Statements of Faith

Recently I’ve noticed two new ’statement’s of faith’ written in narrative rather than bullets:

The Crowded House and Project Church.

When these stories are compared to a more tradition-style doctrinal basis (e.g. Affinity, FIEC, Gospel Coalition) I can’t help but think that the narrative style ones are better.

That’s not to say that they other type is wrong, to be honest, I really love the Gospel Coalition one – it’s to extensive and attempts to communicate the some of the fullness of the gospel. But it does seem that one needs more than a basic understanding of Early Church history and vocabulary to understand them.

Whereas narrative ones – well they’re stories. They tell God’s story, and they minimise Christian jargon. And if you require church member to wholeheartedly understand and agree with a DB, then surely we need to make then as accessible as possible…?

Too Hard

Vision statements and doctrinal basis/statement of faith/theological distinctives – they’re both really hard things to put down on paper/screen. Where to start? What to include/exclude? How precise to be?

An unprecise vision statement could stilt a church’s progress because its too vague. But too closed a vision statment could limit peoples expections and hard work. For example, in my reseach I’ve read at least two vision statements that go something like, “We won’t rest until everyone in this town has recieved a prayer-backed invitiation to Christ…” Now, a team of pragmatists could probably fulfil that vision statment in about a week. One group of people stay indoors and pray – another go out and knock every door and speak to every person. Then what? Does the church pack up and more somewhere else? Would God be satisfied with that? That seems to easy a vision!?

Similarly an unprecise doctrinal basis leaves room for confusion, heretics and wackos. But a too tight statement leads to unbiblical-fundamentalist-litmus-tests of orthdoxy.