What We Believe
Below, you will find our affirmations of faith and member covenant. We love these documents. We trust that they will build you up in the faith as you read them.
The elders of Risen King Church subscribe to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith and affirm an amended version of the Nashville Statement. You can find our full Elder Affirmation of Faith here.
The members of Risen King Church affirm an amended version of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith. Follow this link to find our Member Affirmation of Faith.
Our member covenant has been adapted from Benjamin Keach’s 1697 “Solemn Covenant”. It is beautiful, sincere, and rich. You can read our Member Covenant here.
Why do we use two confessions for our elder and member affirmations of faith?
We gladly hold the Bible as our only inerrant and infallible authority for all questions of faith and practice. And we do so without embarrassment or apology! We love the Bible, and this written Word of God is our final appeal and authority. Why, then, do we use two different confessions as our elder and member affirmations of faith?
A confession is a summary of biblical doctrine. It is a public declaration of what we believe the Bible teaches. Here are three main reasons we use the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith and the New Hampshire Confession of Faith as our elder and member affirmations, respectively:
1. Confessions represent the work of many, many faithful and wise Christian men to summarize and systematize the Christian faith in an accessible and applicable way. In that way, confessions ground us in the teaching of the historic Christian church and united us to other believers across time and space.
2. Confessions guard against false teaching. They also guard against the danger of being blown about by every wind of doctrine and modern ideological fads.
3. Confessions strengthen our unity and the clarity of our mission. It serves the members of a church to know that their leaders don’t just agree on lowest-common-denominator issues, but that they share deep, robust convictions about even second and third-tier doctrines. Confessions take out much of the guesswork for discerning unity and alignment. Thereby, they free members and elders to strive together for the faith of the gospel, arms locked tightly together.
What do we mean by “substantial subscription”?
The elders of Risen King Church substantially subscribe to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. What do we mean by that? When churches require “strict subscription”, their elders must agree with the entirety of their church’s confession, without exception. We believe that strict subscription runs the risk of elevating the confession to the level of Scripture, rather than exhorting believers to evaluate everything (including their confession!) in the light of God’s infallible word. Substantial subscription means that the elders of Risen King Church find the 1689 LBCF to be the most robust, thorough, and accurate summary of the Christian faith out there. We love this document. The differences any one of us has with the Confession are minor such that we all subscribe to it substantially. This means that we expect every elder or prospective elder to embrace the Confession with all of its parts, and to make known any minor differences so that the rest of the elders can evaluate whether those differences are substantial enough to keep such a man from serving Risen King Church as one of her elders.