The distinctive leadership role within the church given to qualified men is grounded in creation, fall, and redemption and must not be sidelined by appeals to cultural developments. We believe that Scripture is pervasively propositional and that all statements of Scripture are completely true and authoritative. Living as salt in a world that is decaying and light in a world that is dark, believers should neither withdraw into seclusion from the world, nor become indistinguishable from it: rather, we are to do good to the city, for all the glory and honor of the nations is to be offered up to the living God. This project was awarded an Honors Award by the Alabama Council of the American Institute of Architects. At the heart of corporate worship is the ministry of the Word. But the truth of Scripture cannot be exhausted in a series of propositions. Secularism tends to make people selfish and individualistic. On the other hand, the older evangelicalism (though not all of it) tended to read across the Bible. We believe that such commitments will drive us afresh toward Scripture, toward the Christ of Scripture, toward the gospel of Christ, and we will begin to grow in our ability, by Gods grace, as churches, to act in line with the truth of the gospel (Gal 2:14). Reading along the whole Bible. For more about our confessional statement, check out our series of 14 booklets written by the Council and edited by co-founders D. A. Carson and Timothy Keller. It is not enough that the church should counter the values of the dominant culture. He is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and adoration. In Gods wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways. This universal church is manifest in local churches of which Christ is the only Head; thus each local church is, in fact, the church, the household of God, the assembly of the living God, and the pillar and foundation of the truth. The gospel changes our relationship with God from one of hostility or slavish compliance to one of intimacy and joy.

Copyright 2022 The Gospel Coalition, INC. All Rights Reserved. VISION The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unmerited gift from God. God will be all in all and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace. Reading across the whole Bible. The cross is seen mainly as an example of sacrificial service and a defeat of worldly powers rather than substitution and propitiation for our sins. In this imbalance there is little or no emphasis on the importance of the work of justice and mercy for the poor and the oppressed, and on cultural production that glorifies God in the arts, business, etc. To eliminate the propositional nature of biblical truth seriously weakens our ability to hold, defend, and explain the gospel. What replaces the gospel will never promote a mission-hearted faith anchored in enduring truth working itself out in unashamed discipleship eager to stand the tests of kingdom-calling and sacrifice. Ironically, this approach can be very legalistic. We believe the Holy Spirit who inspired the words of the apostles and prophets also indwells us so that we who have been made in the image of God can receive and understand the words of Scripture revealed by God, and grasp that Scriptures truths correspond to reality. 1.

It teaches its members to conform their bodily being to the shape of the gospelabstinence outside of heterosexual marriage and fidelity and joy within. We believe that a zeal for personal and public obedience flows from this free justification. But it also affirms the goodness of serving Christ as singles, whether for a time or for a life. (The hermeneutical issue). For several hundred years, since the dawning of the Enlightenment, it was widely agreed that truthexpressed in words that substantially correspond to realitydoes indeed exist and can be known. By the Spirits agency, believers are renewed, sanctified, and adopted into Gods family; they participate in the divine nature and receive his sovereignly distributed gifts. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, was conceived through the miraculous agency of the Holy Spirit, and was born of the virgin Mary. Regarding power, it is visibly committed to powersharing and relationshipbuilding among races, classes, and generations that are alienated outside of the Body of Christ. I. Empowered corporate worship. There are many congregations with strong concern for doctrinal rigor and purity and who work very hard to keep themselves separate from the world. The Gospel Coalition supports the church by providing resources that are trusted and timely, winsome and wise, and centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God is an invasive power that plunders Satans dark kingdom and regenerates and renovates through repentance and faith the lives of individuals rescued from that kingdom. Copyright 2022 PH&J Architects Inc. All Rights Reserved, Talladega County Jail Administration Building, The Bobby R. Aderholt Judicial Complex Addition in Winston County, Limestone County Sheriff's Dept. Preaching should be expository (explaining the text of Scripture) and Christcentered (expounding all biblical themes as climaxing in Christ and his work of salvation). If your area does not have a regional chapter and you are interested in starting one, please contact us at [emailprotected]. God put humanity in the garden to cultivate the material world for his own glory and for the flourishing of nature and the human community. The citizens of Gods city should be the best possible citizens of their earthly city (Jer 29:47). Religion and morality in general tend to make people tribal and selfrighteous toward other groups (since their salvation has, they think, been earned by their achievement). There will be calls for radical Christian community in which all members share wealth and resources and make room for the poor and the marginalized. Such sharing also promotes a radically generous commitment of time, money, relationships, and living space to social justice and the needs of the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, and the economically and physically weak. (See below, point 5c.). By being a counterculture. It therefore inevitably establishes a new community of human life together under God. We are neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic about our cultural influence, for we know that, as we walk in the steps of the One who laid down his life for his opponents, we will receive persecution even while having social impact (1 Peter 2:12). (The epistemological issue). We affirm that truth is correspondence to reality. We have committed ourselves to invigorating churches with new hope and compelling joy based on the promises received by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The gospel is the declaration that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has come to reconcile individuals by his grace and renew the whole world by and for his glory. Christian growth occurs only when the whole life is shaped by Christian practices in communityincluding prayer, baptism, the Lords Supper, fellowship, and the public ministry of the Word. But we have a vision for a church that equips its people to think out the implications of the gospel on how we do carpentry, plumbing, dataentry, nursing, art, business, government, journalism, entertainment, and scholarship. The ministry we have outlined is relatively rare. 3.

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You can seek to be your own lord and savior by breaking the law of God, but you can also do so by keeping the law in order to earn your salvation. But to speak of truth only as propositions weakens our appreciation of the incarnate Son as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the communicative power of narrative and story, and the importance of truth as living truly in correspondence to God. To read along the whole Bible is to discern the single basic plotline of the Bible as Gods story of redemption (e.g., Luke 24:44) as well as the themes of the Bible (e.g., covenant, kingship, temple) that run through every stage of history and every part of the canon, climaxing in Jesus Christ. It is a community which so loves and cares practically for its members that biblical chastity makes sense. Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace. This project included a comprehensive long-range master plan, a 3,000 seat sanctuary, a two story administration building, a two story ministries building for music, art and ballet, a 400 seat fellowship hall, 200 seat chapel, nursery, a two building school housing grades K-8 and a gymnasium. He did this so that in him we might become the righteousness of God: on the cross he canceled sin, propitiated God, and, by bearing the full penalty of our sins, reconciled to God all those who believe. In the ministry of the church, both men and women are encouraged to serve Christ and to be developed to their full potential in the manifold ministries of the people of God. Yet we often see the celebration of our union with Christ replaced by the age-old attractions of power and affluence, or by monastic retreats into ritual, liturgy, and sacrament. Unaided human reason, it was thought, is able to know truth objectively. 4. We want to generate a unified effort among all peoplesan effort that is zealous to honor Christ and multiply his disciples, joining in a true coalition for Jesus. Regarding money, the churchs members should engage in radical economic sharing with one anotherso there are no needy among them (Acts 4:34). Truth, then, is correspondence between our entire lives and Gods heart, words and actions, through the mediation of the Word and Spirit. Therefore Christians glorify God not only through the ministry of the Word, but also through their vocations of agriculture, art, business, government, scholarshipall for Gods glory and the furtherance of the public good. How this relationship to culture shapes us. We are a fellowship of evangelical churches in the Reformed tradition deeply committed to renewing our faith in the gospel of Christ and to reforming our ministry practices to conform fully to the Scriptures. More recently, postmodernism has critiqued this set of assumptions, contending that we are not in fact objective in our pursuit of knowledge, but rather interpret information through our personal experiences, selfinterests, emotions, cultural prejudices, language limitations, and relational communities. Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church. We have a vision for a church that sees conversions of rich and poor, highly educated and less educated, men and women, old and young, married and single, and all races. Too many Christians have learned to seal off their faithbeliefs from the way they work in their vocation. Its ultimate goal, however, is not simply to teach but to lead the hearers to worship, individual and corporate, that strengthens their inner being to do the will of God. At the same time, and in the same congregations, there will be engagement with the social structures of ordinary people, and cultural engagement with art, business, scholarship, and government. Truth is not only a theoretical correspondence but also a covenantal relationship. This balance shapes our understanding of discipleship and preaching. But to deny the possibility of purely objective knowledge does not mean the loss of truth that corresponds to objective reality, even if we can never know such truth without an element of subjectivity. This betrays a lack of confidence in the gospel. Countercultural community. As we confess in CS(7), Jesus Christ acted as our representative and substitute, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Regarding the family, the church should affirm the goodness of marriage between a man and a woman, calling them to serve God by reflecting his covenant love in lifelong loyalty, and by teaching his ways to their children.

This reality compels us to stand with others who are stirred by the conviction that the mercy of God in Jesus Christ is our only hope of eternal salvation. It will do little to make them comfortable but will do much to make its message understandable. If we do this we will be salt and light in the world (sustaining and improving living conditions, showing the world the glory of God by our patterns of living; Matt 5:1316). How this vision of truth shapes us. Because it points us to a man who died for his enemies, the gospel creates relationships of service rather than of selfishness. We believe that salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. The Spirit of God not only converts individuals (e.g., John 16:8) but also renews and cultivates the face of the earth (e.g., Gen 1:2; Psalm 104:30). For the common good.

It moves us to serve others irrespective of their merits, just as Christ served us (Mark 10:45). We believe such a balance will produce churches with winsome and theologically substantial preaching, dynamic evangelism and apologetics, and church growth and church planting. There are many seekerdriven churches that help many people find Christ. We adopt a chastened correspondencetheory of truth that is less triumphalistic than that of some in the older evangelicalism. If a church seeks to be a counterculture for peoples temporal and eternal good, it will guard itself against both the legalism that can accompany undue cultural withdrawal and the compromise that comes with overadaptation. How then do we keep our balance? We believe that in many evangelical churches a deep and broad consensus exists regarding the truths of the gospel. 2. And while, in Gods grace, there is an encouraging number of bright spots in the church, we see no broad movement yet of this gospelcentered ministry. These movements have led to the easy abandonment of both biblical truth and the transformed living mandated by our historic faith. But we also reject a view of truth that sees truth as nothing more than the internally coherent language of a particular faithcommunity. Evangelistic effectiveness. The biblical gospel differs markedly from traditional religions as well as from secularism. We affirm that truth is correspondence of life to God. Our desire is to serve the church we love by inviting all our brothers and sisters to join us in an effort to renew the contemporary church in the ancient gospel of Christ so that we truly speak and live for him in a way that clearly communicates to our age. Immortal and eternal, he perfectly and exhaustively knows the end from the beginning, sustains and sovereignly rules over all things, and providentially brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the praise of his glorious grace. We believe that every expression of Christianity is necessarily and rightly contextualized, to some degree, to particular human culture; there is no such thing as a universal ahistorical expression of Christianity. Developing humane yet creative and excellent business environments out of our understanding of the gospel is part of the work of bringing a measure of healing to Gods creation in the power of the Spirit. How should we relate to the culture around us? The core dynamic of gospelcentered ministry is therefore worship and fervent prayer. Baptism and the Lords Supper We believe that baptism and the Lords Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. There are many churches with a radical commitment to the poor and marginalized. Jesus did not treat us that way. We therefore do not see our corporate worship services as the primary connecting point with those outside. We yearn to work with all who, in addition to embracing the confession and vision set out here, seek the lordship of Christ over the whole of life with unabashed hope in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform individuals, com- munities, and cultures.