My Statement of Faith
I believe that the Trinity is a perfect community of love that models God’s will for our relationships and for our lives. God lives in loving community, and so humans created in the image of God are meant to live in community with one another.
This Trinitarian understanding makes me mindful that all with whom I come in contact are made in God’s image.
I believe that Christ is more than a prophet, a revolutionary, an advocate for the poor, an agent of compassion and a martyr, although he is all these things and more in his humanity. Jesus is God’s very presence in human form, holder of the power to forgive sinners and grant salvation.
I believe the Creator made the world good, and despite the obvious presence of evil in the world, evil cannot triumph over the Creator’s good purposes.
I believe the Spirit helps us in our weakness, acting as our advocate when we do not know how to pray (Romans 8:26).
I believe that what God the Savior and God the Spirit does is not different from what the sovereign God does.
I trust in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior, which allows me to recognize that God’s compassion, justice and promises are for everyone.
I rely on scripture as a unique witness to God’s grace, demonstrated through covenants and seen supremely in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The Bible is the primary witness as it puts forth Christ while functioning within the community. The Spirit breathes life into these ancient words.
I believe that God claims us in the waters of baptism. In the Lord’s Supper, Christians are strengthened to live the baptismal life. Communion is vital to the health of the church, bringing renewal and reconciliation with God and one another.
I believe that God’s sovereignty is best understood as God’s omnipotent love. God is compassionate, suffering with and for us, deeply personal, understood through the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God is described in scripture as being love. God reconciles people to God and to one another and liberates those who are in bondage.
I believe that God’s peaceable realm is partially realized on earth but is moving toward the goal that God has established from the beginning of time. I believe that the resurrection is the source of Christian hope that death does not have the final word and that a new world is yet to come, bringing to completion God’s reconciliation and liberation of all.
Witness to Grace 
I really like this!
I hope as a pastor and as a person who cares for Willie Nelson you will make every effort to address his “spiritual condition” before it is too late. He is getting up in years. “What does it profit a man if he cans the whole world yet loses his own soul?”
I have always liked Willie Nelson’s music and determination and endurance having been faced with rejection in his young life and many other difficulties and tragedies in his life. He has been very blessed in many ways too. I am sure his grandma and grandpa want to see him in heaven. I pray that he will get that part of his life straightened out before they role him up and smoke him. He certainly is a wonderfully talented man and he has a well lived in life.
Thanks for your comment. I will let God decide who gets to heaven. I don’t know if you read my post on Willie, but my point was that his life in many ways reflects the deep spirituality that was inculcated by his grandparents. I don’t expect that Willie would describe himself as “sinless.” Me neither.