Please carefully read through our Statement of Faith and Convictions. We wholeheartedly endorse this to be true in relation to the Bible. Furthermore, these statements are what we expect you to believe and model to the students.
Summit’s Faith and Convictions
Since the very beginning, Summit Ministries has focused on applying Christianity’s essential doctrines to understand the times and know what our society ought to do. Summit’s board of directors, employees, and volunteers seek to clearly state our faith as well as the convictions that flow from it.
As a Statement of Faith, Summit agrees with and holds to the Apostles’ Creed, an ancient
profession affirmed by Jesus-followers for more than 1,500 years:
[We] believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
[We] believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy
Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and
was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into
heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again to judge the
living and the dead.
[We] believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic [universal] church, the communion of
saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
AMEN.
Statement of Convictions
As an outworking of this Statement of Faith, Summit agrees with and holds to certain convictions describing what we know to be true about the world:
God. God, existing eternally in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the source of all truth and He expresses His nature relationally. God has revealed himself both in nature and through the Bible, the only inerrant, inspired, authoritative Word of God. This has implications for the institutions of church, family, commerce, and government.
Humanity. All human beings bear God’s image and are thus inherently valuable—beginning at conception—whether or not society regards them as healthy, productive, or useful. As God’s image-bearers, men and women of all races and nationalities have the capacity and the calling to steward creation, create economic and social value, pursue justice, stand against evil, and act in a transforming way in culture.
Salvation. Through sin, humanity has departed from God’s way, but through our Lord Jesus Christ, God has made a way for us to be reconciled to Him, to be transformed to understand and do His will, and to be ambassadors of His gospel. Further, God has instituted the Church as a vital means by which His gospel would be proclaimed and practiced.
Society. Citizens of the kingdom of heaven will always be the best citizens of the kingdom of man because obeying God above all earthly powers is what best secures the blessings of liberty. Government is God-ordained to punish evil and protect the good. When it oversteps its bounds by failing to recognize the value of each person, or by constraining conscience, or by calling good what God calls evil and calling evil what God calls good, we must call it to account.
Marriage. God made human beings male and female, equal in value but complementary in their relationship to one another (Gen. 1:26-27). Gender is not a mere social construction, but part of a loving Creator’s design that is lived out in singlehood as well as in marriage, which we believe to have been created by God and intended for one man and one woman, for life (Gen. 2:18-25). Man/woman marriage is the only proper place for intimate sexual relationship and it is the proper place in which to welcome children—by birth or adoption—as a blessing from God. As valuable as marriage is, though, we believe that only God can ultimately meet our need for intimacy and that our identity is properly placed in Christ rather than in our marital status or our assessment of our feelings of sexual attraction.
Stewardship. Human beings were given charge over God’s creation, and we take seriously our calling to care for it. We are called to bear God’s image through creativity and industriousness.
We support the principles of free exchange, respect for private property, and honesty as being means by which we best care for our planet, serve one another, and alleviate poverty and its effects.
We see these convictions as based on justified true beliefs describing the world as it actually is, not on mere opinion or upbringing. Thus, out of gratitude and commitment to our Lord, we will believe them, act upon them, and seek to persuade others.