Recently Henrieta and I put a Statement of Faith section on our website. It is vital to us that the statement fits each of our personal beliefs and is also a true representation of our faith together. In order to write it we spent time discussing our personal faith journeys.
Each one of us have come to our current beliefs as a culmination of our upbringing, our relationships, (friends and family) and everything else that has touched us, like materials we have read, radio and podcasts we have listened to, movies and television that we have watched, and churches we have attended. Our two lives have been and are very different.
Henrieta and I have different personality traits and very different backgrounds. I am a Baby Boomer, Henrieta is from Generation X. I was raised in a Suburb of Chicago, and Henrieta was raised in what is now, Bratislava, Slovakia. I am an extrovert, Henrieta is more introverted. I like trashy novels and diet coke and Henrieta is into herbs, essential oils and non-fiction. I attend a Presbyterian church, Henrieta attends a Methodist church.
With all of these differences you can imagine how different our beliefs must be. It is surprising that we are able to work together! ; ) But.. that is not the case. When we each shared our basic beliefs, they were pretty much the same. Those beliefs are what we put in the Faith Statement for IE3 which is:
We are Christian women who humbly respect all faiths.
The core of our faith are the great commandments cited by Jesus in Matthew 22:35–40: (msg)
"Jesus said, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
This is also my personal faith statement. This is the grounding rod that I use for battling those little demons that frustrate me. It is how I choose to live my faith.
I will admit that I am not perfect, but I follow it more oft than not, which is as good as it gets sometimes. The important part is that I have it, and I choose to live by it as best as I can.
What do you believe? Have you a personal faith statement?