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IDENTITY STATEMENT

We are a church of Jesus Christ.

The one God we know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the God we worship and serve. Christ is the head of the church and the center of our faith and practice. We seek the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, the Living Word among us, in our corporate and individual lives.

We are a church of the Bible.

The Bible, as the written word that witnesses to the Living Word, is our guide for faith and practice. We are committed to bringing the best of biblical scholarship to bear upon our understanding of scripture, prayerfully seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our interpretation.

We are a Presbyterian church.

Our theology is catholic in its commitment to the Triune God, reformed in its commitment to the essential tenets of the Reformed faith, and representative in its polity. We belong to the Presbyterian Church, USA. The great ends of the church as defined by the denomination's Book of Order⁽¹⁾

guide the church's programs and mission. We seek to serve our denomination and tradition primarily through the building of our congregation as a community of faith. Our witness is to the whole of the Gospel; therefore, we do not traditionally identify with any special interest organizations within the church.

We honor tradition.

We seek to honor the historic and theological traditions of our Reformed faith. We utilize forms of worship and study that have nourished Presbyterian churches for centuries. While we are open to innovation and new directions, any change must come from the Christocentric tenets.

We are an accepting church.

Second Presbyterian honors the grace of God in Jesus Christ by accepting all those who look for a church home, no matter their economic condition, skin color, or the mistakes they make. We are a church for those who are single, married, divorced or widowed; for those who are childless, have children at home or children grown; for those who are happy or hurting; for those with great need and those with great resources. We seek to be a church where children know they are valued and where the elderly know they are not forgotten. As far as possible, we wish to honor diversity of opinion within our membership. At Second Presbyterian, we accept each other for who we are, and who we will become, by God's grace.

We are committed to transforming lives.

Our prayer is to be God's instrument in reaching and transforming lives, helping members and visitors grow in their Christian faith. We seek to help each other understand what it means to be obedient to the ordination of our baptism. Numerical growth is accepted as a happy consequence of being a healthy church community.

We are a high commitment church.

We understand that we are who we are through the commitments we keep. We understand that in this chapter of American life, high commitment churches are growing as they make a difference in people's lives, and low commitment churches are struggling to survive. We invite strong commitment to Christ and the work of Christ's church by providing ministries through which people may grow in grace and know the joy of serving our Lord. We promote healthy stewardship of resources which includes proportionate giving of one's time, energy and money to the life of the church as an expression of one's faith.⁽²⁾

We are a servant church.

We understand that God blesses us in order to be a blessing. We serve and strengthen members in order to enable them to serve the world, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ through word and deed. The Roanoke Valley looks to Second Presbyterian to be a servant community, and we accept that responsibility. We seek to offer and support programs that benefit others outside our immediate church family. We also accept a responsibility to address needs nationally and internationally through missions both Presbyterian and ecumenical.

We are a metropolitan church.

Members of Second Presbyterian come from all over the Roanoke Valley. We will continue to be a church that attracts members because of who we are and what we offer rather than where we are located.

1. ¹The great ends of the church are the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

2. ²A guide for proportional giving that the church suggests is this: Seek a level of giving that avoids the guilt of giving too little and the anxiety of giving too much. Find the level of giving that is a joyful expression of your faith. Find the level of giving that helps you know you are a generous person, not a greedy one, a giver and not a taker, the steward of your resources rather than its slave. Seek to grow in God's grace, and then reflect that growth in your stewardship.