Saturday, July 18, 2009

YOUNG LIFE


I once heard someone say that we are so concerned with the type of learning our children are receiving in the education system, what they are watching on TV or in the movies, what they are reading, etc...but are we as careful with what their spiritual leaders are teaching them? Just because someone calls themselves a Christian---well, we all know that doesn't make them a Christian.
Young Life is a youth ministry that goes to where adolescents are and builds relationships with them while presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I recently had reason to check out their Statement of Faith. And I found it pretty comprehensive. No prosperity gospel. No emergent church babble. No New Age hype. Just straight forward principled beliefs. Do they line up with yours?

PREAMBLE: We the members of the Young Life mission join together in our affirmation of the following articles and our central purpose of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and introducing adolescents everywhere to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their faith.ARTICLE I
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments being given by divine inspiration, are the Word of God, the final and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.
ARTICLE II
In the Scriptures, God reveals Himself as the living and true God, Creator of all things. Perfect in love and righteous in all His ways, this one God exists eternally as a Trinity of persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
ARTICLE III
God made man and woman in His image that He might have fellowship with us. Being estranged from God by our disobedience, we are, as sinful people, incapable of a right relationship to God apart from divine grace.
ARTICLE IV
The only Mediator between God and all human beings is Jesus Christ our Lord, God's eternal Son, who as man fully shared and fulfilled our humanity in a life of perfect obedience.
ARTICLE V
By His death in our place, Jesus revealed the divine love and upheld divine justice, removing our guilt and reconciling us to God. Having risen bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven, He rules as Lord over all and intercedes for us as our great high priest.
ARTICLE VI
The Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the Gospel, renews our hearts, persuading us to repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord. By the same Spirit, we are led to trust in divine mercy, whereby we are forgiven all our sins, justified by faith through the merit of Christ our Savior, adopted into God's family as His children and enabled so to live in the world that all people may see our good works and the Gospel of grace at work in our lives and glorify our Father who is in heaven.
ARTICLE VII
God, by His Word and Spirit, calls us as sinful people into the fellowship of Christ's body. Thus He creates the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, united in the bonds of love, endowed with the gifts of the Spirit and summoned by Christ to preach the Gospel and to administer the sacraments, to carry on the ministry of reconciliation, to relieve human need and strive for social justice.
ARTICLE VIII
God's redemptive purpose will be consummated by the return of Christ to raise the dead, judge all people and establish His glorious kingdom. Those who are apart from Christ shall be eternally separated from God's presence, but the redeemed shall live and reign with Him forever.

No comments:

Post a Comment