This document is the result of approximately ten years of work. The need for a statement of faith arose shortly after the beginning of the Vineyard movement in 1983. On one hand, we felt obliged to set forth our biblical and historically orthodox beliefs; on the other hand, we wanted to describe the values and priorities that make the Vineyard unique within the context of Evangelicalism.

While many people have worked on this project, special thanks go to John Wimber out of whose calling and vision the Vineyard movement has emerged and matured. Also, to John McClure, senior pastor of Vineyard Christian Fellowship Newport Beach, California, who has shepherded the process along over this decade, and to Dr. Don Williams, senior pastor of Coast Vineyard in La Jolla, California, who rewrote our original statements into the cogent, biblical kingdom framework that follows.

As evangelicals, the Bible is our final authority for faith and practice. Therefore, the statements that follow reflect our best attempt to understand and live out biblical precepts. Upon further reflection, greater biblical insight, or increased wisdom through experience, these statements could be revised. Until such a time, The Association of Vineyard Churches Board of Directors formally adopts this document as our official statement of faith as of the board meeting in November 1994.

We now commend this for use by all our pastors in all our churches with the prayer that God will bless our sincere desire and humble attempt to be ambassadors of the rule and reign of His kingdom through our lives, that His will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Berten A. Waggoner
National Director/President
Association of Vineyard Churches-USA
Sugar Land, Texas
December 2001

1. God the King and the Holy Trinity

WE BELIEVE that God is the Eternal King.  He is an infinite, unchangeable Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love.  From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons of one substance, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory.

2. God the King: The Creator and Ruler of All Things

WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom is everlasting.  From His throne,  through His Son,
His eternal Word,  God created,  upholds and governs  all that exists: the heavenly
places, the angelic hosts,  the universe,  the earth,  every living thing and
mankind. God created all things very good. 

3. Counterfeit Kingdom: Satan and Demonic Hosts

WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel, rebelled against God, taking a
host of angels with him.  He was cast out of God's presence and, as a usurper of God's
rule, established a counter-kingdom of darkness  and evil on the earth. 

4. The Kingdom in the Creation of Man, the Fall and The Doctrine of Original Sin

WE BELIEVE that God created mankind in His own image, male and female, for
relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan,  our
original parents fell from grace,  bringing sin,  sickness and God's judgment of
death to the earth.  Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to
God's good creation.  Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of
Adam's original sin. Human beings are born in sin,  subject to God's judgment of
death and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness. 

5. God's Providence, Kingdom Law and Covenants

WE BELIEVE that God did not abandon His rule over the earth  which He continues to
uphold by His providence. In order to bring redemption, God established covenants 
which revealed His grace to sinful people.  In the covenant with Abraham, God bound
Himself to His people Israel, promising to deliver them from bondage to sin and Satan
and to bless all the nations through them. 

WE BELIEVE that as King, God later redeemed His people by His mighty acts from
bondage in Egypt  and established His covenant through Moses, revealing His perfect
will and our obligation to fulfill it. The law's purpose is to order our fallen race  and to
make us conscious of our moral responsibility. By the work of God's Spirit, it convicts us of our sin and God's righteous judgment against us  and brings us to Christ alone for salvation. 

WE BELIEVE that when Israel rejected God's rule over her as King,  God established
the monarchy in Israel and made an unconditional covenant with David,  promising
that his heir would restore God's kingdom reign over His people as Messiah forever.

6. Christ the Mediator and Eternal King

WE BELIEVE that in the fullness of time, God honored His covenants with Israel and
His prophetic promises of salvation by sending His Son, Jesus, into the world.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, as fully God and fully man in
one person, He is humanity as God intended us to be. Jesus was anointed as God's
Messiah and empowered by the Holy Spirit, inaugurating God's kingdom reign on
earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the good
news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead.
Gathering His disciples, He reconstituted God's people as His Church to be the
instrument of His kingdom. After dying for the sins of the world, Jesus was raised
from the dead on the third day, fulfilling the covenant of blessing given to Abraham. In
His sinless, perfect life Jesus met the demands of the law and in His atoning death on
the cross He took God's judgment for sin which we deserve as law-breakers. By
His death on the cross He also disarmed the demonic powers. The covenant with
David was fulfilled in Jesus' birth from David's house, His Messianic ministry, His
glorious resurrection from the dead, His ascent into heaven and His present rule at the
right hand of the Father. As God's Son and David's heir, He is the eternal Messiah-
King, advancing God's reign throughout every generation and throughout the whole
earth today.

7. The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church at Pentecost in
power, baptizing believers into the Body of Christ and releasing the gifts of the Spirit
to them. The Spirit brings the permanent indwelling presence of God to us for
spiritual worship, personal sanctification, building up the Church, gifting us for
ministry, and driving back the kingdom of Satan by the evangelization of the world
through proclaiming the word of Jesus and doing the works of Jesus.

WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and that He is
our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. We believe in the filling or the
empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today.
We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit and in the exercise of all of the biblical
gifts of the Spirit. We practice the laying on of hands for the empowering of the
Spirit, for healing, and for recognition and empowering of those whom God has
ordained to lead and serve the Church.

8. The Sufficiency of Scripture

WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that
the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. We receive the sixty-six books of
the Old and New Testaments as our final, absolute authority, the only infallible rule of
faith and practice.

9. The Power of the Gospel Over the Kingdom of Darkness

WE BELIEVE that the whole world is under the domination of Satan and that all
people are sinners by nature and choice. All people therefore are under God's just
judgment. Through the preaching of the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom of
God and the work of the Holy Spirit, God regenerates, justifies, adopts and
sanctifies through Jesus by the Spirit all who repent of their sins and trust in
Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. By this they are released from Satan's domain
and enter into God's kingdom reign.

10. The Church: Instrument of the Kingdom

WE BELIEVE in the one, holy, universal Church. All who repent of their sins and
confess Jesus as Lord and Savior are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and form the
living Body of Christ, of which He is the head and of which we are all members.

11. Baptism and the Lord's Supper

WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ committed two ordinances to the Church: water
baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both are available to all believers.

12. The Kingdom of God and the Final Judgment

WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom has come in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that it continues to come in the ministry of the Spirit through the Church, and that it will
be consummated in the glorious, visible and triumphant appearing of Christ - His
return to the earth as King. After Christ returns to reign, He will bring about the final
defeat of Satan and all of his minions and works, the resurrection of the dead, the
final judgment and the eternal blessing of the righteous and eternal conscious
punishment of the wicked. Finally, God will be all in all and His kingdom, His rule
and reign, will be fulfilled in the new heavens and the new earth, recreated by His
mighty power, in which righteousness dwells and in which He will forever be
worshipped.

If you desire further information regarding our theological position e-mail
() to request the paper entitled "Association of Vineyard Churches Theological and Philosophical Statement."

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