LWCF Statement Of Faith
Our Faith is the set of beliefs by which our lives are guided. The Christian Faith we espouse has been handed down to us through the witness of the generations of believers who have gone before us and the word of God we experience in the Holy Bible. That faith is built on the following foundations.
God has always been and will always exist. There is only one God. He is holy and infinitely perfect. All created things came into being through the will of God, including the human race, and He sustains creation to this day. God is so different from us that we only know of God because He has revealed and continues to reveal Himself to us.
We have come to understand God as the one who is known to us in three persons. Our scripture (the Bible) names God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While we know that God is not gendered, like us, we use this language of scripture and speak of God as the Holy Trinity (tri-unity).
The most important way God has made himself known to us is in the life of Jesus, who is the Son of God, attested to as both God and man. He was born of a virgin and lived a sinless life. In His life and teaching, He made God known. In His suffering and death, He gave Himself as an offering on our behalf. In His resurrection, we are offered a new kind of relationship with God.
Jesus offered himself because the sinful condition of the human race had separated us from a holy God. The redemption he secured is offered to us as a gift that cannot be earned, but can only be received through faith in Him. Even having that faith requires that God work to plant it in unbelieving hearts. Salvation, which brings transformation in this life and culminates in eternal life with God, is entirely God’s doing. All who receive Jesus Christ through repentance by faith are delivered from sin, made righteous before God, our heavenly Father, and named His children.
The Holy Spirit is intended to live within each believer, but the experience of receiving Him varies greatly in both scriptural telling and our experience. The Holy Spirit comes to guide and teach believers and equip each believer to serve in the kingdom of God. His equipping empowers us to fulfill His call on our lives. The gifts of the Spirit outlined in scripture are necessary for believers to carry out whatever ministries God has chosen for each of them. Active membership in Living Waters carries the expectation that each member will seek out and grow in their relationship with God and use their gifts in service and ministry to both the body of Christ and to those who aren’t yet members of the body.
The word of God found in the Bible and the sacramental gifts practiced in Baptism and Communion are tools by which God continues to distribute his grace (which means unmerited favor). We believe the Holy Bible, including all the canonical books, to be God’s divinely inspired authoritative word and our most reliable source of discovering God’s truth for His creation. It is the final authority for all our teaching.
We believe the Church is the Body of Christ, with Jesus as the Head. We purpose to submit to Christ’s headship in all things. We are committed to consistently contend in prayer for all of God’s purposes for us. We seek to hear God’s voice, to be directed and guided in our service and ministry.