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WHAT WE BELIEVE
Doctrine.
The doctrinal standards of the Methodist Church of the Bahamas are as follows: It ever remembers that in the providence of God Methodism was raised up by God to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land by the proclamation of the evangelical faith and declares its unfaltering resolve to be true to its divinely appointed mission. The doctrines of the evangelical faith which Methodism has held from the beginning and still holds are based upon the divine revelation recorded in the Holy Scriptures. The Methodist Church of the Bahamas acknowledges this revelation as the supreme rule of faith and practice. These evangelical doctrines to which the preachers of the Methodist Church of the Bahamas both ministers and lay persons are pledged are contained in Wesley's Notes on the New Testament and the first four volumes of his sermons. Wesley's "Notes on the New Testament" and "The 44 Sermons" are not intended to impose a system of formal or speculative theology on Methodist preachers, but to set up standards of preaching and belief which should secure loyalty to the fundamental truths of the gospel of redemption and ensure the continued witness of the Church to the realities of the Christian experience of salvation. Christ's ministers in the Church are stewards in the household of God and shepherds of His flock. Some are called and ordained to this sole occupation and have a principal and directing part in these great duties but they hold no ministry differing in kind from that which is common to all the Lord's people and they have no exclusive title to the preaching of the gospel or the care of souls. These ministries are shared with them by others to whom also the Spirit divides gifts severally as the Spirit wills. It is the universal conviction of the Methodist people that the office of Christian ministry depends upon the call of God who bestows the gifts of the Spirit the grace and the fruit which indicates those whom He has chosen. Those whom the Methodist Church of the Bahamas recognizes as called of God and therefore receives into its ministry shall be ordained by the imposition of hands as expressive of the Church's recognition of the minister's personal call. The Methodist Church of the Bahamas holds the doctrine of the ministry of all Christians and consequently believes that no ministry exists which belongs exclusively to a particular order or group of persons but in the exercise of its corporate life and worship special qualifications for the discharge of special duties are required and thus the principle of representative selection is recognized. The Methodist Church of the Bahamas recognizes two sacraments namely Baptism and the Lord's Supper as of divine appointment and of perpetual obligation of which it is the privilege and duty of members of the Methodist Church of the Bahamas to avail themselves. |
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