Guard the Good Deposit

34 • Guard the Good Deposit: The Great Tradition for the Whole Church

How Do We Guard the Good Deposit? We are the people of this story. We stand inside the unfolding drama of the Triune God. We live between Acts and Revelation as a part of the biblical narrative. What do we do? What part do we play? We respond to and participate in God’s person and work. Our goal is simply to help infuse the whole life of the Church with the story of God. The subjective side of the Story of God outlines four dimensions of our part in the story. Guarding the good deposit will mean rediscovering our sacred roots in our theology (or beliefs), worship, spirituality, and witness.

The Great Confession: Our Theology What do we Christians believe? It seems like a simple question, but when we view the whole Church, we find a great variety of beliefs with many important disagree­ ments. How do we know what has been believed everywhere, always, by all? For over 1,600 years, the Nicene Creed has served as the Church’s basic statement of our common beliefs, or the rule of faith.

The Nicene Creed We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.