Our faith, our values and our focus worldwide

1. We belie­ve in God, the Father.
   We belie­ve that God crea­ted and sus­ta­ins the world and huma­ni­ty through his Word and has orda­i­ned and enab­led us for fel­low­ship with him and our fel­low humans.
   God has crea­ted every human being in his image (Gene­sis 1:26) and given them a digni­ty that can neither be lost nor dama­ged. This includes the unborn, weak, poor, dis­pla­ced, disen­fran­chised, sick, dis­ab­led, old, dying.
   We as human beings come to find and know our­sel­ves in the encoun­ter with our Crea­tor. We can­not crea­te our­sel­ves, nor give our­sel­ves mea­ning and pur­po­se. God has crea­ted human beings as men and women (Gene­sis 1:27) and inten­ded us for crea­ti­ve mutu­al care in life-long mar­ria­ge in the rela­tio­nal pola­ri­ty of male and fema­le (Matthew 19:3–9). God can also call to a life of sing­le­ness (Matthew 19:10–12; 1 Corin­thi­ans 7).
   God has crea­ted the world in a very good way, and has pur­po­sed us to cul­ti­va­te and care for it in respon­si­bi­li­ty befo­re God (Gene­sis 2:15). Sin­ce the Fall crea­ti­on waits for its redemp­ti­on on the Day of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:18–25), when God will crea­te a new hea­ven and a new earth (Reve­la­ti­on 21).
2. We belie­ve in God, the Son.
   We belie­ve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, whom the Father has sent into the world. In him he loved the world so that all who belie­ve in him will not peri­sh, but have eter­nal life (John 3:16).
   Every human being has been betray­ed, decei­ved, and bound by the power of sin in its mani­fold expres­si­ons (Romans 3:9–18). Sin shows its­elf as cul­pa­ble deed and tra­gic doom (Romans 5:12–21) in the lost rela­ti­onship with God and the cor­rupt­ed rela­ti­ons to other human beings, crea­ti­on and ones­elf (Gene­sis 4:1–11; Romans 1:18–32). Human efforts for edu­ca­ti­on and ena­blem­ent as well as the rene­wal of socie­tal struc­tures can­not free human beings from their ali­en­ati­on and bon­da­ge to sin (Mark 8:36). This occurs only through redemp­ti­on in Jesus Christ, our Lord. From this redemp­ti­on fol­lows the man­da­te to edu­ca­te, to capa­ci­ta­te, and to assu­me socie­tal, social, eco­lo­gi­cal and poli­ti­cal respon­si­bi­li­ty (Jere­mi­ah 29:7; Romans 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:13–17).
   Jesus Christ, tru­ly God and tru­ly human being, is alo­ne the sal­va­ti­on of the world for all human beings (Acts 4:12). He recon­ci­led us with God through his sub­sti­tu­tio­nal ato­n­ing death on the cross (2 Corin­thi­ans 5:18f), for­gi­ves our sin, sends us into the world (John 17:18; 20:21), and libe­ra­tes us to live a life accor­ding to our divi­ne cal­ling. He is risen bodi­ly from the dead and will call all peo­p­le to resur­rec­tion on his Day, some to eter­nal life, others to jud­ge­ment (Dani­el 12:2; Reve­la­ti­on 20:11–15). Through Jesus Christ’s resur­rec­tion from the dead God gives us, alre­a­dy now, a living hope in the life of God’s king­dom (1 Peter 1:3).
   In Jesus, Israel’s Mes­siah, God has estab­lished the pro­mi­sed New Coven­ant with Isra­el, in which the Church, cal­led from among the nati­ons, is included (Jere­mi­ah 31:31; 1 Corin­thi­ans 11:25). The elec­tion of the Church of Jews and non-Jews does not replace the per­ma­nent elec­tion of Isra­el (Romans 11:17f). God hims­elf will let his peo­p­le Isra­el see the con­sum­ma­ti­on of sal­va­ti­on in Christ (cp. Romans 11:25ff).
   At the end of time Jesus Christ will return and rule with his church for all eter­ni­ty (Romans 5:17; 2 Timo­thy 2:12; Reve­la­ti­on 22:5).
3. We belie­ve in God, the Holy Spi­rit.
   We belie­ve that the Holy Spi­rit was sent to us through the Father and the Son, that he makes us God’s child­ren by faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 8:14f), leads us into know­ledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4), and sends us into the world to bear wit­ness to this truth in word and deed.
   God speaks to us through the Holy Scrip­tures and in them has reve­a­led to us his  cha­rac­ter, his will and his sal­vi­fic deeds in histo­ry. The Holy Scrip­tures of the Old and New Tes­ta­ments are, as a “living ser­mon of the Holy Spi­rit” (Con­fes­sio Virt­em­ber­gi­ca, art. 27), God’s true, inspi­red, relia­ble and trust­wor­t­hy Word (Psalm 93:5; Isai­ah 45:19; John 17:17; 2 Timo­thy 3:16). They are the only stan­dard for the faith, life, acti­vi­ty, and sal­va­ti­on of the church of Jesus and of every sin­gle per­son. In them God’s Word and human word is indi­vi­si­bly bound tog­e­ther. The unity and diver­si­ty of their tes­tim­o­ny find their cent­re in Jesus Christ. This Word pos­s­es­ses the power to crea­te, ori­ent, cor­rect, and renew (John 1:1; Hebrews 4:12; 11:3; James 1:18; Matthew 8:8; Psalms 119:105).
   The Church of Jesus Christ is the fel­low­ship of tho­se cal­led forth by God within a yet unre­de­e­med world (1 Peter 2:9). She is sent to live accor­ding to God’s will as salt of the earth and light of the world (Matthew 5:13–16) and to prai­se and wor­ship the tri­une God united­ly in cul­tu­ral, eth­nic, and natio­nal diver­si­ty (Romans 15:5f; Ephe­si­ans 1:12; Reve­la­ti­on 7:9f). The Holy Spi­rit calls each mem­ber of His Church to ser­ve and enables every mem­ber with various gifts  for the edi­fi­ca­ti­on of the Church (1 Corin­thi­ans 12).
   The Holy Spi­rit also equips the Church in times of per­se­cu­ti­on and gre­at distress with the strength to endu­re, per­se­ve­re and cling to the con­fes­si­on of hope (Hebrews 10:23). The gates of hell will not over­co­me her (Matthew 16:18). He leads the Church to inter­ce­de and helps her in pray­er.
   The Holy Spi­rit makes the Church a par­ti­ci­pant in God’s mis­si­on. In this sen­ding, the gos­pel is God’s power to save  all who belie­ve in Jesus Christ (Romans 1:16). The Holy Spi­rit enables us to con­fess Jesus Christ (1 Corin­thi­ans 12:3), to give account for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15), and to go into all the world as his wit­nesses, in order to make peo­p­le his disci­ples (Matthew 28:18–20).
   Through the Holy Spi­rit Jesus calls his world­wi­de Church to unity in col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve ser­vice and com­ple­men­ta­ry part­ner­ship. He gui­des her on her way through time to the con­sum­ma­ti­on of histo­ry in God’s new creation.

Rati­fied by the Gene­ral Assem­by of the Lie­ben­zell Mis­si­on on Decem­ber 8, 2017.