Our church is using a sort of tiered approach to developing a new doctrinal statement for our church.
It begins with the first "tier" of two foundational statements: the existence of God and the inspiration of the Scriptures. These are in some sense presuppositional, and else all that we hold emanates from those truths.
The next tier is fundamental principles of the Bible. Much of this is shared with "orthodox" Christianity -- creation, Trinity, salvation by grace, virgin birth, resurrection, etc.
A third tier is statements on"church order." In these we differ from most Protestants, and even some Baptists. These are statements about the nature of the church, baptism, Lord's Supper, etc.
The fourth tier concludes with some statements about love. By love we know and recognize other disciples, not just by cold agreement to a written statement of faith. Without love we are nothing, a noise without life.
In addition to these four tiers, we will have some position statements on contemporary issues.
How would you approach writing a statement of faith?
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