Credo for the Kingdom’s Expansion

by Dave Hackett

Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship offers this Credo for the Kingdom’s Expansion to help the church fulfill its biblically faithful missional calling.

We believe in God's gracious love toward all the peoples of the world and in God's plan to draw home all who would receive him in faith through Jesus Christ, our Lord, whose death and resurrection opened the only gateway to peace with God.

We believe the Church is God's holy, mission-oriented community through which disciples are brought to faith, redeemed, baptized into Christ's life, mission, and death, nurtured in spirit, and sent forth in community for faithful witness and service.

We believe in the Church's biblical call and commission to summon its life and resources so that its members, empowered and emboldened, step by faith into their mission-oriented purpose as ambassadors of Christ.

We believe that the gospel of Christ should ever expand worldwide: east, west, north and south, as far as the love of God extends and as near as our own neighbor, school and workplace.

We believe God wills the birth of an indigenous Church within each people group for their salvation and preparation for Kingdom work, and that these churches are called to live fully within their mother-cultures for the sake of the gospel of Christ.

We believe in indigenously-developed worship, songs and messages that speak to the heart of each culture and make clear Christ's message, healing the heresies and hurts that reside within each individual, organization, and culture.

We believe God calls each church to reach beyond its own ethnic, social and national identity to discover that all Christ-followers, though from many strands of humanity, are one in Jesus Christ.

We believe in mission methods that renounce the creation of dependencies so that the church in each culture is able to infinitely reproduce and sustain itself – indeed, to engage in witness beyond itself – solely on its own giving, leadership and witness.

At the same time, we believe every church needs a permanent missionary presence through outside witnesses, for, as D. T. Niles said, “The gospel is never safe in any culture unless there is a witness from beyond that culture.”