SERVANT OF SERVANTS FOUNDATION


Here I have copied the vision statement and basis of faith of Servant of Servants Foundation. This is the organisation with which we are Associate Missionaries.

To visit the Servant of Servants Foundation website, please click on the image below, or enter 'http://sosf.marchsite.com' in your browser address bar.




VISION AND PURPOSE STATEMENT

This foundation exists primarily to promote the discovery and implementation of appropriate avenues of incarnational service to the State Churches of Europe.



This organisation is the fruit of an understanding which finds it's roots in seventeen years of Evangelical Protestant ministry in France.

This understanding, stated in it's most simple terms is that: informal grass-roots collaboration of Evangelical Protestants with Roman Catholics (or any other State Church of Western Europe) in shared evangelistic ministry is a most fruitful sort of ecumenism.

According to this understanding, Evangelical Protestant missions in Western Europe find their theological status and operational model in the biblical archetype of the Kingdom of God.

This approach to Evangelical missionary endeavours in Western Europe would rule out associating salvation or spiritual health with identity as an Evangelical Protestant, (as if a Roman Catholic or other State Church member cannot be saved without becoming an Evangelical Protestant), and on this basis putting people under pressure to change churches.



The primary purpose of this organisation is the discovery and implementation of appropriate forms of incarnational service to the State Churches of Western Europe.

By this we mean that propagating faith in Jesus Christ is the crucial task; and it is natural to think that this can best be done in Western Europe as a combined operation, with a combined call to allegiance to Jesus Christ as it's focal centre.

We feel that the Evangelical Protestant must enter the European scene as a "Servant of the servants of God." We find that this way of maximising what Christians hold in common, rather than emphasising our distinctives is an approach to missions in Western Europe whose time has come.



SERVANT OF SERVANTS FOUNDATION - Statement of Faith

  • The first and final affirmation that we make about all of reality is that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is the One sent by God to be Lord and Saviour of all: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). We affirm that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, Mediator of the new covenant of grace, substitutionary Sin-bearer, perfect Saviour, risen from the dead, reigning and returning Lord, Head of His Church, and Director of His disciples.

  • We affirm that we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ. Our acquittal from the guilt of sin and acceptance as heirs of glory is grounded entirely on His righteousness, now imputed to us.


  • We affirm the necessity of personal conversion, in which recognition of one's helplessness in sin leads to total trust in Jesus Christ as Saviour, and worldview allegiance to Him as Lord, God, lover, brother, and friend, with consequent joyful assurance from the Holy Spirit of the reality of one's new life.


  • We affirm that all who pledge worldview allegiance to Jesus Christ, who accept Christ as the Lord and Master of their lives, are brothers and sisters in Christ be they Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. Christ has chosen us, and He has chosen us to be His together (John 15). However imperfect our communion with one another, however different our traditions, we recognise that there is but one church of Christ.


  • We affirm the supreme authority of the sixty-six-book canon of Holy Scripture as the self-authenticating, self-interpreting Word of God. We affirm that Christians are to teach and live in obedience to the divinely inspired Scriptures, which are the infallible Word of God.


  • We affirm God the Holy Spirit as source and sustainer of all spiritual life. It is the Holy Spirit who leads the church into all truth in discerning and declaring the teachings of Christ (John 16).


  • We affirm with Christians everywhere that the Apostles' Creed is an accurate statement of scriptural truth:

    I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

    I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.

    He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

    He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

    He descended into hell.

    On the third day He rose again.

    He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

    He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

    I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.