We believe that ministerial training is best conducted under the oversight of a local session, including an intense apprenticeship within the church which tests and develops the gifts, skills, knowledge, and spiritual qualifications of the candidate. At the same time, we recognize that many local congregations lack the resources to provide rigorous academic training, including training in the original languages. Therefore, we still see a place for churches to send men to seminaries, while retaining their responsibility to oversee and facilitate the training. Ideally seminaries would function as an academic extension which supplement the overall training program of the church.

Our process of confessional revision is established so that the differences between our churches may be resolved over time by a careful striving for like-mindedness. The process is established to work in a slow and deliberate fashion so that we will be less susceptible to various fads and winds of doctrine (Eph. 4:14).

God has explicitly commanded parents to bring up their children in the education and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). Given the impossibility of neutrality in education, we do heartily affirm the necessity of educating our children in a manner that is explicitly Christian in content and rigor. While parents who do not fully understand the indispensability of Christian education should be warmly received into membership, we nevertheless encourage Christian parents to seek alternatives to the government school system. In cases where Christian education is an impossibility, parents must be active and diligent in overseeing the education of their children.

God is the Author of history. Poetic descriptions and multivalent meanings of Scriptural history never negate the reality of historical events. God reveals in Genesis 1 that He created all there is in the space of six days. Man is to pattern his own work-rest rhythm according to the pattern of God’s work-rest rhythm in creation (Exodus 20:8-11), a command that assumes the reality and definition of the original creation days as being the normal twenty-four-hour days we experience. We reject any interpretation that redefines these days into anything other than six sequential twenty-four-hour days.

Christians are called by our Lord to be peacemakers. We therefore renounce all acts of aggression and terrorism, while recognizing the right to self-defense for individuals and nations. Combat is lawful when it defends life, liberty, and property against criminal action. Biblical principles of warfare must be followed, never returning evil for evil, nor may women or children be mustered for combat. While God may use the actions of wicked men to administer judgment on persons or nations, His hidden decrees have not been revealed to us. Regardless, it is appropriate to respond to such events with humility and repentance.

Confessing the Bible to be the authoritative Word of God, we, together with the unanimous testimony of the historic Church, believe that God has spoken clearly and sufficiently to the issue of human sexuality. Perversion, in its varied forms, whether gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, violates God’s design for human sexuality and is sinful, therefore, in the eyes of God. The only remedy for this, and all other sin, is found in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. All who have strayed from this confession should return to biblical faithfulness in a spirit of repentance.

Corporate worship on the Lord’s Day is one of our highest privileges and greatest duties. God draws us into His special presence to serve us in Word and Sacrament. He uses this time to transform us, and the world, into His likeness. A church’s liturgy must be shaped by the biblical pattern of worship, including a confession of sin, the preaching of the Word, and celebrating the Lord’s Supper. Worshipers must respond to God’s service with submission and joy, singing psalms and hymns with glorious music. The Scriptures require regular participation in the life and worship of a local church.

Because unborn humans from conception bear the image of God and are innocent of criminal wrongdoing, the act of abortion is murder and results in a corporate guilt which defiles the land when justice is not pursued on behalf of the innocent. Therefore, we oppose taking unborn human life by any means including the various types of abortive procedures, the use of the so-called morning after pill, or the use of abortifacients. Even in those rare circumstances when a pregnancy causes an immediate threat to the life of a mother, the overriding priority is to preserve life, not take it.

Humans are created in the image of God and, therefore, receive the highest honor among God’s creatures. Humanity consists of two sexes—male and female—each with unique gifts, callings, and authority. God designed sexual intimacy to be enjoyed in marriage, between one man and one woman, for union, protection, companionship, and procreation of children. Any desire or act that deviates from this design is sinful and destructive such as premarital sex, pornography, adultery, polygamy, homosexual behavior, and transgenderism. Christians must strive to forsake these sins by the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting in the forgiveness of Jesus.