This blog post is part of a recurring series called the #reHumanize Project, an initiative by Nazarenes United for Peace that seeks to help us rediscover our shared, divine humanity.

This article first appeared in Holiness Today in Fall of 2016 and seems more apropos than ever. Since it is not included in their digital archives, the full text is below:

“Don’t you want to avoid spending eternity being tortured in hell?” my friend asked as I sat in his living room listening to his Gospel presentation.

“I’m already living in hell,” I replied. “How could things get much worse?”

I was sixteen years old at the time and had heard this refrain countless times from well-meaning friends. I’m sure they were legitimately concerned about my eternal state, but I heard little interest from them in the story of my own life that had brought me to that point.

Had they really taken the time, they might have learned that my inner turmoil had been so great, I had tried to end my life that year. They could have heard about the trust that was violated by a parent-figure when I was a young child, which launched me into a life-long spiral of self-destructive behavior and doubt about my own value.

I didn’t just need my future to be secured in “heaven,” I needed a very real and present healing—an encounter with a transforming God. I needed someone to show me the healing grace of God, not stand above me pronouncing judgment over my lifestyle. I was in desperate need of someone to hold open space for me and help me to see and hear the God who was already calling me.

Entering Into Our Stories

It wasn’t until I encountered a group of high school students at a Nazarene camp in Ohio a few years later that I finally had a life-changing encounter with God. I met some incredible people who made room for me at their tables. Despite my incredibly rough, violent, toxic—exterior, they invited me into their fellowship. They listened to my stories. The looked at me in the eye and acknowledged my value as a child of God.

They invited me to into a holy imagination that allowed me to envision a new life for myself, one marked by love and service to God and others.

They held up a mirror for me, which allowed me to see myself as God does: beloved. Even I was an image-bearer of God. That was a narrative often unheard in my youth.

The more I read the words of Jesus, the more aware I am of just how much time and energy he spent entering into the stories of those he encountered. Even though he was often addressed as “rabbi” or “teacher”, he seemed to spend at least as much time listening as he did talking. He asked lots of questions:

“Who touched me?” “Do you want to get well?” “Why are you crying?” “Who is it you are looking for?”

Now Jesus may have known the answers to these questions anyway, but he asked them over and over. I count at least 300 questions on the lips of Jesus. He’s not just asking to find out the answer, but he is engaging in the lives and stories of those he ministered among.

Jesus treated people as ends in themselves in hearing their stories, not just as means to an end.

Transformative Relationships

Jesus is often described as a “friend of sinners” (Mt. 11:19, LK 7:34). He stood in direct opposition to both the social and religious norms and customs of the day in order to achieve this friendship. He did more than just “have coffee” with them—he allowed his life to become intertwined permanently with them.

And isn’t this really the good news of the incarnation? That God would become forever intermingled with humanity? For deity to take on flesh means that God and humankind are intertwined in an inextricably bound relationship. There is now no godforsaken place that God will not go for us and with us. Human flesh is the redemptive vehicle through which God chose—and still chooses to—work.

Our Wesleyan heritage teaches us that we are not just changed in our standing with God (justification), but we are actually changed and transformed into Christlikeness (sanctification). And the church, even with all of her imperfections, is the primary conduit through which God enacts his transforming grace in this world, in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

By inviting others to our table, by extending grace and hospitality to those who may be on the margins (either of society or the religious establishment), we are participating in the transforming power of God at work in the world.

When I was in the darkest of the days of my youth, I knew that something needed to change and I needed a way out.

I needed someone to show me the way, not just tell me.

Holy Hospitality

In his book, Reaching Out, Henri Nouwen says,

“Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”

This idea of hospitality might radically transform the way we approach evangelism. This doesn’t just mean that we simply invite people into the Kingdom by caring for them (although this is important!) Instead, this means that the very act of “creating free space” for people—their ideas, their stories, their hurts—presents the palette on which their new narrative can be created, all in cooperation with God. This kind of evangelism helps the world imagine the alternative kingdom of God, which stands apart from the power-hungry, violence-loving way of the empires of this world. It bears hope for those who carry only despair.

This means that, instead of standing on the outside of the world making angry pronouncements about how wrong it is, we enter into the pain of the world with the compassion of God. And if “compassion” means “suffering with,” then our lives have to be intertwined with those around us in such a way that anything that hurts them hurts us, too.

The story of my friend, Abbas, illustrates this for me. For years I had heard about refugees and their struggles, but I cannot say I had every really cried for them. However, a few years ago when Abbas laid out the painful details of imprisonment for his faith in his Middle Eastern country and his subsequent harrowing escape via a dangerous smuggler—all with his wife and 2 little girls in tow—I wept at the suffering he had endured.

This means that, instead of standing on the outside of the world making angry pronouncements about how wrong it is, we enter into the pain of the world with the compassion of God. And if “compassion” means “suffering with,” then our lives have to be intertwined with those around us in such a way that anything that hurts them hurts us, too.
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The incarnation of Christ compels us to practice this kind of holy hospitality—to create space and make room for the stories of others without condemnation or judgment.

And this might be easy to do with people who are like us or who have stories that are similar to our own. But it becomes much more difficult with those who look different from us, who have a different social struggle, faith or value system than we do.

From Death to Life

The coming of the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated by Jesus and we are invited to participate in helping this world move from death to life. In a culture so obsessed with death, we are called to help it imagine a world that lives as if God were in charge.

The way of Jesus to the cross is called “cruciform” in that it is in the shape of the cross. Shouldn’t our lives be in the same shape? Willing to go where God will lead for the sake of others, knowing that resurrection lies ahead?

My own journey is one from death to life, and this is quite literal for me—I would likely be dead if it were not for those kids at that Nazarene camp, showing me how to love God and myself. My self-destruction would have surely been made complete, otherwise. They showed me that a redeemed life can participate in redeeming this world with Christ.

And this is what propels me into the world, to share the good news of the power of God to transform us. The radical change in my own life is not something can be hidden, and so I have dedicated my life to tearing down the walls that divide us and building longer tables of hospitality for even the most unlikely of guests.

#reHumanize Project

#reHumanize Project: Reimagining Humanity by Dr. Darren Reed

October 25, 2019October 25, 2019 Nazarenes United for Peace

This blog post is part of a recurring series called the #reHumanize Project, an initiative by Nazarenes United for Peace that seeks to help us rediscover our shared, divine humanity.

When approached to write for the #reHumanize Project, I was asked for my thoughts on the project title: What people, places, things, or relationships need to be rehumanized? As I contemplated this, another question presented itself: What does it mean to rehumanize? Every process has a starting point and an endpoint. If in this project of rehumanizing our starting point is the dehumanized state in which we find ourselves and our relationships, our endpoint must be some true humanity from which we have been dehumanized.

Only when we understand what it means to be human can we begin the process of rehumanizing. A small directional error at the beginning of a journey will end that journey miles off course. Without a clear goal in mind, moving ourselves and our relationships from their current state may prove fruitless or indeed harmful. Our #reHumanize project, therefore, must properly begin with a clear idea of what it means to be human.

Christian anthropology⁠—the church’s answer to the question, “What does it mean to be human?”⁠—is rooted in the creation order and in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. We find both biblical and historical witness to this anthropology.

Genesis 1:27 states that in the beginning humankind was made “according to the image of God.”¹ The language is the same used in Exodus 25:40, when God instructs Moses to build the tabernacle “according to the pattern”² shown him on Mt. Sinai. This semantic link is not accidental. It carries with it the implication that humankind, and indeed every individual human being, was modeled after a pattern⁠—some particular image of God. Paul writes in Colossians 1:15, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,” and Hebrews 1:3 identifies the Son as “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.”³ (NIV) Further, the church affirmed at the Council of Chalcedon that in his humanity Jesus is “like us in all respects, apart from sin.”⁴

The image of God is not abstract, but is found “exact” in Christ, therefore our humanity is created according to the full humanity found in Christ. To be truly human, then, is to be like Christ⁠—to think, to will, and to act as Christ. When we first deny our true humanity found in Christ, we lose the vision of the image of God in others. We rediscover our humanity and are able to rehumanize our relationships only as we conform ourselves to our pattern, the image of God found in Jesus.

The ancient church called the process of conforming to the pattern of Christ theosis. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote concerning the incarnation and theosis: “God became man so that man might become god.”⁵ Expanding on Athanasius’s writing, Orthodox priest, author, and podcaster Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick writes, “He is present in us, but we remain ourselves, and He remains Himself. But His presence in us changes us. We become not just better versions of ourselves, but like Him.”⁶

In language more familiar to Nazarenes, the process of becoming like God is entire sanctification. “It is love excluding sin;” John Wesley preached, “love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul. It is love ‘rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, in everything giving thanks.’”⁷ Sanctified living sees us reclaim and restore the image of God in us and allows us to envision and cultivate the image of God in others.

Each and every human being with whom we interact has been made according to the image of God.
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Each and every human being with whom we interact has been made according to the image of God. C.S. Lewis paints a profound picture in The Weight of Glory:

“It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities…that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”⁸

Our responsibility begins with searching out the true humanity found in Christ and conforming our lives to that humanity by seeking union with Christ. Then we must seek to see Christ in the humanity of all those around us. With Christ as our sure foundation, we are able to build our #reHumanize edifice—reclaiming our own humanity and reenvisioning the humanity of those around us.

To return to Lewis:

“Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”⁹

In Lewis’s Eucharistic language we find the destination of our #reHumanize project: to have Christ truly hidden in us and to recognize Christ truly hidden in others. As the bread and wine of the Eucharist are transformed by the Spirit to be the body and blood of Christ, so we are transformed by the Spirit to “be for the world the Body of Christ, redeemed by His blood.”¹⁰ Eucharistic humanity is the true humanity we have lost and which we must reclaim—incarnational, sacrificial, resurrected, and ascended humanity.

As the bread and wine of the Eucharist are transformed by the Spirit to be the body and blood of Christ, so we are transformed by the Spirit to “be for the world the Body of Christ, redeemed by His blood.”
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Let us then live sanctified lives in view of the sacramental nature of our everyday relations. Seek to begin each day with a fresh vision from God, asking that we may see the full humanity of Christ in every individual we encounter. In this way may we fulfill our own human potential, being “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”¹¹

The words of Charles Wesley serve as a wonderful prayer for the #reHumanize project:

 Finish, then, thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be:
let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee;
changed from glory into glory,
'til in heav'n we take our place,
'til we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.¹²

May God perfectly restore in us the image of Christ, that we may recognize the image of Christ in others, living each day in light of his glory. Amen.

“It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities…that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”⁸
C.S. Lewis

Footnotes:

Brenton, The Septuagint version of the Old Testament
Ibid.
New International Version
Book of Common Prayer, p. 864
On the Incarnation 54:3, emphasis mine
That Man Might Become God, January 22, 2015
The Scripture Way of Salvation, Section I, Paragraph 9
The Weight of Glory, p. 9, emphasis original
Ibid.
Manual 2017, p. 261
Ephesians 3:19b, NIV
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, v. 4

Darren Reed serves as a lay leader in Lenexa Central Church of the Nazarene in Kansas.

#reHumanize Project, Gender Issues, Uncategorized

#reHumanize Project: An Open Letter to John MacArthur by Pastor Emily Reyes

October 23, 2019November 5, 2019 Nazarenes United for Peace

This blog post is the first of a recurring series called the #reHumanize Project, an initiative by Nazarenes United for Peace that seeks to help us rediscover our shared, divine humanity.

The timing of the launch of our series called the #reHumanize Project seems ironic considering the news of John MacArthur’s awful words about Beth Moore last week. I’ll link to Sarah Bessey’s treatment of it here.

While it has been devastating to hear this kind of dehumanization of half of the human race in the name of Christianity, it has also been encouraging to see how Nazarenes have risen up to be sure the ecclesial world knows that we have always affirmed women in ministry and still do.

ICYMI, we asked for photo comments of women in ministry over on our Facebook Page and the results were tear-producingly beautiful. So many lovely images of women serving God with their god-given gifts. You should take time to look through them.

I’m very pleased to present to you the first of our submissions for the #reHumanize project. I had the privilege of working with Pastor Emily Reyes in Kansas City and her wisdom, authenticity, and passion are captured well in her open letter.

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Dear Mr. MacArthur,

This week, I watched a video of you laughing on a stage occupied by men as you mocked and derided a woman who has ever-so-cautiously stepped into her ministry and calling, has submitted herself entirely to the Church, and has spoken and led with grace and truth. You told her to go home. You told her to quiet down. And you did it all with incessant laughter, sarcasm, and scorn.

I say that I watched the video, but honestly, I only watched the first few minutes. I couldn’t take anymore of it, because it felt so familiar to me. And it felt so unholy. I’ve known men like you – men who told me where my place was, and where it wasn’t. Men who showed me what conversations and circles I was allowed into, and how to find my way back to the kitchen when I had wandered too far from its cozy feminine welcome.

Those men were good men. They loved me, they loved Jesus, and they were probably following leadership like yours. And I honestly didn’t mind at the time. I really liked the idea of being a housewife when I grew up; I baked a pie that could give any of the other church ladies’ a run for their money in our silent auctions by the time I was fourteen, and it felt safe to have some parameters set, some boundaries drawn.

It felt really safe to be quiet.

That is, until I had something to say.

[Disclaimer: my mom and sisters have been stay-at-home moms for most of their lives. That job is NO JOKE. It’s one I highly respect, one I view as hard & holy work, and one I think I’d love to have someday.]

I felt God’s call on my life when I was six years old, and I told my church that I was going to be a missionary, because that was an acceptable thing to say as a female in my context. I guess you could say education ruined me, but what’s really crazy to me is how long it took me to get voices like yours out of my head.

Voices of fear.

Voices of pride.

Voices that clung to power.

Voices that silenced the Spirit’s empowering, resurrection work in me.

It took a really long time to trust that God really had made Eve equal and partner in God’s image (Genesis 1) and had seen Hagar in her abuse (Genesis 16). God really had used Deborah to judge (Judges 4) and Rahab to lead (Joshua 2). Women really did preach the gospel first (Matthew 28) and Junia really was a deaconess highly regarded by Paul (Romans 16:7). There really is no male or female in Christ (Galatians 3:28) and God’s story really, truly, is big enough and bold enough and good enough to make room for all to be equal and all to have a voice and all – sons AND daughters – to prophesy in these days (Joel 2:28).

This is the scandal of the gospel – that in Christ’s death and resurrection all has been made right and all has been made new. The valleys have been raised up! The mountains have been brought low! In Christ is NEW CREATION – creation as it was first intended, devoid of culture’s systemic sexism and humanity’s broken power struggles. The scandal of the gospel is that it goes this far– yes! – far enough to level the fields and set EVERY silenced voice free to shout this good news to the masses. Men don’t have to live in such insecurity and fear that they puff up at the sound of a woman’s voice leading them to Jesus. There is space here. Don’t sell the gospel short.

In Christ is NEW CREATION as it was first intended, devoid of culture’s systemic sexism and humanity’s broken power struggles. The scandal of the gospel is that it goes this far, yes! far enough to level the fields and set EVERY silenced voice free to shout this good news to the masses
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So I guess all I have to say to you is, you’re wrong, Mr. MacArthur. You’re wrong and I know it with every fiber of my being because I’ve experienced the goodness and joy it is to say yes to God’s leading – even when it pushes me beyond what I’ve been raised to believe is biblical and even when it’s the last thing on earth I have wanted. I know because the Church needs the voices and presence and gifting of women if She is ever to live fully into the Kingdom of God that the Spirit is leading Her toward. I know because women pastors have shown me Christ’s way and Christ’s gospel too clearly for them to be following anyone else’s leadership in their lives. I know because my heart tells me so, my Church tells me so, and my Bible tells me so.

The leverage that you hold on American Christianity is still great, even as the sun sets on Christendom and the cultural standing of evangelicals is waning with it. But be careful, sir. Men are drinking in your words, reading your books, listening to your sermons and your speeches and your sarcasm and they’re believing it. And they’re teaching their families it, they’re proclaiming it from their pulpits, and there are six-year-old girls who are listening with ardent hearts and sincere spirits and accepting what they’re hearing as truth. In this, you are causing others to sin, Mr. MacArthur. You are propagating falsehood and misusing power, you’re reenforcing the walls of the boy’s club, and this is not the way of Jesus. I urge you to pause before you sit on any panel again and open yourself up so lightheartedly to word association games. Your words hold power, and what you do with them matters. You’re too smart to have an excuse here. And while I believe that it is right and good to encourage one another and build each other up, I also believe that there is space, especially in the Church, for righteous anger and prophetic voices to ring out in the face of injustice and wrongdoing. And so, Mr. MacArthur, I appeal to you “by the humility and gentleness of Christ” to examine your heart, repent, and listen to diverse voices around you with humility – Christ comes to us in the least of these.

I won’t go home. I won’t because Jesus hasn’t told me to. Because Jesus didn’t tell Mary to go back to the kitchen (Luke 10), and he didn’t tell Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Susanna to return to their homemaking (Luke 8) and when the men tried to dismiss the woman in Mark 14, he told them “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me.”

I have a feeling he’d have similar words for you, Mr. MacArthur.

Pastor Emily Reyes serves as the associate pastor to children and families at Shawnee Church of the Nazarene in Kansas. She is a graduate of MidAmerica Nazarene University and is currently pursuing her M. Div. at Nazarene Theological Seminary

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#reHumanize Project: A Prayer for the Kurds

October 8, 2019 Nazarenes United for Peace

Syrian Kurds protest against Turkey in Ras al-Ain, Hassakeh province, on 6 October 2019 — Image: AFP | Syria’s Kurds reject Turkey’s plans and say they will defend their territory at all costs

This blog post is the first of a recurring series called the #reHumanize Project, an initiative by Nazarenes United for Peace that seeks to help us rediscover our shared, divine humanity.

We thought it might be fitting to open the #reHumanize Project with this prayer for Syria and the Kurds. It is written by Jeff Sykes, theologian and servant of the church.

“Almighty God, we confess that every good and perfect gift is from you. Your servant James instructed us to be quick to listen and slow to anger. We know, oh Lord, from experience that our anger does not lead to your righteousness. Even so, our corporate brokenness seems to leave us weak and unable to address the problems of our world. Today, Lord, we read about your children in Syria–Kurds, Syrians, and others–who are long oppressed by violence and hate. We read about friends abandoned for political gain. We see the future where death and pain are multiplied: a future where expediency produces despair.

You have called us, o most merciful God, to extend mercy. You call us to the occupation of peacemaking. You call us, through the faithfulness of your Son Jesus Christ, to imagine and work toward a hopeful future. You empower us by your Holy Spirit to imagine a world where your will is done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Forgive us for sitting by too long and doing nothing. Instead, empower us to hear and respond to your gracious call to recognize that, in you, the dividing lines of this present age are erased by your love. Give courage to leaders to work for justice. Help us to hold them up and encourage them when their spirits fail.

Amen. “

Uncategorized

Nazarenes Call for Gun Reform

August 6, 2019August 9, 2019 Nazarenes United for Peace

Sign the petition here

Nazarenes United for Peace believe that American Christians are called by our Creator to propose and support creative, peaceful solutions to the unprecedented epidemic of firearms-related violence in the United States.

These solutions include:

eliminating high-capacity magazines (anything over 5 rounds);
required testing and licensing for all firearm ownership;
universal background checks and registration for all firearm sales (including private transfers); and
legislation prohibiting persons convicted of violent crime/domestic abuse from owning firearms.

We believe that such provisions reflect the calling and character of the American Church.

The Church of the Nazarene believes that the ideal world condition is that of peace and that it is the full obligation of the Christian Church to use its influence to seek such means as will enable the nations of the earth to be at peace and to devote all of its agencies for the propagation of the message of peace.
Nazarene Manual, 922

First, we believe that such provisions reflect a consistent, holistic, pro-life ethic, one that recognizes and upholds the sanctity of all human lives. We reject false dichotomies that require us to choose between care for the unborn, children, young adults, and/or the elderly among us. Instead we heed Christ’s reminder that when we care for the marginalized and physically endangered we care for God’s own self.

Second, we affirm that such regulations represent the best, most evidence-based and effective means of ensuring the peace and safety of American citizens. We spurn fear-based calls to counter violence with violence or attempt to overcome evil with evil. Instead we heed the call of Christ—himself the object of state-sanctioned violence—to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and put away our own weapons as we work toward peace and reconciliation.

Most importantly, we believe that such legislative measures reflect the call of persons of faith to actively participate in shalom, the peaceful well-being of all of Creation. We reject the idolatries of rugged individualism, sectarian partition, and ethno-linguistic segregation that compel us toward violent resistance. Instead we honor our Creator’s mandate to live at peace with all of creation—both friend and foe—so that through us all peoples on earth might be blessed.

We reject the idolatries of rugged individualism, sectarian partition, and ethno-linguistic segregation that compel us toward violent resistance
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Jesus healing the ear of a servant (cut off by Peter) during his arrest, Museu de Évora, Portugal, c. 1500.

Uncategorized

CALL TO ACTION on US/UNHCR Refugee Program

August 5, 2019 Nazarenes United for Peace

CALL TO ACTION: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nazarenes United for Peace stands with World Relief and other resettlement organizations and condemns the proposed discontinuation of the US/UNHCR refugee program which will abandon persecuted Christians and other refugees worldwide. It would be an affront to the Christian call to show care and hospitality to refugees and is an attack on Christian values. Caring for them is our moral and biblical duty.

The UNHCR refugee program is a highly vetted program and ensures that all people entering are truly in need of refuge. Of the 25 million or so refugees in the world, the US has historically only taken in fewer than 100k nationwide (much lower in recent years) per year, and this move would effectively reduce that number to zero.

We call on Nazarenes everywhere in the US to call your legislators and insist that, as people of faith, you strongly support the continuation of this program with a minimum of 100,000 people per year.

Calls to legislators are MUCH more effective than emails, so we encourage you to call. If you need help finding them, use this tool.

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Renewal of Baptismal Vows and a Commitment to Peace

April 21, 2019April 21, 2019 Nazarenes United for Peace

The Book of Common Prayer has a beautiful service for the Easter Vigil, which is traditionally held between sundown on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Sunday.

There is an affirmation of baptismal vows in which we find this beautiful call to remind us of our commitment to peace and justice. It is not something new, conjured up in some fit of postmodern accommodation, but has been endemic to the witness of the Christian to the peaceable kingdom of God since the beginning.

Let us renew our vows on this Easter day.

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Renewal of Baptismal Vows

Celebrant Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil and renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?

People I do.

Celebrant Do you believe in God the Father?

People I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

Celebrant Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

People I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Celebrant Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?

People I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

Celebrant Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the

prayers?