"We Believe in one God, the Father...
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ...
"We believe in the Holy Spirit..."
The opening of each section of the Nicene Creed spells out the most remarkable thing about the Christian faith, the distinguishing mark that separates Christianity from all other world religions:
- That God is mysterious - three persons in one:
- that God is wholly concerned with his creation and has taken human form as Jesus Christ
- that God is ever-present in the world, and continues to work on it.
There is a lot more detail that believers and scholars have teased out over the centuries. Much is included in the full text of the Nicene and Apostles creeds which are heard day-by-day and week by week in the worship of Christians around the world. And different branches of the church understand some elements in different ways or as more significant than others.
The Anglican Communion is the name for 85 million Christians who are part of the worldwide churches that are derived from the Church of England.
And the Diocese of Lichfield is one small part of the Anglican Church - those within the Church of England that are located around Staffordshire, northern Shropshire and the Black Country.
We relate to God through worship and prayer - both formal prayer in written services and informal prayer in which we express our immediate thoughts to God - explaining our reasons to thank him, our feelings of joy or sadness, and our hopes for others and ourselves.
Between the Anglican Communion, the Church of England and the Diocese we create a prayer cycle that over time helps us pray for each diocese around the world, a parish in Lichfield and other key events in the Diocese's activity and life.