Sacred Roots Workshop

106 Sacred Roots Workshop: Retr ieving the Great Tradi t ion in the Contemporary Church

find that he is our Mediator and our Foundation, our Life-giver and our Lord, the Secret and the Goal of our living, our Lover and our Model. Or, bringing together the prepositions we have been considering, we learn that to be a Christian is to live our lives through, on, in, under, with, unto, for and like Jesus Christ. Each preposition indicates a different kind of relationship, but in each case Christ himself is at the center. The symbol of Christ’s victory.

~ John Stott. Focus on Christ . New York: William Collins Publishers, 1979. p. 155.

A. Liturgical evangelism was the ancient method of evangelism.

B. Confession of faith was the response of individuals to the Good News which was seen as a process toward incorpora- tion into the Church, not merely a personal decision severed from the body.

C. Welcoming and incorporating the new convert into the believing assembly therefore demanded faithful allegiance to the Lord and the Kingdom.

D. Evangelism and conversion receives the new believer who comes to Christ by personal faith into full communion with the Christian community through periods of development and growth culminating in baptism.

E. The objective content of the Good News is grounded in the biblical Gospel, summarized in the “rule of faith” embodied in the Creed.

F. At the Core of the Great Confession is our submission to the Scriptures, the Apostolic Tradition, which is articulated in the Great Tradition and expressed historically in particular traditions in the Church.