Creeds in public worship

A panel with Tiago Oliveira, Ken Mbugua, and Matt Boswell on bringing the creeds back into the ordinary worship of the local church. The conversation covers the creeds in liturgy, in song, and in teaching.

Panel discussion, “Creeds in public worship,” with Oliveira, Mbugua and Boswell, Nicea Conference 2025, Istanbul. Speakers aren’t labelled in the source captions.

Welcome and introductions

Good afternoon. We’ll now begin our breakout session. If you’re a book shopper, please find a breakout to go to or you’re welcome to come and join us. And I want to begin by just reading from 1 Timothy chapter 3 where Paul writes that he was manifested in the flesh. Christ manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. And even there, we have a small confession of faith in the writing of Paul. And so for this panel, we’ll be discussing the use of creeds within the life of the local church. And so by way of introduction, I’ll just have each of these brothers introduce themselves and the church that they’re from and perhaps which creed you use in your congregation.

My name is Kenneth Mbugua. I serve as a pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Nairobi, Kenya. And most regularly you’ll find us using both our confession where we’ll pull out particular statements where we feel like they’re relevant for that particular liturgy.

We’ve also used the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.

My name is Tiago Oliveira. I’m the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lisbon, Portugal and I also lead Martin Bucer Seminary Portugal. We do use apart from the Nicene Creed we our church subscribes to the 1689 second London Baptist confession and we also subscribe to the New Hampshire confession of faith. So we use it in our new members class. We use it also not only these but also Danvers statement and Nashville and one or two others in our worship services. And we use also catechism for the kids.

And my name is Matt Boswell. I serve as one of the pastors at the Trails Church in Celina, Texas, just north of Dallas. And we use the New Hampshire Confession of Faith as our primary confession. And we’re also part of the Southern Baptist Convention. And so we have as another confession the Baptist faith and message of 2000. And so those are our two statements of faith that we use.

Why creeds belong in the life of the church

At the heart of this panel and at the heart of this conference is a is renewal through retrieval. And at the heart of that is a recovery of the most precious doctrines of our faith including Christology. And I want to begin by just reading a brief report from Ligonier in their 2022 survey. And when evangelical people were asked about Jesus this specific question, true or false, Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. I was heartbroken to see that 50% of evangelical professing evangelicals either agreed or strongly agreed with that statement.

And so what it tells us, we have a lot of work to do even among professing evangelicals in our day. And this work goes all the way back to the very dawn of the church. Even in Paul’s letter there that we read to the Corinthians. Fast forward the tape just to AD96 and Clement also writes to the church in Corinth and he encourages them to read and rever the word of God. There are multiple ex exhortations that Clement writes to the church in Corinth.

One to read and revere the word of God, to repent and confess their sins, to show humility before God’s majesty, to acknowledge the Holy Spirit in their presence, to acknowledge their salvation in Jesus Christ, the high priest, to faithfully proclaim the word of God, and to present offerings for the support of those who serve among them. And I find it interesting that even 1600 years ago, this brother writing to a local church doing some of the same work we’re about in these few days together. And so as part of this and this historic remembrance and time gathered around the Nicene Creed, I want to talk about creeds in the life of our local church.

Why local churches should use creeds

to start with just asking why is it that local churches should consider using historic creeds in corporate worship and in their life together? Why is this important for us?

Yeah, I think several reasons come to mind. One the portion of Scripture you read as we were beginning 1 Timothy chapter 3 the verses just before it state that the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth and one of the things I think we’ve forgotten is that the seminary is not the pillar and buttress of the truth but the local churches and Paul is writing to Timothy pastor of Ephesus a church in Ephesus at that particular point and he wants them to conduct themselves in such a way as they will be able to safeguard that precious deposit that has been entrusted to them. Creeds and confessions are a great tool a tradition in the church that the church has used for thousands of years to do exactly that. To articulate clearly and precisely what it is that the church believes and to safeguard it right where it belongs which is the local church. Another thing that comes to mind as well is we live in an age where the discipleship of believers struggles because of an abundance almost like too many resources that are at their disposal.

I mean, I’m not saying anything bad about the books that are behind us right now, but what that means is when someone is trying to grow as a believer, the question, where do I start? I mean, it’s what’s the best seller currently? What book do I happen to have? What interest do I have? And I pursue and what you lack there is a systematized approach to discipleship where the foundational truths are placed where they belong in the development in the building up of their understanding of theology and that’s another powerful reason why creeds and confessions exist. Creeds as we have just had this very afternoon will articulate the most essential truths about God, the one we believe in and how useful it would be for somebody to grow up being catechized on those creeds for a new believer to first and foremost sink in an understanding of who their God is and then even on top of that to now build a confession that goes further in their particular denominational tradition.

and then beyond that to go into all the other different things. That person has been well raised if you so please. And so creeds and confessions give to us an opportunity to disciple our people in accordance to the tradition along which fellow believers have been discipled for thousands of years. And it’s not to say that all the flurry of books that are published are bad, but this approach of prioritizing creeds and confessions would even give to them the kind of foundation that would help them read all the other things that are being published with a criticism or an ability to discern that they will not have if they have not been reared on the foundations of the creeds and the confessions.

So in our new members class we have two lessons dedicated for our confession of faith and I start by saying that our confession does not substitute Scripture does not add anything to Scripture nor is it inspired in order to clarify those things and then affirm that we mainly use confession of faith because number one it defines clarifies and affirms the things that we believe that are essential for salvation and necessary to be a member of the First Baptist Church of Lisbon. And these two things they are together but they are distinct. The things that are necessary for salvation, those are the things that you that are the core of the gospel. But also the things that are necessary to be a member of the church. So predaptism we would not see that is necessary for salvation because baptism doesn’t save anyone but is necessary to be a member of the first baptist church of Lisbon. But secondly also is that it promotes the unity of the church and at the same time it defends our faith. So, we are called and I’m a Baptist here. So put up with me on this regard. But I believe that Scripture puts the defense of the gospel upon the church as a whole. That pastors have the primary role in doing that. But when Paul speaks to the Galatian churches, he’s speaking to the whole church. And so in order for us to affirm what we believe together and be united in what we believe, but also in defending truth, we must first clarify between us that we are united in these truths. It’s not others. It’s not up to your opinion in order to define what are the essentials or important things.

These are the things that we agree together there are. And so I think that this is the primary use of confession within the local church.

Thank you both for those. Those are both such helpful answers. When I’m talking to new members that are looking to join our church, I try to often remind them the thing that matters fundamentally is what a church believes.

This is what a church is founded upon. I don’t know how things are where you’re from, but where we serve in Texas, people will choose churches based on many things before they will choose a congregation on what a church believes. And so I think just to reduce it down to what does this church stand upon and then go from there to secondary considerations is helpful.

How creeds serve faithfulness to Scripture

How do creeds serve the church in particularly it its faithfulness to Scripture and the gospel? What is the function? We heard earlier that a creed is a summary of truth. So be beyond just like a shorthand description of what a church believes how else do they help the church be faithful to both the Scripture it’s built upon and the gospel itself?

Yeah, the history that our brother Ligon just shared with us is so useful in answering that question. The faithfulness of the church, the holding fast to the truths that have been handed down to us. That task lies in where you put a comma or in that argument for Arius and his use of yeah, those Greek words that were speaking either as similar to God or yeah, exactly just like the Father. It’s just one little letter that is separating the difference between complete heresy and faithfulness. And it’s useful to make use of the tradition of the church to remain faithful. So as opposed to coming up with new ideas and new ideas all the time about how to hold the line, it’s just so useful to know that what I’m holding on to is the tradition that has been held on to for thousands and thousands of years. And so there’s some safety in that simplicity of just holding on to those creeds.

another use for those creeds I think especially given we’ve clarified how confessions might be the summation of the doctrines that distinguish our denominations but creeds are really the summation of the beliefs that distinguish us as believers as true Christians you’ll find that one of the useful things in making those creeds common putting them forward. I think our church can actually do this a whole lot better than we currently do. But it’s the fact that it gets us talking about Jesus more. It’s be it’s become one of the concerns I think I’ve had even in our own church of just are we talking about Jesus as much as we should be. Again, if we understand Christianity as being about 75 different things, we’re getting this wrong. It might have 75 different things, but if you see it clearly, it’s a collage that reveals the beauty and glory of God in the face of his Son Jesus Christ. And the creed really helps us remember what’s primary, remember what’s central in the putting forth of Jesus. And you want I don’t know how many of us are pastors but if you’re a pastor, what you want to cultivate in the hearts of your people is a love for Christ, is an allegiance to Christ, is an awe in Christ. And you don’t want them chasing in a confused fashion different routes of theology. You want to show them the unifying right center heart of all of our theology which is how God has revealed himself in the face of his son.

And a creed is going to be such a powerful way to do that. I don’t know about the brothers and sisters who are here but when I read creeds like the ones we’ve just we’re here to celebrate it’s so clear just how carefully crafted they were. I’m like I would not have been in that room. These were some highly intelligent these were gifts that the Lord gave to the church. And I want to take the treasure that heritage that has been given to the church in the history of the church seen in the creeds that are that belong to the church and use those as a powerful tool to cultivate that treasuring of Christ in the hearts of our people by maintaining the same language by maintaining the same depth of theology with an aim of exalting the Son from among us. I think those are useful things to continue to find more and more ways of using them in our church for the edification of the saints and his glory the glory of God amongst his people.

just adding one or two things. One going more than just confessions using also creeds. And so we use the Nicene Creed, we use the Apostles’ Creed we use the 1689, the New Hampshire, but we also use the newer ones like the Chicago statement on inerrancy and the Danvers statement and Nashville that were already mentioned here. In seeing this, I think it helps the church and is didactical on one hand to see that our faith is historical. And so we go back to the Nicene Creed 1700 years ago, but also recognizing that there are challenges today that were not addressed in the same way before because they were not an issue. And so on one hand and so this might be a tension like what confession should my church use or should we subscribe to first I think that every church should use a confession period but which one because I would say using the 1689 might not be the ideal because they were clearly addressing issues of their own time and not addressing some issues that as a church we need to address today. We need it’s not optional.

But we still subscribe to historical confessions because it teaches the church that the gospel and what we believe just did not fall from the sky on 2025. And so we are affirming the same things that our brothers and sisters have been believing throughout history.

But at the same time I feel that they are not enough because our brothers in 1689 were not dealing with gender identity issues. And so but at the same time, I like the idea that it’s not just me affirming something as the pastor or us as the First Baptist Church of Lisbon, but there are other brothers and sisters around the world that are affirming the same things because they are seeing that in this day and age, we need to defend certain things according to Scripture. And so that’s why we do not use our own confession that we crafted and I do agree with Ken here which is you read some of the confessions and they are so well-crafted. So even do not be shocked but we use several creeds and confessions in our service even I think we’ll talk about that but we use some even some Sundays ago the Danvers statement and it’s so well-crafted and but it is good for the church to see that we are not the only ones affirming this. We are affirming this because we believe that the Bible teaches it. We are addressing an issue of our time and we are affirming it together with many other brothers and sisters and churches around the world.

Can I add something very briefly? Just to the point that my brother was making Tiago a brother John Mousimi and their church North Point Baptist Church have recently led a group of African churches and pastors to craft a statement called the Africa statement on the prosperity gospel to address the very kind of thing you’re addressing because 1689 does not address the prosperity gospel nor does the Nicene Creed address the prosperity gospel but that’s what we are a ash in Africa and so very well written affirmations and denials multiple of them has gotten quite a few people to sign it and distributing it freely across the continent and it’s become a very useful tool already in clarifying for churches and just believers in general what is the true gospel and what is the false gospel

it was probably Dr. May I just make an observation? I think this is an interesting thing because we got used around the world that up from a certain time especially with this Chicago Danvers Nashville that is only mainly done in the US and I think this is actually a very interesting thing that brothers around the world are recognizing that it is also our responsibility to address local issues that might be actually universal but that they are feeling particularly in their own area and that they can actually serve the church worldwide and we don’t need to expect anymore that the Americans need to take care of this for us. So I need to commend what they sought to do because I think that this is important for the global church.

I think it was Dr. Mohler who I first learned this idea of a centered and bound set of ideologies and principles and of course in the Nicene Creed in these ancient creeds we see this these this is the language around the faith once for all delivered to the saints and the unity and joy we find in that at the local church level in our own confessions building from the creed and then articulating our specific faith together. I think Ken, you got at this a bit, but the unity that that gives us as a people is a wonderful gift. I think the other things that contribute to that can be a shared church covenant where we’re articulating these are the things we believe and now this is the way we will live together as the people of God. I think other things that add to great unity within the local church is even in our gatherings just having a moment set aside to repent of our sin together where we’ve acknowledged the holiness of God and now we’re going to fall before his glory remembering our nature apart from his grace. And I think the humility and familial sense that that gives us all of these different ways help building up the body of Christ around the things we hold most dear.

Creeds and confessions in our own churches

For your own churches, what are some ways that you’ve articulated both creed and confession within the life of the body? Does that happen in the service primarily? Does it happen apart from the gathering of God’s people? What does that look like? How do you confess what you believe together? Well, I would start what I already affirmed, which is in the new members class, both the confession of faith and the church covenant is read in full and explained

real quick. And you use the New Hampshire 1689 and New Hampshire. What are you teaching in member class?

In the new members class, we read in full New Hampshire.

Okay. So, I do too. And I always come to the article on the Sabbath and it says that we should refrain from sinful recreation on the Lord day. And then I remind people we should always avoid sinful recreations by the way. And of course we know what John Knox and Calvin would have meant by that.

In our case, we actually subscribe to that article.

no, we do too. Joyfully. And

did you edit yours?

No, it’s there. I just always explain sabbatarian principle and how we want to honor the Sabbath and what that means. We put an asterisk on ours and Yeah. And we just made it clear it’s the Lord’s day. So

it’s the Lord’s day.

Please do not leave the room right now. We are not a sabbatarian church, but

Yeah. I’m sorry to interrupt you, Car.

And so and I was saying Oh yeah. So we use it in our new members class. But I think what I’ve seen in experience throughout the years is that many times even with confessional churches you might have that thing coming in and then it comes off the radar. And that you can have a confession but if people are not exposed to it regularly and affirm it regularly is that people are not aware of it. The pastors are but then the church is not.

And so we do use it in our services. The way that we use it is that we connect it with Scripture and the reading of Scripture. Usually when we read a paragraph of our confession is after we read Scripture and it is connected with the main truth of the sermon. So it just imagine that the passage is focused more on sanctification. Then we will read the paragraph on sanctification together. And then after the confession I make like just simple I don’t preach a second time but I give like two or three observations that usually connect that particular paragraph with what is going to be preached because we organize the whole liturgy on the basis of the text that is going to be preached and then it kind of it’s preparing the way for and at the same time is reminding people this is what we believe. This is what we affirm together. And it’s a didactic way because we need to understand that although we came to a knowledge of the gospel, we spent all our lives deepening our knowledge and our understanding of. And so every time we read it many times people just recognize, oh, I’ve ne I’ve not noticed this or I’ve been reminded of that.

You see, so I think that is useful to use it within the worship service because it reinforces what we are learning from Scripture. It shows to the ones that participate and to the members that what we are affirming is what Scripture affirms and at the same time it helps in this didactical way that people are exposed to what we believe over and over again. And I think that it deepens not only our knowledge but our understanding of the gospel.

Yeah. So first class in the membership class is the statement of faith. We walk through it. We use portions of it in our services but nowhere near as thorough as this. So you guys have a commitment to do a creed or confession every Sunday isn’t it?

Yeah. So I feel like I want to lead our congregation towards this direction more and it’s mainly because whilst we have we’ve done Apostles’ Creed, we’ve done the Nicene Creed we every now and then will pull out from our confession statement for the same reasons, we don’t want it to become a dead document that is buried somewhere in the annals of our congregation or our files. Whilst we have all those intentions, liturgy is a really interesting thing.

Traditions are a really interesting thing and you’ll find that those rhythms and that just kind of liturgical practice of you know what we end our members meeting every time by singing praise God from whom all blessings flow. It’s in that tradition of setting it up such that oh our people know we are about to go through the Apostles’ Creed and oh by now they’ve even memorized it by heart. There’s something very useful in discipling our people like that as opposed to we do it every now and then.

And so that repetitive nature is something that I think is actually useful because of the repetitive nature of the Lord’s day. It comes up every week. And it’s useful to put some things inside there that are highly predictable and I think they will serve for the discipling of our people better. So, we’re hoping to move in this direction. Maybe one other thing that I could add, the elders are looking at right now as far as confessions and it is requiring that new members sign off on the statement of faith. And just making it clear again, it’s already kind of assumed. Talk about it, but want to even take that farther step of again another thing that you’re individually doing as you’re coming in, you’re saying I believe all these things together with the rest of the saints.

Just adding I just we do the same. We do sign not only the confession of faith but the church covenant also. And we do another thing that we do by imitation of others is that after the Lord’s supper the only the members of the church stand and we recite together the church covenant I think you know in the reading of a creed the reading of a confession you’re instructing those who are not there and there’s enough gospel in them you’re presenting the gospel through the reading of it and then I’m reminded of the Apostle Peter who says I have nothing new to say to you. I’m just reminding you of these things. And certainly, we need that weekly. We need that regularly. So, for pastors who want to begin using creeds either in public worship or in the life of the church, what are some practical ways that that we could do that without it feeling forced or overly formal?

Sorry. One it would be very useful to approach it as one who is retrieving something exceedingly precious for your people. I think that that mentality is it’s answering the question why are you doing this is very important. If you’re doing this because you want to appear to be a more deep church to be a more conservative like you could have many wrong reasons that are driving you to start adding things like this to your church. But if you see this as the bride of Christ and what you actually are simply trying to do is cultivate a love for their groom all the more and you’re seeing this tradition in the church as being a very useful way to do that. I think that posture is very useful. I would encourage you teach about creeds if you’re not doing them at all. You don’t just come and stick them in and create an unnecessary confusion or even resistance. But explain why are creeds a useful thing? Why have churches used it? Why are we beginning to do that right now? What is not changing at all in our doing this? If you find as we were speaking earlier difficult words or language that inside that that needs explaining be proactive, preempt those questions as opposed to throwing it out there and letting the drama begin and then starting to put out fires in your congregation. So, I think just be wise. Have the right reasons as to why you’re doing it. Teach as well as you can before you actually start applying it. And I think that would be a good way to start.

This is just experiential. So have that in mind. People might have different experiences, but in Portugal, the vast majority of churches evangelical churches do not use explicitly a confession or their use is not practical. Is there in the web page or in the founding documents but they don’t really use it. So typically people think it’s weird when they arrive, but I would say and I would have to check this in more detail, but what I’m receiving in terms of my experience with the members of the church is that it becomes very natural for them. It’s not something that they see as ritualistic or very formal.

It’s just the fact that we are affirming truth together. And then there are two or three quick observations that clarify or help us to understand Scripture better. I think that that connection with Scripture is very important because there is a way and we must also recognize that there is a way and a danger to see and start to read Scripture through the confession.

Okay. And I think that we want to deny that we want the confession of faith to be a good representation of what Scripture affirms and so that’s why that typically we read the confession after we read Scripture. So that people understand that we are just our concern here is just affirming what Scripture affirms and then it actually they see that actually the confession is helpful because it’s drawing out that main truth and bring it with some clarity.

And so I think that people recognize the didactic purpose of it and I think that actually people enjoy to read it together. So

Making deep disciples

in our mission of making disciples and making deep disciples, one of the things that I’ve become aware of recently, it’s going to seem very simple, but it’s just the reality that our people are being discipled in other ways six days a week. And the one day we have them on the Lord’s day when we gather together as a body of Christ, we’re trying to reshape and reform minds around what is true, what is beautiful, what is good. We’re trying to articulate the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And you can’t do that only in a sermon. So where creeds come in and really help, where confessions come in and really help, where other Scripture readings come in and help is they help us get to places where this if you’re preaching expositionally and the point of this sermon is going to be the point of this text, I can’t get to everything. And this is where the hymns that we choose and the confessions we choose additional readings that we choose really help come in and fill the plate.

And I think for those who are looking to add anything into your church to do so very slowly. Of course, you’re all familiar with the great hymn-singing controversy of the 1690s. That’s a joke. So what you have here is it just one little church in London, a pastor, Benjamin Keach, who wants to add hymn singing to the congregation. So he starts in the 70s though for 20 plus years. He wants to add h a hymn after the Lord’s supper and so he just slowly methodically works his way and before you know it he’s well he’s kind of run the psalms out of town and then the guy that follows him undoes all that he does. But that’s not the point. The point is to go slowly in changing anything. And so whether it’s the hymns that you’re singing, you don’t change everything overnight. You just change one today and sing the other things. And so with the gathering of the people, with the liturgy, just changing things slowly, intentionally, and with a lot of clarification and communication, meeting people where they are and remembering the gatherings that we’re leading and the people we’re discipling are those right in front of us. So, how do we shepherd these people? How do we care for the souls of the people that God has entrusted to us? And so even on that note some people are very on edge about reciting creeds.

It feels strange or outside of what the normal practice would be. What advice would you have for people on if they might feel a little uneasy with the recitation of a creed? I would say that the main issue has to do with their connection with Scripture again because we do sing hymns.

And hymns are also written by men. What we want is that they might express truthfully what Scripture affirms. So for example, I would just use creeds the way that for example I use certain hymns. So typically when we get together Thursday morning to prepare the liturgy for Sunday, we usually choose intentionally the first hymn. So we will have an invocation. So we will call to worship from Scripture and then our first hymn it’s not really a rule but is a practice will be a trinitarian hymn. Why? Because people need to understand that we are worshiping our triune God who is father, son and Holy Spirit. It’s not a formality is not a ritual is just the fact that we need always to be reminded of our God that we are worshiping together. And so we do hymns our prayers in our case we write prayers some prayers are spontaneous but we use our own words. I hope that we are praying according to Scripture and according to what Scripture teaches us to our prayers are not just reading the Bible or the prayers of the Bible.

Right? So I think that that is the important thing is that we connect the creed or the confession to Scripture just as we do with hymns just as we do with prayer and as we do with preaching also.

Yeah. The only thing just to add is yeah Again, I don’t know if I’m speaking to any pastors, but pastor, just love your people. You know, don’t love necessarily the kind of church that uses creeds and confessions. Love the people that are in front of you. And so, if it takes 20 years as such a great example you’ve just articulated, take 20 years to slowly work it in like it’s the kind of thing at a conference as we speak we can’t speak to every particular situation. A church like ours just has had very little resistance to changes like this. Such openness, such a heightened level of teachability, but it’s also a very young congregation in that regard. It’s also people who are coming to our church feeling like they are walking away from error and so they are assuming that there’s a lot of things that they do not know and so change is what they’re anticipating. So that’s the flock that I have. And making changes like this was not difficult at all. That might not be the case for somebody else who takes over congregation that is largely older. They’ve never done creeds or confessions at all. And this all feels like you’re becoming a Calvinist. Such a terrible word. And it might be wise for that pastor to go very slowly as you were exhorting us and to just love the sheep that are in front of you. And slowly nurture them towards a more biblical practice of yeah of the life of the church. I want to just double click on something you said about how to disciple people deeply. Don’t know how you phrased it. But that made me think of how vital this is when it comes to missions and especially just from our context in Africa thinking how much more well served churches that had been planted would have been if creeds and confessions were a standard part of the way missions was done. And so you know the gospel has been proclaimed, people have become believers. But that congregation, no matter how small, meeting under a tree in South Sudan that one of the things they were entrusted with their rich heritage as Christians that connects them to the church you know, for the last 2,000 years. And that as the work was being done to translate the Bible into their local language also quite naturally work was being done to translate the key confessions and creeds so that as that mission work is being done they’re being left with that treasure and also with the practice because that’s typically one of the big because the denominations that did hand over confessions in many cases did not leave practice as well and the practice of how to use those catechisms and confessions and creeds would have gone a very long way. Not saying it’s perfect or it’s a silver bullet, but it would have gone a very long way in helping safeguard the gospel that was entrusted there for many generations to come.

Creeds and the mission of the church

So if you have a missionary you have sent out from your congregations do us a favor and call them and ask them, hey, how are you using creeds and confessions in the work that you’re doing? Because sometimes you think about that as being western. It’s just what we were saying earlier. We think about those things going like, “Yeah, that’s not necessary. We’ll just go and take the gospel to the nations.”

Take the gospel certainly to the nations and take also that rich heritage of 2,000 years. It also belongs to them because they are in Christ just like Martin Luther was in Christ and Athanasius was in Christ and Origen was in Christ and Tertullian. All those people are theirs. So don’t deny them that rich heritage by denying them that rich history.

Ken, one of the things you said earlier was a new believer coming to you asking what they should read to be discipled and you pointing them to a creed and confession. I think that is so pastorally helpful. I’m really glad you said that. I’ve done that personally through elder training. I’ve taken them through the abstract of principles from Southern Seminary because I wanted our elders to make sure they had understanding of each of these articles of the faith, but I hadn’t considered pushing that beyond sort of an elder level to our lay people. And so I’m really glad you said that. And it’s not that it’s completely overlooked. Our kids are going through the new city catechism every Wednesday night when they gather together. So we do have those sort of articulations happening.

But I’m really glad you said that. And then Tiago, you mentioned according to Scripture and that phrase so that phrase goes all the way back really the heart heartbeat of the reformation. We shorthand it just always reforming, but that phrase comes from a guy called Van Lodenstein. And he said that’s not the thing. What we want to be is always reforming and always reforming according to Scripture.

And we want that for our lives. We want that for our ministry. We want that for our churches. We want that for our practices of worship. And so, thank you for saying that and for admonishing us with that. Any final thoughts on creeds and confessions in the life of the local church? Glad I’m here. I’m learning so much. Two amazing sessions from League and Alola. I can’t wait to eat up everything else that’s served up over the next couple of days.

It’s just a great privilege. I will probably say this tomorrow, but it’s just I was just amazed to see how many nationalities were represented here. And so is very sweet that that we understand that those things that were being affirmed 1700 years ago were the things that actually continue to be affirmed and that are actually saving people around the world. That means that God is fulfilling his promises in saving people from every nation.

Closing prayer

Amen. Let’s pray to close our time. Father, thank you for the grace of this moment. Thank you for the grace that we share in because of Christ and for the mission that you’ve called us to make disciples of all peoples. Help us to do that faithfully and fruitfully in the places you’ve placed us. Let us stand boldly on the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And let us bring great glory to you in the work we set our minds to and our hearts and our hands to. Thank you for these men and for their ministries and for what you’re doing among the nations. All praise to you. All praise to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Would you thank these guys for joining us this afternoon?