AFFIRMATIONS AND COMMITMENTS
As The Gospel Coalition Southeast Europe, closely aligned with other global chapters of The Gospel Coalition, we make the following affirmations:
We recognize our common theological identity and pledge to work together for the glory of God by embracing, living, promoting and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. We embrace the richness of the truth, understood and taught by the sixteenth-century Reformers, that Scripture alone announces salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone.
We confess that our most powerful witness in southeast Europe may be the expression of Christlike love for each other, in which believers from every region, nation, ethnicity, class, and cultural background serve one another sacrificially and in humility.
We share a vision for promoting God-glorifying, Christ-honoring, Bible-driven, Spirit-empowered, gospel-centered ministry.
We are committed to encourage existing local churches and to work to see new ones established which in turn establish others.
We seek to respond to the call to reach all who live in southeast Europe, irrespective of perceived differences, including ethnic minorities and other peoples marginalized by society.
We resolve to pray for each other, support each other, join together in ministry across national and cultural lines, so that by God’s help we can build a family of Christians whose strength is exhibited by the ties among countries of the region.
We dare to pray that the Lord would move by the Spirit throughout our countries, leading people out of spiritual darkness into his light and indeed, through us, lead others to worship Christ in regions beyond.
We are committed to . . . honor a big God, who is sovereign over all things and especially over the salvation of lost human beings, who by the gracious gift of his Son in death on a cross forgives our sins and reconciles us to himself, and who by the indwelling presence of his Spirit raises us up to newness of life, drawing us to himself and transforming us into his image, all to the praise of his glory.
We are committed to . . . to follow hard after Jesus Christ, allowing him, and not humans, to set the agenda of our ministry in southeast Europe, to think, speak and serve according to the pattern and priorities set out by the Lord Jesus himself, naming him as the one whose purposes we emulate and on whose power we depend, consciously aiming to be Christ-saturated in all we do;
We are committed to. . . to build up the body of Christ, the local church, as the central organ by which God accomplishes his work in the world, seeking in southeast Europe to plant new churches and strengthen existing churches by focusing on expository and biblical preaching, on concerted and humble prayer and on reproducing expressions of the self-giving love of Christ within our church families;
We are committed to . . . to reach out to unbelievers in southeast Europe, praying together earnestly for the Spirit of Christ to descend on us and launch a great awakening in our region, seeking together new ways and means to make the gospel of Christ both known and intelligible to our contemporaries, aiming for the day when our ministry of Christ to southeast Europe becomes a mission of Christ from southeast Europe to the world!