As evangelicals, the Bible is our final authority for
faith and practice. Therefore, the statements that follow
reflect our best attempt to understand and live out biblical
precepts. Upon further reflection, greater biblical insight,
or increased wisdom through experience, these statements
could be revised. Until such a time, the Association of
Vineyard Churches Board of Directors has formally adopted
this document as our official statement of faith as of the
Board meeting of November 1994. The official Association
of Vineyard Churches Statement of Faith reads as follows:
WE BELIEVE that God is the Eternal King. He is an infinite
unchangeable Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness,
justice, power, and love. From all eternity He exists
as the One Living and True God in three persons of one
substance, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal
in power and glory.
WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom is everlasting. From His
throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created,
upholds, and governs all that exists, the heavenly places,
the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, every living
thing and mankind. God created all things very good.
WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel,
rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him.
He was cast out of God's presence and, as a usurper of
God's rule established a counter-kingdom of darkness and
evil upon the earth.
WE BELIEVE that God created mankind in His image, male
and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern
the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original
parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness, and God's
judgement of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan
and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation.
Creation now experiences the consequences and effects
of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born in sin,
subject to God's judgement of death and captive to Satan's
kingdom of darkness.
WE BELIEVE that God did not abandon His rule over the
earth which He continues to uphold by His providence.
In order to bring redemption, God established covenants
which revealed His grace to sinful people. In the covenant
with Abraham, God bound Himself to His people Israel,
promising to deliver them from bondage to sin and Satan
and to bless all the nations through them.
WE BELIEVE that as King, God later redeemed His people,
by His mighty acts, from bondage in Egypt and established
His covenant through Moses, revealing His perfect will
and our obligation to fulfill it. The law's purpose is
to order our fallen race and to make us conscious of our
moral responsibility. By the work of God's Spirit, it
convicts us of our sin and God's righteous judgement against
us and brings us to Christ alone for our salvation.
WE BELIEVE that when Israel rejected God's rule over
her as King, God established the monarchy in Israel and
made an unconditional covenant with David, promising that
his heir would restore God's kingdom reign over His people
as Messiah forever.
WE BELIEVE that in the fullness of time, God honored
His covenant with Israel and His prophetic promises of
salvation by sending His only Son Jesus into the world.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary,
as fully God and fully man in one person. He is humanity
as God intended us to be. Jesus was annointed as God's
Messiah, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, inaugurating
God's kingdom reign on earth, overpowering the reign of
Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the good news
of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons, and
raising the dead. Gathering His disciples, He reconstituted
God's people as His Church to be the instrument of His
kingdom. After dying for the sins of the world, Jesus
was raised from the dead on the third day, fulfilling
the convenant of blessing given to Abraham. In His sinless,
perfect life Jesus met the demands of the law and in His
atoning death on the cross He took God's judgement for
sin which we deserve as law-breakers. By His death on
the cross He also disarmed the demonic powers. The covenant
with David was fulfilled in Jesus' birth from David's
house, His Messianic ministry, His glorious ressurection
from the dead, His ascent into heaven and His present
rule at the right hand of the Father. As God's Son and
David's heir, He is the eternal Messiah-King, advancing
God's reign throughout every generation and throughout
the whole earth today.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer
in Jesus Christ and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher,
and Guide. We believe in the filling or empowering of
the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry
today. We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit
and in the exercise of all the biblical gifts of the Spirit.
We practice the laying on of hands for the empowering
of the Spirit, for healing, and for recognition and empowering
of those whom God has ordained to lead and serve the Church.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors
of Holy Scripture so that the Bible is without error in
the original manuscripts. We receive the sixty-six books
of the Old and New Testaments as our final and absolute
authority, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
WE BELIEVE the whole world is under the domination of
Satan and that all people are sinners by nature and choice.
All people therefore are under God's just judgement. Through
the preaching of the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom
of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, God regenerates,
justifies, adopts, and sanctifies through Jesus by the
Spirit all who repent of their sins, and trust in Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior. By this they are released from
Satan's domain and enter into God's kingdom reign.
WE BELIEVE in the one, holy, universal Church. All who
repent of their sins and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior
are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and form the living
Body of Christ, of which He is the head and of which we
are all members.
WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ committed two ordinances
to the Church: water baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both
are available to all believers.
WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom has come in the ministry
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that it continues to come in
the ministry of the Spirit through the Church, and that
it will be consummated in the glorious, visible and triumphant
appearing of Christ - His return to the earth as King.
After Christ returns to reign, He will bring about final
defeat of Satan and all of his minions and works, the
resurrection of the dead, the final judgement and the
eternal blessing of the righteous and eternal conscious
punishment of the wicked. Finally, God will be all in
all and His kingdom, His rule and reign, will be fulfilled
in the new heavens and the new earth, recreated by His
mighty power, in which righteousness dwells and in which
He will be forever worshipped.
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