This is what I believe, Christian Creed's

I’m part of  the Audio-visual team at Lakeside Church (Elim)  Southport, and being part of being a member of the AV Team, (not the A-team) is that I get the opportunity to attend the worship team practice on a Thursday night, this means I can set up the words for the songs that we will sing on a Sunday, we use a system called EasyWorship 6, which is very user friendly.

One of the songs we sing is   This I believe (The Creed) from the No other name album,  like many of you who read this blog, I have listened to and have been blessed by a number of Hillsong’s songs for the best part of 20 plus years, although recently because of the rise of Bethel and Jesus Culture,  I listen to less Hillsong’s albums that I would have listened to in the past,  with Worship and Praise music, there tend to be both fad’s and fashions, and yesterday’s greatest worship songs,  tend to lie in the land of forgotten hits today,  like many you I can recall many of those worship golden oldies.

Being Welsh and coming from a musical background, although I don’t play a musical instrument and sing off key,  I enjoy both singing to (although like a lot of Welsh men, think I sound like a cross between Tom Jones and Bryn Terfel!) and listening to music. In my heart, I’m a worshipper. When I listened to the words, I thought what great theology.

Here are the words:

“VERSE

 Our Father everlasting

 The all creating One

 God Almighty

 Through Your Holy Spirit

 Conceiving Christ the Son

 Jesus our Saviour

 CHORUS

 I believe in God our Father

 I believe in Christ the Son

 I believe in the Holy Spirit

 Our God is three in one

 I believe in the resurrection

 That we will rise again

 For I believe in the Name of Jesus

 VERSE

 Our Judge and our Defender

 Suffered and crucified

 Forgiveness is in You

 Descended into darkness

 You rose in glorious life

 Forever seated high

 BRIDGE

 I believe in You

 I believe You rose again

 I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord

 CHORUS

 I believe in life eternal

 I believe in the virgin birth

 I believe in the saints' communion

 And in Your holy Church

 I believe in the resurrection

 When Jesus comes again

 For I believe in the Name of Jesus”

Hillsongs

When I read through the words for this wonderful worship song,  I was trying to find which of the early Church creeds,  it was based upon,  I found elements of both the Apostles’ Creed, read more on the Apostles' Creed here and the Nicene Creed, read more on the Nicene Creed here

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead .On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead .I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,the forgiveness of sins ,the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Amen.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

 by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,

and was made man.

 For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

 He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Both are taken from the Book of Common Prayer.

Further Reading:

The Athanasian Creed

The Creed of Chalcedon

I’m a member of Lakeside Christian Centre, Southport which is part of the Elim Pentecostal Church, and we like many Churches and Denominations here in the UK and other countries have a statement of belief, and this is ours

Elim, What we believe

Jesus is the Saviour, the Healer, the Baptiser in the Holy Spirit and the Coming King.

Yours by His Grace, for the sake of His Commission, Church and Kingdom

Blair Humphreys,  Southport, Merseyside,  England,  UK.

Desmond Tutu's daughter to give up ministry after gay marriage - premier

Desmond Tutu's daughter to give up ministry after gay marriage - premier: Archbishop Desmond Tutu's daughter is to give up ministry after entering a gay marriage.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu's daughter is to give up ministry after entering a gay marriage.

Revd Canon Mpho Tutu-Van Firth said she was forced to leave her role in the Anglican Church
because it does not recognise same sex marriages.

Clergy are forbidden from entering a gay marriage and she would have likely been stripped
of her licence to practice had she not stood down herself.

It was a "dignified" exit from the Church, she said.

"Because the South African Anglican Church does not recognise our marriage, I can no
longer exercise my priestly ministry in South Africa.

Read more here

Bishops were wrong about poverty last time... this time they're irrelevant, by Damien Thompson, Daily Mail

Justin Welby

The quickest way to ruin a dinner party is to talk about the Christian belief in an after-life. ‘Heaven? It’s just a fantasy cooked up by clergy to keep themselves in a job,’ a typical metropolitan hostess might say, her lip curling as she spoons out the asparagus soufflé.

To which I can only reply: in 20 years of covering religious affairs as a journalist, I have almost never heard vicars or priests talk about heaven – except from the narrow confines of the pulpit, and even then not very often.

But I certainly hear clergy talk incessantly about another fantasy world. It’s a Britain in which they talk about the ‘gulf between rich and poor’.

This always seems to be a nicely flexible concept that they never precisely define. Above all, it is always ‘widening’ and they argue that society’s ills can be miraculously solved if only more taxpayers’ money was spent on them as if it was holy water.

This week, they are it again with a book that deliberately echoes the infamous ‘Faith In The City’ report published by the Church of England in 1985 when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

It controversially called for greater government spending in every conceivable area (except on the country’s military defences, of course) and was denounced by one Thatcherite minister as ‘Marxist’.

Such criticism was, I believe, over the top – but make no mistake: the truth is that the Church of England tried to strangle the Thatcherite reforms that turned Britain into the economic capital of Europe.

The Church failed in it efforts – and it seems that Archbishop Sentamu is still very bitter.

In his new book, he says he is sorry that the Church lost its nerve in its response to what he calls the ‘savage attack’ of Thatcherism.

But he is wrong. The Left-wing bishops did not lose their nerve: they actually did everything in their power to elect Labour’s Neil Kinnock as prime minister. And then when that failed, too, they went into a sulk.

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this offensive by the Church of England is the involvement of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The fact is that some of what he says is patently not true.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Bishops branded 'out of touch' for claiming the poor are being cast aside and cities are in a 'cycle of decline'

Supersize benefits family claims £50,000 in handouts every year and spend cash on designer trainers and mopeds 

Archbishops Justin Welby And John Sentamu Make Their Biggest Political Intervention Yet, Huffington Post

The Church of England has labelled income inequality "evil" in a scathing assessment of the coalition, in which it questions how David Cameron has allowed entire communities to be "cast aside."

In one of the Church's biggest ever political interventions, timed to coincide with the general election campaign, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York said valuing communities on purely economic output was a "fundamental sin", and claimed Britain has become dominated by consumerism and selfishness.

In a video to launch the collection of essays in his new book Rock or Sand?, which includes a contribution from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, admitted the Church was making a political intervention but said it was not trying to be party political, despite remarks being clearly aimed at coalition policies.

Dr Sentamu said the UK faced a "deep, deep economic crisis" during the last four and-a-half years and said inequality trapped "hard-working" families on "poverty wages".

An extract from Archbishop Welby's essay, published in the Daily Telegraph, also criticises the "un-Christian" principle of of what is known as Social Darwinism - "every person for themselves", and said while London and the South East are growing economically, "entire cities are being cast aside" and left to decline.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Daily Telegraph Archbishops’ pre-election assault on ‘evil’ of inequality in Coalition Britain

Daily Telegraph Archbishop of York says politicians obsessed with ‘beguiling Middle England’

More on Social Darwinism