The
Word of God is the gospel message
It is the Good News that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice
for sin. It is the announcement that God is bringing His Kingdom
near into the lives of men and women. The Word of God tells us that
Jesus is alive and ready to give us His Holy Spirit. It is the proclamation
that Jesus is the message that there is forgiveness and new life
for everyone that trusts Him as their only hope of salvation. The
gospel is God’s Word of gracious-ness, telling us that He
is willing to be merciful to us because Jesus has paid the price
for our salvation and forgiveness.
The
Word of God is the Bible
God made arrangements for the gospel-message of His Son to be put
into writing and translated into all the languages of the world.
Prophets and apostles wrote down the prophecies and histories. They
sent letters to different parts of God’s church. So the gospel
message got put into writing and eventually came to us in what we
call “The Bible”. All Scripture is God-breathed and
is profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction and for training
in righteousness (2 Timothy 3: 16).
Just
as the heavens and all the parts of universe were created “by
the breath of his mouth” (as Psalms 33:6 puts it), so the
written Word of God was produced by God’s Holy Spirit.
The
Word of God is our guide in Life
All scripture is God breathed. Nothing is to be believed, in regard
to things of God, except that which is in harmony with the written
Scriptures. We need to follow the written Word of God, in good slabs
of time, with unhurried detailed study. We need to study its words,
its sentences and its paragraphs. We need to ponder its interpretation.
We need to follow themes that are to be found throughout the Scriptures.
Then we need to apply its teaching to our lives. The Scriptures
need to come to us in the power of the Holy Spirit. The voices of
those who wrote long ago need to become living voices in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit. What the Spirit said then, ready for them to
obey in their days, we pray that He will say to us now, ready for
us to obey in our days. Our message comes not in Word only but also
by the Spirit. Our message comes not in Spirit only but also by
the Scriptures.
Witnessing
Witnessing is central to the Methodist Church’s vision and
life. It is its core business. But what is witnessing? Witnessing
is sharing the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving
the results to God. This is something we encourage every Christian
to do.
Brief
history
According to the Deed of Foundation, Methodist Church in Kenya grew
out of the United Methodist Free Churches, whose Missionary Committee
in 1860 agreed to send a mission to East Africa and whose missionaries
first reached Mombasa in 1862. In 1907 the United Methodist Free
Churches became part of the United Methodist Church, which in 1932
became part of the Methodist Church. In 1967 Methodist Church in
Kenya became autonomous from the British Methodist Church.
The
doctrinal standards of the Methodist Church in Kenya are: The Methodist
Church claims and cherishes its place in the Holy Catholic Church
which is the Body of Christ. It rejoices in the inheritance of the
Apostolic faith and loyally accepts the fundamental principles of
the historic creeds and the Protestant Reformation. It ever remembers
that in the Providence of God Methodism was raised up to spread
Scriptural Holiness through the land by the proclamation of the
Evangelical Faith and declares its unfaltering resolve to be true
to its Divinely appointed mission.
It
is the universal conviction of the Methodist people that the office
of the Christian ministry depends upon the “call of God”
who bestows the gifts of the Spirit, the grace and the fruit, which
indicate those whom He has chosen.
The
Methodist Church holds the doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers
and consequently believes no priesthood exists which belongs exclusively
to a particular order or class of men [or women] but in the exercise
of its corporate life and worship special qualifications for the
discharge of special duties are required and thus the principle
of representative selection is recognised.
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