In our preaching, teaching and equipping we try to focus upon the story of
the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We do not believe someone has to
be "pro" this or "anti" that in order to be a part of this community. We
trust God to help us grow over time into the persons God desires us to be.
As a confessional church, we are guided in our understanding of the Christian
faith by some of the great Confessional Statements of the past 2000 years,
including the Apostles’ Creed. The most recently adopted confession is “A
Brief Statement of Faith”:
In life and death we belong to God. Through the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, we trust in
the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone we worship and serve.
We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God. Jesus proclaimed the
reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives,
teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and
binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and
calling all to repent and believe the gospel. Unjustly condemned for
blasphemy and sedition, Jesus was crucified, suffering the depths of human
pain and giving his life for the sins of the world.
God raised Jesus from the dead, vindicating his sinless life, breaking the
power of sin and evil,delivering us from death to life eternal. We trust in
God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father. In sovereign love God created the world
good and makes everyone equally in God’s image, male and female, of every
race and people, to live as one community. But we rebel against God; we hide
from our Creator. Ignoring God’s commandments, we violate the image of God in
others and ourselves, accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and
threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.
We deserve God’s condemnation. Yet God acts with justice and mercy to
redeem creation. In everlasting love, the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a
covenant people to bless all families of the earth. Hearing their cry, God
delivered the children of Israel from the house of bondage.
Loving us still, God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant. Like a
mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to
welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful still.
We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life.
The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith, sets us free to accept
ourselves and to love God and neighbor, and binds us together with all
believers in the one body of Christ, the church. The same Spirit who inspired
the prophets and apostles rules our faith and life in Christ through
Scripture, engages us through the Word proclaimed, claims us in the waters of
baptism, feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation, and calls
women and men to all ministries of the church.
In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without
ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask
idolatries in church and culture, to hear voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit, we strive to serve Christ in
our daily tasks and to live holy and joyful lives, even as we watch for God’s
new heaven and new earth, praying, Come, Lord Jesus!
With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or
in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If you’d like to explore more intentionally what faith in Christ might
mean for you, or if you’d like to find out what membership at FPC Austin
means, please register for one of our quarterly
Crossroads classes.
