The Shandon Congregational Church
est. 1803
What We Believe
CREATION
God created all that exists, and created everything in such a way that it is good. Along with creation, God made humans in His own image—fearfully and wonderfully made—to be stewards of His creation and to be givers of life.
KINGDOM
The Kingdom is the decrees of our King, taught and lived out in the Gospels, to act as a new order for the people of God to now live and declare in our every day lives. This means Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, his parables, and his heart for the downtrodden and abandoned become our new way of life, in all humility, grace, and charity. Our King was crowned on the cross, and now in grace and mercy, we have been invited into participation of the Kingdom via that same means: a cruiciformed life.
HUMANITY
In their freedom as images of God, humans gave birth to sin and evil in the perversion of their goodness. While still essentially good, humans have the capacity for great evil even in their best intentions. The flourishing of sin, evil, and pride in the world have rendered the world fallen and bound to the chains of its own making; in the absence of goodness, injustice thrives, dehumanization reigns, and humans are in dire need of a Savior.
RESURRECTION & NEW CREATION
The Resurrection is at once the pronouncement that the reign of death is now over, and that the beginning of New Creation has now come. The same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead is now living in us, making our mortal bodies live. We the church are now a new community whose citizenship is in heaven, whose goal is to collaborate with Christ in the renewal of this world through the ministry of reconciliation.
EXILE & LIBERATION
From the trials of Job and the plunder of the Temple, to the cries of the prophets and their groans for a new hope, the story of Israel becomes our story in our efforts to find hope in the midst of strife, and to oppose evil and injustice in the midst of tyranny. We come alongside Israel’s exile in our own sufferings, to work toward justice and liberation in our own world today.
CHURCH
The focus of the church is King, Kingdom, and New Creation. The local church is self-governing and overseen by the wisdom and discretion of its own parishioners. Since the Puritans and Pilgrims before us, the duty of the church is to heighten personal responsibility for one’s faith, one’s beliefs, and one’s service unto the community within and beyond the church.
FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING
The role of clergy is not to be a referee of doctrines, but a midwife of biblical wisdom; to come alongside the parishioner in their exploration of biblical truths and the ways of Christ. The minister is to equip people with the tools and knowledge necessary to travel on their spiritual journey at their own pace, and to cultivate spaces and a community where such growth can abound. The essential component to this journey is a conviction that faith precedes understanding.