Chapel A is a Baptist Church. Baptist have a really, really short ‘Declaration of Principle’ which basically says, ‘Jesus – God’s perfect self-revelation – is in charge of this church, not any priest, bishop or monarch. It’s up to all of us to listen together to make sure we understand what Jesus is saying to us.’ The declaration also says that we offer baptism to anyone old enough to decide for themselves that they want to follow Jesus (there’s a clue in the name) and that this good news we’ve been given is to share with the whole world.
But of course we believe things! We believe all sorts of things. We believe different things. But we have come to believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life – all our other beliefs flow from that. We believe that if we can love God and love our neighbour, we will be getting life about right. Jesus said as much.
Here are some values that we live by:
- God loves every person in the world; and has rejected nobody
- God asks us to do things in the world during the week. Our faith means action - not just sitting listening to a talk on a Sunday (although we do do that too!)
- God asks us to fight for injustice & reach out to those who need help - who are lonely; who have no money; who are hungry
- God cares about us and those around us - and is interested in our lives.
- It's never too late to ask God for help
- God can change us and heal us and restore things in our lives that are broken
- We value community - in helping one another - not just in our church community but where-ever we are in our day to day lives.