A few years ago, as our Worship Design Team took the time to look over our worship service and discuss what should be included or excluded, with more emphasis or less emphasis, we came to a decision that we should bring back into our worship service the Apostles Creed. It was decided that, when possible, every 3rd Sunday of the month we would make one of the Creeds that we find in our United Methodist Hymnal our opening prayer and statement of faith. As United Methodists, over the years we have come to some common points that our worship service should meet. First of all, we want to see the Holy Spirit flow throughout our worship service. We want those attending worship to be engaged and comfortable with the worship service. We want our prayers, music, preaching and liturgy to come together in a positive movement with those attending our service. Over the years because of the things that we add, at times we must subtract from the worship format because we need to meet a number of qualifications and one being the length of our service. So, we as United Methodist like to meet for worship for about an hour’s period of time. There are many reasons an hour seems to be acceptable for most. To meet that requirement, the Worship Design Team and I look at each Sunday possible, my message is shorter, the hymns we select are usually fewer in verse, And The Great Thanksgiving of which we have a number of liturgies we can choose from are enhancing our worship experience.
Back to our Affirmations of Faith. One of the things that I noticed as I have gone through the number of Affirmations of Faith contained within our hymnal is that they may vary quite extensively in professing what “I” or “We” may believe. For that reason, our worship design committee has determined that we should only use the Affirmations of Faith included in The United Methodist Hymnal or possibly others that have been approved for use by our United Methodist Denomination.
In looking over each of the Affirmations that we used, I noticed something recently that I had not seen before. Some of the affirmations begin with “We believe” while others begin with “I believe.” As I started to ponder why the difference, I came to these thoughts and conclusions: When we say, “I believe” and then begin to list those things which we believe in, we must be comfortable repeating the creeds we identify for ourselves as in part or the total faith and experience of not only the church but ourselves as well. Trusting that as our Christian life experience continues to develop, we may grow into a fuller understanding of our walk with our Lord Jesus Christ. No one Christian can apprehend it all and indeed the original form of the creeds stating with “We believe” allows us to grow in our belief. We are blessed when on our faith journey, we can look at each one of the Affirmations of Faith whether it starts out as “I believe” and as I recite that Creed, the more that I can say I believe the more intense and the greater the distance I have added to my faith journey.
By saying “We believe” we can include the church as a whole being, the whole company of God’s worshipping people. So, it is particularly important that in our creeds we can say ”I” believe” for our individual salvation and to be able to say “We believe” places us among our sisters and brothers and makes us a family of God. So, when you look at our Creeds contained in the United Methodist Hymnal, some will start with “We believe” and others will start with “I believe.” It is important that we recognize that our own faith journey and the journey of our sisters and brothers in Christ can be individual and I can be on a journey as the community of believers.
May God say it is so. Amen.
Pastor Gary
Claybanks United Methodist Church 