A Personal Creed?

Everyone has a creed, which is just a way of saying that everyone believes something. If your highest value is power, that's certainly in your creed. If it's pleasure, likewise; or greed? you have a greed creed! etc. etc.

For example Tillich: your God is your ultimate concern- it may be a bottle of whiskey.

In recent years the Nicene Creed has lost its credibility, with me among others. It came to me that lacking that I need to verbalize my own creed. I've found two clauses that seem essential:

1. Community, corporate worship, even godly work is best achieved in the small group. Huge churches by and large seem hollow shells of what I perceive as Christianity. Of course they may contain within their membership vital communal groups providing meaningful worship and work. They are the true church rather than the large congeries, which is invariably a principality-- a worldly domination system run by worldly men, ecclesiastical and otherwise. In spite of the unwieldy, worldly eccesiastical structures Christ's work is done largely by individuals, usually related to a small group-- such as the original Twelve.

Community is built when we tell our stories. It depends upon love, and nothing is more calculated to elicit the love of God and neighbor than the individual's story, told to the small group.

It even works with multitudes. Karen Armstrong has recently told her story in a book entitled The Spiral Staircase. It's hard to believe that any commited Christian can read her story without a warming of their heart and a strong sense of appreciation for the godly work she has done.