Doctrines vs Articles of Faith

As I began looking into what doctrine means to people of faith I am finding that there is some confusion between Articles of Faith and doctrine. Every denomination will have Articles of Faith, and every church should have an Articles of Faith statement. I would imagine that almost no person of faith has ever considered creating or adopting an Articles of Faith statement, but I can envision several reasons why it would be a good thing for them to do.

I invite your comments on this because I have not thought completely through this nor have I researched it. It is my conviction at this point in time to believe a statement of Articles of Faith are the first impression you want to present to anyone who is examining or questioning a church or denomination's position on basic religious principles.

I would also hold forth that a personal statement of Articles of Faith would be a great way to establish a basis for further inquiry into what one believes.

Articles of Faith seem to me to be a set of positional statements about the key points of a religion. In other words, how do you, or the church or the denomination, stand on whom and what is your deity? How do you or the members of your church or denomination relate and respond to this deity? What does being in relationship with this deity bring into your life, the lives of those in your church or denomination? And, conversely, what does being out of relationship with this deity take away from your life, etc, etc.

I would point you to the church web site of the church Georgiann and I attend now as an example of Articles of Faith. It can be found at

http://www.abeaconofhope.org/FIRSTCHURCH/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=214.

But that is only the beginning of the instructions, advice and admonition that I believe the church is responsible for in the lives of those who would make that church their own.

Personal Articles of Faith would be the same. A personal AoF would be a sketch or framework of a much deeper set of values and guidelines by which one conducts their life.

What comes underneath as a foundation and support of an AoF statement must be doctrine by which we fine tune our living. We make adjustments to our thought processes, our actions, our responses to situations and our influence as we are impressed to do so by the doctrine that we adopt and process.

Personal Articles of Faith would then be more readily set in stone while doctrine would be fluid and subject to adaptation as the Holy Spirit guided us.

Now, having ventured into all that with the extension into personal doctrine, I need to return to church and or denominational doctrine. That is what was first questioned of me.

How can I worship with a group that does not share my doctrinal values?

I believe that if you are intuitive you will have already guessed the direction this is going for me, if not the exact path.

As I see doctrine, I see it being different for every soul in a right relationship with the Yahweh God. I see Articles of Faith as being very similar among people who call themselves by the first century name Christian.

And doctrine is going to be a deep study as I am beginning to see. I really wonder where it will take me. I am not afraid of what it will reveal; in fact I am excited about what I may discover. But every time I begin to explore deeper into personal relationship with God and responsibility to God I find myself with a lot of growing and stepping forward to do.

My greatest reward in this exploration would be to find you discover how you can grow as well.