Question c - Reformed Faith
Confessions of OUR Church
W-4.0404 c.—Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?
A confession is a public declaration of what a church believes. Individual Christians may and should confess their own personal faith, but a confession of faith is more than a personal affirmation of faith. It is an officially adopted statement of what a community of Christians believe. ... Whatever their form, confessions of faith express what a body of Christians believe in common.[1]
The
confessional statements of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are included in the
Constitution of the denomination. Part I of the Constitution is the Book of Confessions and contains the creeds,
catechisms, and confessions that have been adopted by the PC(USA), stating what
we, as a community of faith, believe. Part II of the Constitution is the Book of Order, which includes the Foundations of Presbyterian Polity, the Form
of Government, the Directory for Worship, and the Rules of Discipline. Together,
these two volumes of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) unite
us in our life together and in the mission of the church.
[1] “Confessional Nature of the Church Report,” Book of Confessions (Louisville: Office of the General Assembly, 2016) vi.