What We Believe

A basic summary of beliefs Living Hope Church affirms:

Living Hope Church is a gathering of local people in the Trim area who gather to celebrate our common faith in God, to learn from the Bible, and to worship Him together.

Our church name, Living Hope, was chosen because we believe that only faith in Jesus Christ provides true living hope.  A Bible verse that sums this up well is 1 Peter 1:3, which reads, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Our logo is called the triquetra, which means “three corners.”  It is an ancient Christian symbol used to represent the triune (3-in-1) nature of God as revealed to us in the Bible.  If you look at it carefully you can see it is composed of three fish joined together at their tails.  The fish was used by the earliest Christians to identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ.  Several of the first disciples of Jesus had been fisherman, and the Greek word for fish, “ICHTHUS”, also served as an acrostic (meaning each of the letters in the word is the first letter of a different word) to communicate basic truths about who Jesus was .  The Greek words used, when translated, are “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour.”

What we believe about God is the same as those who have gone before us in in the Lord, and is summed up in the Nicene Creed, a basic statement of Christian faith used since 325 A.D.

We believe in one God, the Father,
the Almighty maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light of Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate:
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.

Amen.