“We profess the holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West. More particularly, as professed by the Church of England..."
-- Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1685-1691
We Believe in God
We believe in a God who loves us and who made us in his image: to be like him and to be stewards of creation. We believe God is eternal, or outside of time itself, and also all-powerful, all-knowing, and ever-present. We believe God is Triune. There is one and only one God, but this God exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: One Divine Essence and Three Divine Persons. God is an unfathomable mystery indeed! We believe humans have the privilege of a genuine communion with God our creator, as much as he may seem beyond us, it is a communion made possible because of and through Jesus.
We Believe in Jesus
We believe Jesus is more than just a prophet, sage, spiritual leader, or teacher. We believe Jesus is the Christ, the Lord of all, and the Son of the living God! We believe that God the Son took on our human nature to live as one of us on earth as the person of Jesus; teaching the ways of God, healing the sick, displaying power in miracles, and at the last rejected by us to become a sacrifice to take away the sins of the world. But we also believe he didn’t stay dead! Three days later he rose again from the dead and was fully alive in a restored and resurrected body. We believe after showing himself to his disciples (including his wounds) and others he ascended back into Heaven where we wait until the time he will return to fix all that is broken in our world, make everything right, bring life back to the dead, and usher in a perfect Kingdom and renew creation.
We Believe in the Holy Spirit
We believe God is still at work in the Church and the world primarily through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the life of the Church, guiding the Church from the time of the Apostles through the Holy Scriptures, and empowering us now for service to Jesus and our world. We also believe the Spirit brings conviction of heart to the ways we failed to love God and love our neighbors, and believe the Spirit always calls us to a life of repentance and heart change.
We Believe in the Bible
We believe the Bible is revelation from God, and that revelation is about love. If God is love, then God must desire to communicate to us. This communication from God, about his will for us and how to connect with him, we call “revelation”. We believe this revelation is found in the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, which though written over a long period of time is inspired by the Holy Spirit to communicate God’s truth to us. This is why in our Sunday worship you will hear so much of the Scriptures read each Sunday.
We Believe in the Gospel
We believe in the Good News, the proclamation that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we can be set free from the powers of sin and death that have continued to wreak havoc on human society and God’s creation. We believe the Gospel is a call to faith and discipleship, a call to follow Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords, a call which is answered in Baptism to begin a life of following Jesus to bring his Gospel of love and freedom from sin into the world as we wait for his return to redeem all creation.
We Believe in the Church
We believe the Church is the community of God’s New Covenant, entered by Baptism and tasked by God to restore all people to unity with God and each other through Jesus Christ. We believe the Church is one people made of many different nations, tribes, and languages all in Covenant with the same God through faith in the same Jesus and united by the same Baptism. We believe Jesus founded the Church to proclaim his Gospel, make his disciples, and gather to worship him as our Lord.
We Believe in the Sacraments
We believe that God works through his creation to perfect it, and not against it to destroy it. We believe God has appointed material things such as water, bread, and wine as ordinary means of his grace for us. All of us, even our physical bodies in making the sign of the cross, is involved in worship in our liturgy and sacraments.
We Believe in Forgiveness
We believe that God, the second person of the Trinity, became a human person Jesus, and through his death and resurrection rescued us from the powers of sin and death. We believe this redemption offers each of us the opportunity by faith to be given forgiveness of the many ways we have failed to love God and love others as Jesus commanded. No matter who you are or where you come from, this forgiveness is found in joining the New Covenant by Baptism when we turn our back to sin and turn to Jesus in faith.
We Believe in Eternal Life
We believe Jesus’ physical and bodily resurrection is the first fruits, the example of his promise to save us from death itself. We believe that death then is not the last word and that life always triumphs in the end. Death, chaos, evil, and sin may seem to have the power, but their time is short - Jesus has already won the victory over them which we will experience when he returns again in glory to make all things new and usher in a New Heavens and a New Earth.
Saint Stephen's is a Communion Partners parish and upholds the historic Christian teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, as taught in our Prayer Book (BCP 422). To learn more, visit https://communionpartners.org/
