MINISTRY//What good are creeds?
Notes from our 316NOW team
What good are creeds?
Between now and the end of the year, our 316NOW team will have the opportunity to share with you some of their stories.
As you read their stories, please do two things.
Pray for our team and the souls they care for.
Consider how you might partner with them. https://www.316now.org/firmlyforward
Christian creeds in China
In Confessional Lutheran circles, worship services almost always include one of the Christian creeds. The Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed give worshipers an opportunity to confess their shared faith. The creeds also encourage Christians to stay faithful to those truths.
The problem with creeds
Worship services in China, as well as Christianity in China, don't give the creeds a treasured role. One of our administrators writes:
The 316NOW's online course on Creeds and Confessions helps students understand the ancient truths the Church has confessed and that Christians today continue to proclaim. It also exposes students to the statements of faith (.i.e., the Lutheran Confessions) that Lutheran theologians wrote in the 1500s.
During this course, a student shared that her church never uses creeds during its worship services. That gave the class the opportunity to discuss the importance of creeds, the benefits of using them in public worship, and their value in our personal witness about our faith.
Creeds warn against false teachings
This student's church is located near a historical Nestorian church building. The Nestorians were a Christian sect that brought their brand of Christianity to China in the 7th Century. Before the class, she assumed that the Nestorians and all other Christians taught the same doctrines.
The class discussion expanded to include differences between denominations. Now she and her class understand how the Christian church has been fractured by false teaching. The class also came away with a new appreciation for how churches need to write down what they believe the Bible teaches so they guard against false teachers. An example is the Nestorian’s teaching about the two natures of Christ.
What you can do
Pray for our team and the souls they care for.
Consider how you might partner with them.
For further study