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Faith Formation: Teaching the Bible with depth and clarity. The Word of God creates and sustains our faith, granting us life and salvation. Romans 10:17
Last month I wrote on the convictions that cause us to desire to plant a church. These are convictions that St. Paul’s holds, and so we are seeking to plant a church. For the next few months I want to look forward and give you the vision of what I hope the new church plant will look like. I’m going to do this by talking about values. These concepts would probably not be rejected by any church, but not necessarily emphasized. I believe they will be important for the health of the church plant. This month I want to share the value of faith formation.
When we talk about faith formation we are talking about bringing two things together, the Word of God and people. It may be bringing the Word to someone for the very first time, creating faith. And it may be bringing the Word to a believer to grow the faith that they have had for many years. In any case we will value bringing the Word to people through teaching and preaching with depth and clarity.
Romans 10:17 shows us the connection between the Word of God and faith. It says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” So, faith is a result not of an experience, not a movement of our own will, but of the Word. Faith is formed by the Word of God.
Holding this value of faith formation will affect how the church plant looks and acts. Some ways that I would envision would be having an emphasis on expository preaching, that is, exposing the meaning of the text. This is not just teaching the surface subject, but going in depth to understand the Word. This value therefore puts an expectation on the pastor in his preaching and teaching, that it will be with depth and clarity.
In keeping with this value, the church plant will also promote the reading of scripture in devotional times for families. We could do this by having a list of weekly texts that correspond with the Sunday lessons.
Furthermore, the church plant would encourage children to be in the divine service, where the Word is read and preached because their faith also is formed by the Word. Just as Psalm 22:9-10 says, “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.” Even a nursing infant is given faith through the Word of God.
Another result of the value of faith formation would be that we celebrate the use of the sacraments. The sacraments connect the Word of God with physical elements, and so our faith is strengthened by regular use of the sacraments.
There will probably be other ways that the church plant lives out this value, but it will continue to be a core part of us as we grow and the Lord establishes us. We know that faith is a gift given to us(Eph 2:9). We also confess, “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
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