Apostles' Creed Overview

A Creed

There are essentials to Christianity. These Christian essentials are "distilled down" into statements the church calls creeds. The Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds have long been seen by the church as expressing the very essentials of the Christian faith.

The Apostle's Creed teaches what the Bible teaches. The Apostles' Creed shows us that we believe in a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A creed tells what Christians believe about who God is and how God acts. In a creed believers says, "This is what we teach."

The church's most basic creed is "Jesus is Lord." Who is Jesus? What is Jesus' relationship to God? How does the Holy Spirit guide the Church. The Apostles' Creed was a response to these questions. The Apostles' Creed emphasizes the doctrine of God as the Trinity.

The Apostles' Creed took the form we have now by the eighth century. A legend said that the apostles each contributed a phrase. It is only a legend though. The apostles were dead for hundreds of years before the creed was written down.

The Apostles' Creed reminds us that we need to believe in something beyond ourselves. Our self-esteem can waver from time to time. This world is changing rapidly and we need an anchor, something that will always be the same. We need something solid to stand on. The Apostles' Creed is a summary of all that we believe as Christians. It is a creed with a long history and is used in most churches around the world. The Apostles' Creed helps us answer the questions about our faith. Questioning helps us sift out what we truly believe and accept it on our terms, at our own level of understanding. We can rely on what is historic Christian belief to try and test rather than merely accepting things other people are trying to get us to believe.Opening Prayer

L: We begin in the name of one God who is in three persons. God,

C: The Father

L: God,

C: The Son

L: And God,

C: The Holy Spirit

L: All that we have...

C: Is a gift from God.

L: All that we have received...

C: Is a gift from God.

L: All that sustains us...

C: Is a gift from God.

L: Bless all our gifts.

C: That they may be used in service to you and to others.

ALL: Amen

Tell a personal faith story that shows the importance of creeds in your life. When did you first learn the essentials of faith? Who taught them to you? Was there a time when you perhaps believed something that was not what the church teaches? Why do you think it is important that the church have basic shared beliefs, rather than letting anyone come up with their own understandings of faith?

Cartoon Connection: You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover, but You Can Judge a Book by Its Savior

Who do you share God with? Who is part of your faith community? Are there people just like you? Are there people who are very different from you? What common ground do you have? The physical differences between the two men in the cartoon are vast, but the caption is right. They share the same God. Period.

The Apostles' Creed is a shared statement of faith. Read the Apostles' Creed aloud with your group. It is what you believe as a community of faith.

Open the Catechism

Look at one of our worship bulletins. Which of its features make it appropriate for our church only and which would work in most any church?

Where does the creed appears in our order of worship. How does it fits with the items that come before and after it. What happens to the creed when there is a baptism? Why?

Openthe catechism to the Apostles' Creed and read it, each person reading one line. This creed, or statement of faith, is probably most familiar. But there are others, such as the Nicene Creed, that use slightly different language to express a particular group of believers' understandings.

Compare the Nicene Creed with the Apostles' Creed. What are some of the differences. Does the Apostles' Creed seem easier to understand? Probably, but there is a lot packed into those few sentences, so much that Christians around the world and through the centuries have memorized it and repeated it together Sunday after Sunday.

Bible Connection: Basics of the Faith

• Open your Bible to Deuteronomy 6:4 and someone volunteer to read the verse aloud. In the Bible there are verses that distill, or state in a compressed and simple form, the essentials of the faith. Deuteronomy 6:4 is such a verse.

• Open your Bible to Mark 12:28-34, and someone volunteer to read the verses aloud. Asked which commandment is greatest, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:4. The people of Israel were the only people in the time of Moses, and later Jesus, that believed in the concept of monotheism: that there is one God, not many. Other people, who believed in many gods, thought that either the God of Israel was not one of the gods, or that the God Israel worshiped was another god like theirs. The belief in only one God was new and caused Israel a lot of problems. But without that belief, they would no longer have been Israel.

Open your Bible to 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, and someone volunteer to read the verses aloud. With these Bible based words the Apostle Paul focuses on some of the essentials of the Christian faith. What are they?

Object Lesson: Back to Basics

Video

Learning in Motion: Carried

Closing Questions

• What is the first thing you remember learning in church?

• Have you ever been in a class at school and asked a teacher, "Why do I need to learn this"? What kind of answers did you get?

• How do you think what you are learning in school right now may help you later on?

• How do you think learning the basics of the faith is the same or different from learning the basics of reading or math?

• What do you think are the very basics of the Christian faith?

• How do we learn about our faith?

• A creed is a statement of belief. Does your family have a creed?

• Christians believe that there is one God in three persons. How does it change the way we look at the world to believe that there is only one God?

Closing Ritual

L: The Lord be with you,

L: Let us pray. Father, you create all that is. Your Son, Jesus, redeems it. And the Holy Spirit sustains it. Make us instruments of creation, so that we may work with you, not against you, to create a better world for all. Make us instruments of redemption, that we might better love one another. And finally, make us instruments of peace, that we might help to support and sustain one another.

Say the Apostles' Creed

Closing Blessing

L: May God guide you in all you do, keep you safe, and make you an instrument of the peace of Christ. In the name of the Father +, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit +. Amen