We affirm our belief in the one eternal God, Creator and Lord of the world, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who governs all things according to the purpose of his will. He has been calling out from the world a people for himself and sending his people back into the world to be his servants and witnesses for the extension of his kingdom, the building up of Christ’s body, and the glory of his name. We confess with remorse that we have often denied our calling and failed in our mission by becoming conformed to the world or by withdrawing from it. Yet we rejoice that, even when borne by earthen vessels, the gospel is still a precious treasure. To the task of making that treasure known in the power of the Holy Spirit, we desire to dedicate ourselves anew. 

(Isaiah 40:28; Matthew 28:19; Ephesians 1:11; Acts 15:14; John 17:6,18; Ephesians 4:12; 1 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 4:7) 

The message of the Bible is addressed to all men and women. We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness, and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We also affirm the power of God’s word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. For God’s revelation in Christ and in Scripture is irreplaceable and unchangeable. Through it, the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illumines the minds of God’s people in every culture to perceive its truth freshly through their own eyes and thus discloses to the whole Church ever more of the many-colored wisdom of God. 

(2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21; John 10:35; Isaiah 55:11; 1 Corinthians 1:21; Romans 1:16, Matthew 5:17,18; Jude 3; Ephesians 1:17,18; 3:10,18) 

We affirm that there is only one Savior and only one gospel, although there is a wide diversity of evangelistic approaches. We recognize that everyone has some knowledge of God through his general revelation in nature. But we Disagree that this can save, for people suppress the truth by their unrighteousness. We also reject as derogatory to Christ and the gospel every kind of syncretism and dialogue, which implies that Christ speaks equally through all religions and ideologies. Jesus Christ, the only God-Man, who gave himself as the only ransom for sinners, is the only mediator between God and people. There is no other name by which we must be saved. All men and women are perishing because of sin, but God loves everyone, not wishing that any should perish but that all should repent. Yet those who reject Christ repudiate the joy of salvation and condemn themselves to eternal separation from God. To proclaim Jesus as ‘the Savior of the world’ is not to affirm that all people are either automatically or ultimately saved, still less to affirm that all religions offer salvation in Christ. Instead, it is to proclaim God’s love for a world of sinners and to invite everyone to respond to him as Saviour and Lord in the wholehearted personal commitment of repentance and faith. Jesus Christ has been exalted above every other name; we long for the day when every knee shall bow to him, and every tongue shall confess him, Lord. 

(Galatians 1:6-9; Romans 1:18-32; l Timothy 2:5,6; Acts 4:12; John 3:16-19; 2 Peter 3:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; John 4:42; Matthew 11:28; Ephesians 1:20,21; Philippians 2:9-11) 

To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures; as the reigning Lord, he offers forgiveness of sins and the liberating gifts of the Spirit to all who repent and believe. Our Christian presence in the world is indispensable to evangelism, and so is that kind of dialogue whose purpose is to listen sensitively to understand. But evangelism is the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ as Saviour and Lord, intending to persuade people to come to him personally and be reconciled to God. In issuing the gospel invitation, we have no liberty to conceal the cost of discipleship. Jesus still calls all following him to deny themselves, take up their cross, and identify themselves with his new community. The results of evangelism include obedience to Christ, incorporation into his Church, and responsible service in the world. 

(1 Corinthians 15:3,4; Acts 2:32-39; John 20:21; 1 Corinthians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 4:5; 5:11,20; Luke 14:25-33; Mark 8:34; Acts 2:40,47; Mark 10:43-45); 2 Timothy 2:2 

We affirm that God is the Creator and the Judge of all men. We, therefore, should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression. Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, color, culture, class, sex, or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited. Here too, we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless, we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both parts of our Christian duty. Both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and Man, our love for our neighbor, and our obedience to Jesus Christ. The message of salvation also implies a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression, and discrimination, and we should not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When people receive Christ, they are born again into his kingdom and must seek to exhibit and spread its righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities. Faith without works is dead. 

(Acts 17:26,31; Genesis 18:25; Isaiah 1:17; Psalm 45:7; Genesis 1:26,27; James 3:9; Leviticus 19:18; Luke 6:27,35; James 2:14-26; John 3:3,5; Matthew 5:20; 6:33; 2 Corinthians 3:18; James 2:20) 

We affirm that Christ sends his redeemed people into the world as the Father sent him and that this calls for a similar deep and costly penetration of the world. We need to break out of our ecclesiastical ghettos and permeate non-Christian society. In the Church’s mission of sacrificial service, evangelism is primary. World evangelization requires the whole Church to take the whole gospel for the entire world. The Church is at the center of God’s cosmic purpose and is his appointed means of spreading the gospel. But a church that preaches the cross must itself be marked by the cross. It becomes a stumbling block to evangelism when it betrays the gospel, lacks a living faith in God, a genuine love for people, or scrupulous honesty in all things, including promotion and finance. The Church is the community of God’s people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology. 

(John 17:18; 20:21; Matthew 28:19,20; Acts 1:8; 20:27; Ephesians 1:9,10; 3:9-11; Galatians 6:14,17; 2 Corinthians 6:3,4; 2 Timothy 2:19-21; Philippians 1:27) 

We affirm that God’s purpose is the Church’s visible unity in truth. Evangelism also summons us to unity because our oneness strengthens our witness, just as our disunity undermines our gospel of reconciliation. We recognize, however, that organizational unity may take many forms and only sometimes advance evangelism. Yet we who share the same biblical faith should be closely united in fellowship, work, and witness. We confess that our testimony has sometimes been marred by sinful individualism and needless duplication. We pledge to seek a more profound unity in truth, worship, holiness, and mission. We urge the development of regional and functional cooperation to further the Church’s mission, strategic planning, mutual encouragement, and sharing of resources and experience. 

(John 17:21,23; Ephesians 4:3,4; John 13:35; Philippians 1:27; John 17:11-23) 

We rejoice that a new missionary era has dawned. The dominant role of western missions is fast disappearing. God is raising up from the younger churches a great new resource for world evangelization and thus demonstrates that the responsibility to evangelize belongs to the whole body of Christ. All churches should therefore be asking God and themselves what they should be doing to reach their own area and send missionaries to other parts of the world. A re-evaluation of our missionary responsibility and role should be continuous. Thus a growing partnership of churches will develop, and the universal character of Christ’s Church will be more clearly exhibited. We also thank God for agencies that labor in Bible translation, theological education, the mass media, Christian literature, evangelism, missions, church renewal, and other specialist fields. They, too, should engage in constant self-examination to evaluate their effectiveness as part of the Church’s mission. 

(Romans 1:8; Philippians 1:5; 4:15; Acts 13:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 1:6-8) 

More than 2,700 million people, more than two-thirds of all humanity, have yet to be evangelized. We are ashamed that so many have been neglected; it is a standing rebuke to the whole Church and us. There is now, however, an unprecedented receptivity to the Lord Jesus Christ in many parts of the world. We are convinced that this is the time for churches and para-church agencies to pray earnestly for the salvation of the unreached and to launch new efforts to achieve world evangelization. Reducing foreign missionaries and money in an evangelized country may sometimes be necessary to facilitate the national Church’s growth in self-reliance and release resources for unevangelized areas. Missionaries should flow ever more freely from and to all six continents in a spirit of humble service. The goal should be, by all available means and at the earliest possible time, that every person will have the opportunity to hear, understand, and receive the good news. We cannot hope to attain this goal without sacrifice. All of us are shocked by the poverty of millions and disturbed by the injustices which cause it. Those who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple lifestyle to contribute generously to both relief and evangelism. 

(John 9:4; Matthew 9:35-38; Romans 9:1-3; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23; Mark 16:15; Isaiah 58:6,7; James 1:27; 2:1-9; Matthew 25:31-46; Acts 2:44,45; 4:34,35) 

The development of strategies for world evangelization calls for innovative, pioneering methods. Under God, the result will be the rise of churches deeply rooted in Christ and closely related to their culture. Culture must constantly be tested and judged by Scripture. Because men and women are God’s creatures, some of their cultures are rich in beauty and goodness. Because they are fallen, all of it is tainted with sin, and some of it is demonic. The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria of truth and righteousness and insists on moral absolutes in every culture. Missions have frequently exported with the gospel an alien culture, and churches have sometimes been in bondage to culture rather than to Scripture. Christ’s evangelists must humbly seek to empty themselves of all but their personal authenticity to become the servants of others, and churches must seek to transform and enrich culture, all for the glory of God. 

(Mark 7:8,9,13; Genesis 4:21,22; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23; Philippians 2:5-7; 2 Corinthians 4:5) 

We confess that we have sometimes pursued church growth at the expense of church depth and divorced evangelism from Christian nurture. We also acknowledge that some of our missions need to be faster to equip and encourage national leaders to assume their rightful responsibilities. Yet we are committed to indigenous principles and long that every Church will have national leaders who manifest a Christian leadership style in terms not of domination but of servanthood. We recognize a great need to improve theological education, especially for church leaders. Every nation and culture should have an effective training program for pastors and laity in doctrine, discipleship, evangelism, nurture, and service. Such training programs should not rely on stereotyped methodology but should be developed by local creative initiatives according to biblical standards. 

(Colossians 1:27,28; Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5,9; Mark 10:42-45; Ephesians 4:11,12) 

We believe that we are engaged in constant spiritual warfare with the principalities and powers of evil, who are seeking to overthrow the Church and frustrate its task of world evangelization. We know our need to equip ourselves with God’s armor and fight this battle with the spiritual weapons of truth and prayer. For we detect the activity of our enemy, not only in false ideologies outside the Church but also inside it in false gospels which twist Scripture and put people in place of God. We need both watchfulness and discernment to safeguard the biblical gospel. We acknowledge that we ourselves are not immune to worldliness of thought and action, that is, to a surrender to secularism. For example, although careful studies of church growth, both numerical and spiritual, are correct and valuable, we have sometimes neglected them. At other times, desirous to ensure a response to the gospel, we have compromised our message, manipulated our hearers through pressure techniques, and become unduly preoccupied with statistics or even dishonest in our use of them. All this is worldly. The Church must be in the world; the world must not be in the Church. 

(Ephesians 6:12; 2 Corinthians 4:3,4; Ephesians 6:11,13-18; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5; 1 John 2:18-26; 4:1-3; Galatians 1:6-9; 2 Corinthians 2:17; 4:2; John 17:15) 

It is the God-appointed duty of every government to secure conditions of peace, justice, and liberty in which the Church may obey God, serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and preach the gospel without interference. Therefore, we pray for the leaders of nations and call upon them to guarantee freedom of thought and conscience and freedom to practice and propagate religion following the will of God and as set out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We do not forget the warnings of Jesus that persecution is inevitable. We express our deep concern for all who have been unjustly imprisoned, especially those suffering for their testimony to the Lord Jesus. We promise to pray and work for their freedom. At the same time, we refuse to be intimidated by their fate. God helping us, we will also seek to stand against injustice and remain faithful to the gospel, whatever the cost. 

(1 Timothy 1:1-4; Acts 4:19; 5:29; Colossians 3:24; Hebrews 13:1-3; Luke 4:18; Galatians 5:11; 6:12; Matthew 5:10-12; John 15:18-21) 

We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Father sent his Spirit to bear witness to his Son; without his witness, ours is futile. Conviction of sin, faith in Christ, new birth, and Christian growth are all his works. Further, the Holy Spirit is a missionary spirit; thus, evangelism should arise spontaneously from a Spirit-filled church. A church that is not a missionary church is contradicting itself and quenching the Spirit. Worldwide evangelization will become a realistic possibility only when the Spirit renews the Church in truth and wisdom, faith, holiness, love, and power. We call upon all Christians to pray for a visitation of the sovereign Spirit of God, that all his fruit may appear in his people and all his gifts may enrich the body of Christ. Only then will the whole Church become a fit instrument in his hands, that the entire earth may hear his voice. 

(1 Corinthians 2:4; John 15:26;27; 16:8-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3; John 3:6-8; 2 Corinthians 3:18; John 7:37-39; 1 Thessalonians 5:19; Acts 1:8; Psalm 85:4-7; 67:1-3; Galatians 5:22,23; 1 Corinthians 12:4-31; Romans 12:3-8) 

We believe Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly, in power and glory, to consummate his salvation and judgment. This promise of his coming is a further spur to our evangelism, for we remember his words that the gospel must first be preached to all nations. We believe that the interim period between Christ’s ascension and return is filled with the mission of the people of God, who have no liberty to stop before the end. We also remember his warning that false Christs and false prophets will arise as precursors of the final Antichrist. We, therefore, reject as a proud, self-confident dream the notion that people can ever build a utopia on earth. Our Christian confidence is that God will perfect his kingdom, and we look forward with eager anticipation to that day and to the new heaven and earth in which righteousness will dwell, and God will reign forever. Meanwhile, we re-dedicate ourselves to the service of Christ and of people in joyful submission to his authority over the whole of our lives. 

(Mark 14:62; Hebrews 9:28; Mark 13:10; Acts 1:8-11; Matthew 28:20; Mark 13:21-23; 1 John 2:18; 4:1-3; Luke 12:32; Revelation 21:1-5; 2 Peter 3:13; Matthew 28:18) 

Therefore, in light of our faith and resolve, we enter into a solemn covenant with God and each other to pray, plan and work together to evangelize the whole world. We call upon others to join us. May God help us, by his grace and for his glory, to be faithful to this our covenant! Amen, Alleluia! Come, Lord Jesus.