STATEMENT OF FAITH
Sally Juarez
COM –
Statement of
Faith - Juarez
A cherished friend, mentor and theologian wrote,“ God is a Mystery before whom we dare speak but
little.” With great humility, therefore, I profess my faith in God the Eternal, the ongoing and ever-revealing
Author of Creation, the Transcendent One, the Triune God who is manifest endlessly. I surrender myself in
service to the God who is the One Beyond and who yet engages me uniquely, personally, and who enfolds
me and all Creation in grace and love. In my continuous journey to know God, I am guided by the tenets of
our faith and the confessions within the Reformed Tradition.
To Jesus Christ the Incarnate One, I proclaim my love, my devotion and my faith. He is the Good
Shepherd. He is healer. He is teacher. He is Savior. In the Trinitarian configuration, he is Second. He is
the Son of Holy Mystery. Fully human, fully divine, he embodies what it means to be human while
pointing beyond himself to the Ultimate, whom he named Father. He overcame both evil and death. By
following in his path, I am saved from alienation and separation from God. Through his voluntary death on
the cross, we are rendered acceptable to God, just as we are. In our suffering, Jesus walks with us even
unto death and beyond death, assuring us that neither of these shall be the last word. I believe Jesus calls
us to be his Body in the transformation of the world through seeking justice, spreading love, and caring for
Creation. “Love one another, as I have loved you,” he said. The works of the Church, small and large, local
and global, are the works of love focused on the transformation of the world to provide peace and justice
for all people. Our way of being in the world is modeled by the One who both lived and died on its behalf
and who goes before us into eternal Life.
My experience with the Holy comes through Grace and the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the
fuel and motor of my spiritual life. The Spirit leads me in the chase, keeps me yearning, nags at me,
hounds me, presses me, haunts me, bids me serve the Kingdom by doing justice through love. I believe
that in serving God, the basic mission of the Church is proclaiming the good news of the gospel, showing
love and hospitality to all people, working for justice, especially on behalf of the poor and the oppressed,
and caring for God’s Creation
The Church, through the experience of community and through the Sacraments, is also a place of rest and
renewal. With my baptism, my entrance into the Christian family and into covenantal relationship with
God was sealed. By God’s action, infants likewise receive the seal of God’s covenant when we bring them
for baptism. When I partake of the Lord’s Supper, I remember my baptism and my connection through
Jesus Christ to Christians past, present and future. The meal also reminds me of the life of love and
sacrifice that Jesus lived and modeled and calls us each to follow.
The Bible is the story of God’s interactive and continuous history with the people of God and gives us our
most disclosing witness to the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is from the Bible, and
through the work of the Spirit, that the substance of Christian thought and belief is derived. It is the
inspired, first writings of God-followers written over the span of more than a thousand years. God speaks
to me through it as well as through all of God’s astonishing Creation.
Nothing exists apart from God. That Jesus wept and Jesus mourned helps me to embrace the God who
enters into the suffering of humankind. The transcendent mystery is the infusion of Sovereignty with
suffering on behalf of a humankind that continuously distorts or destroys the regenerative Love that
emanates from God, the Source of all life. Into the midst of this sin-filled world, Christ comes to us again
and again. I share with Christians throughout time, the eschatological vision of that time when God’s
purpose on earth for humankind will have been fully realized.
I believe that God commands that humans live by grace and truth, and to share the common destiny of
being one with God. As a Christian, I celebrate that hope and dedicate myself to work for its
accomplishment and its proclamation. I accept with gratitude my responsibility for loving others and
caring for God’s Creation, and I pray that I will have the strength, the courage, and the will always to do
justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.