Recently, I’ve been overwhelmed as I attempt to filter the content I let in. I’ve wrestled a lot to discern whether a book or a person’s blog posts I read share the same values and beliefs. I thought it may be helpful to spell out explicitly what I believe if you have that question too. We are not only all about transparency but y’all know we love to make things organized and structured too. Instead of digging around trying to find all the things you’re looking for, we have it all in one place. And then you can confidently decide to scroll through or not!
Here’s what we believe:
FOUNDATION
We believe God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is within them.
We believe the fall of man (Adam and Eve’s sin) separated us from God and because being the holy and perfect being He is, could not look on sin. The punishment of sin, being death.
We believe God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross and pay the ultimate price for our sin.
We believe that salvation means spending eternity in heaven but also includes getting to experience life here on earth with direct communication with the Lord through the Holy Spirit.
THEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES
We believe there are things that we will die for, things we will fight for and things we will discuss.
We believe as Christians it’s vitally important to know the difference, but not die on the altars of things that we should only talk about or even fight for, things like cessationism or continuationism, pre-mill, post-mill, or a-mill (I had to look them up too so feel free to click to find out what those mean).
We believe there’s truth in both the messages of reformed and non-reformed theology and that we have a tension to manage.
We believe strongly that there are some concepts bigger than our finite minds will fully understand this side of heaven but that God has given us wisdom to discern the truly necessary things.
TEACHING
We believe there are false teachers who have no desire to point others to God’s kingdom and instead want to point people to their own kingdom.
We believe there are others who mistakenly misread, misinterpret or translate the Bible every day simply because they are human.
We believe the Holy Spirit has the power to still use imperfect people (including us).
We believe in studying the Word, praying about it and confidently sharing what we learn and not sharing every random untested thought that comes to mind.
MINISTRY
We believe God invites every believer to participate in His plan and Val Marie Paper was a giant yes for me. It’s an absolute gift and privilege to get a part of this business.
We believe the Lord is the most creative being and therefore we seek Him for inspiration instead of trying to simply do what we see others do.
We believe we are called to steward Val Marie Paper intentionally, this includes donating 15% of all sales to charities. See more here.
