group of people, or denies any person’s belonging to God and all others in the human family, is sin, and antithetical to gospel of Jesus Christ. All human systems of prejudice and preference are sinful violations of our fundamental humanity, desecrations of the image of God.
The Church is not centered on any philosophical, ethical, political or moral perspective, but only on Christ Jesus, God incarnate. As human beings, we encounter Christ, who came to be with and for us, when we are with and for each other.
In the person of Jesus Christ, all that separates us from God and each other has been taken into the heart of God and destroyed on the cross. We are in Christ. No longer bound to live in sin; we are forgiven, freed, and empowered to participate in the healing of the world through the Holy Spirit’s work in and through our ordinary lives. We join in God’s salvation of the world and our own lives through ongoing confession (acknowledgment our own participation in sin), repentance (trading our way of seeing and living for God’s way), forgiveness(letting go of keeping track), and ministry (caring for others, upholding God’s belonging of all people in the human family).
As the community of eschatological imagination, the Church lives in active anticipation of and participation in God’s promised future unfolding in the world even now, where all barriers will be torn down and all persons upheld in the love of God without end. Joining in the restorative work of God and living in our mutual belonging means opposing all forms of discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice, hostility and hatred, and advocating for just, fair, and equitable policies and practices in society for all human siblings. All that we do begins with and remains in prayer, and returns us again and again to a stance of least resistance to what God may want to do in and through us.
All Praise and Thanks be to God!
