What We Believe: Something Happened!

From Andy Stanley:

The church survived “because Jesus made the promise, and he has been at the epicenter of the activity of the local church for 2,000 years,” said Stanley. “And you can believe or not believe. You can participate or not participate. You can behave or misbehave. It does not matter. Jesus has been and will continue to build his church, and nobody’s death is going to stop it – not even his own.”

Stanley says the church in America has gotten “too big for our britches” and has stopped preaching the message preached by the first century church, so it’s time for church leaders to ask how it all started. The church has become focused on teaching what Christians believe, he says, but the early Christians had a slightly different message.

“The central teaching of the church was not ‘we believe something is true,'” said Stanley. “The central teaching of the church was ‘we believe something happened.'”

Every religion has a “truth” to teach, he says, but the Christian message is that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.