When I arrived at The United Church in 2021, one of the first things I had to figure out was what it actually meant to be both Baptist and Presbyterian.
This is not a simple question.
Baptists have long held that no creed should be imposed on a local congregation. “No creed but the Bible” is how the old saying goes. The local church, gathered under Scripture, works out its own convictions. No denomination hands you a theological checklist and requires you to sign it. This is a deeply held conviction about the freedom of conscience before God.
Presbyterians have a different perspective. Confession is in their DNA. The Apostles’ Creed. The Nicene Creed. The Westminster Confession of Faith. These documents are the church’s collected memory, centuries of believers confessing together: this is what we have found the Bible to teach. For Presbyterians, confessions are not a substitute for Scripture. They are the church’s way of passing Scripture to the next generation.
So which are we?
Both.
When I came here, I had to shepherd people from both traditions. Some in our congregation have a deep Baptist instinct. They want to hold their convictions freely, accountable to Scripture and not to a denomination. Others carry the Presbyterian instinct. They want to know where the church stands, anchored to something tested and trusted over time. Both instincts are right. The work has been learning how to live into both of these traditions at the same time.
So why this article? Why does this matter so much at this time and place?
Because we live in a noisy world. There are voices telling people what Christianity is, what it should let go of, and what it needs to become. Some of those voices are inside the church. The volume is high and the confusion is real. In this environment, knowing what you believe and why is not a luxury. It is essential.
This is one of the reasons our connection to The Fellowship Community has been so meaningful. TFC is a network of Gospel-centered churches within the PC(USA) that has done careful theological work to articulate what holds us together. Their Essential Tenets document (available below) is not a new creed handed down from above. It is an expression of what Scripture teaches, rooted in the Reformed tradition, and freely embraced by churches like ours. For a congregation that draws from two traditions, it helps us know what we believe.
So what do we believe?
Our own Statement of Belief puts it clearly. We believe that God lives in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is not a distant force. He is a communion of persons, and we are invited into that communion.
We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. He died for our sins, rose from the dead, ascended to the Father, and will come again. As TFC’s Essential Tenets put it, the one “born of Mary, died at Calvary, and walked with disciples to Emmaus is the same Jesus Christ who is now ascended and who will one day return.” Jesus is not a figure from history we admire. He is the living Lord we follow.
We believe that Scripture is the unique and authoritative Word of God. The Bible is not one resource among many. It is the place where God speaks, and the standard by which everything else is measured.
We believe that humanity, though capable of good, is sinful. We need rescue. And that rescue comes only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. This is why the Gospel is such good news.
In 1 Peter 2:9, which I mentioned in the first article of this series, the Apostle Peter calls the church “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” We believe that. The church is a community of believers, empowered by the Holy Spirit to spread the Good News.
We need to know what we believe. Not so we can win arguments. But so we can hold these convictions freely, as our own. So we can stand firm, speak clearly, and pass the faith on to the next generation.
The Fellowship Community helps us do that. In the months ahead I will share more about what TFC is and why our connection to them matters. But for now, it is enough to state: we know what we believe. Churches across the country are holding these same convictions. We are not alone.
Wade
This article is part of an ongoing series on The United Church and our denominational connections, including The Fellowship Community. Installments are posted at uccdga.org/tfc.
