Where I Stand — and an Open Invitation

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This was written for those I've shared it with directly and for church leaders I may encounter. If that doesn’t apply to you, feel free to read on, but keep in mind it wasn't aimed at you.

I did something over the past several months that people will call either admirable or a little unhinged.

I sat down and built my own statement of faith. From scratch. Not borrowed from a denomination. Not lifted from a doctrinal statement I liked. Ten categories, worked through one at a time, and a rule I set for myself at the start: I don't get to claim it until I've actually tested it.

Then I went looking for a church that matched it.

I found pieces of it everywhere. I found all of it nowhere.

What "Testing It" Actually Looked Like

I want to be careful here, because "I tested it against Scripture" is the kind of sentence anyone can say. It sounds rigorous and costs nothing.

What it actually meant was slower and more uncomfortable than that.

It meant getting to the doctrine of election and finding that the honest answer was two answers. Scripture says no one comes to Christ unless the Father draws him. Scripture also says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and means it as a real invitation to real people who can really respond. I spent longer on that than on anything else, waiting for one side to give.

Neither did.

The tidy move would have been to pick a system and let it do the reconciling for me. Calvinism has an answer. Arminianism has an answer. Both are internally coherent. Both required me to hold one verse a little more loosely than I could honestly hold it.

So I wrote down both, and I left the tension standing. Not because I'm above the question, but because I don't think Scripture resolves it, and I'd rather be honest about a gap than paper it over with a framework and call that conviction.

That happened more than once. Spiritual gifts. The end of things. The places where I most wanted a clean answer were the places I had to settle for a true one.

What the Search Turned Up

Here's the part I didn't expect.

I found churches near me that I have real respect for. I found overlap that mattered — on Scripture, on the gospel, on what a church is actually for. I sat in services where I agreed with nearly everything said out loud.

And in every case, somewhere, there was a gap. Not always a large one. Not always a dealbreaker. But there.

For a while I read that as a verdict on the churches. It isn't. It's arithmetic. When you build the thing yourself, position by position, instead of receiving it whole from a tradition, you end up with something that doesn't map cleanly onto anyone else's. That was always going to happen. It says less about the churches than about the method.

But it left me with a decision.

I could quietly pick the closest option, keep my actual convictions to myself, and let people assume I fit. Plenty of people do exactly that, and I don't think they're being dishonest. It's easier, kind, and keeps the peace.

Or I could say plainly what I believe and see who wanted to talk about it.

The Honest Caveat

Working this out myself doesn't make me right where a tradition might be wrong.

It doesn't make me more serious than someone who received their convictions from a church they trust and have never had cause to doubt. Some of the most faithful people I know couldn't tell you the technical name for what they believe, and it would be an ugly kind of pride to mistake my process for their piety.

I mean this only: I did the work myself, and I'd rather show it than assert it. That's all a statement of faith is. Not a trophy. Just a set of claims, out in the open, where they can be looked at.

The Invitation

If you lead, teach, or serve as an elder or pastor at a church, and you've made it this far — I'd like to talk.

Not so you can tell me whether I passed. I'm not looking for a grade, and I'd trust a church less if it agreed with every line I wrote. What I'm actually curious about is how you got where you are — especially where that's somewhere other than where I landed. A church that wrestled with a question and came out somewhere different than me is far more interesting than one that never asked it and happens to match.

That's a conversation for coffee, or email, or an online chat, and I'd rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise. If you found this on your own, have no real connection to me, and want to tell me where I've gone wrong from a distance — I understand the impulse, but that's not what this is for, and it isn't a conversation I'm going to have.

To everyone else: if someone you trust sent you this because they thought you'd want to see it, you're welcome here. If you know who this should reach, send it to them.

[Read the full statement of faith →]

All ten categories, every position, every passage it rests on.

I can all but promise the conversation is more interesting than the document.

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