People often ask us who we are, expecting to hear the name of a particular Christian group or religious organization.
We are not an organization, nor do we want to be one, so we cannot introduce ourselves with a particular name. Jesus’ disciples did not give themselves any special name either, but were recognized as such through their message and lifestyle. Later they were called Christians because they proclaimed Jesus as the Christ, the Saviour who came to mankind from God.
We, too, are Christians, disciples of Jesus. We want to follow the example of the first Christians and put what we read in the Bible into practice in our lives. We do not belong to any denomination or any other kind of religious society. We are together because each of us wants to follow Jesus, our Lord and our God (John 20:28) and not out of any obligation to abide by the rules and regulations of an institution.
Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
We regard the Bible as the sole basis of Christian doctrine. This is why we meet every day to think together about God’s word. We take the Bible seriously as the authority for our faith and life, while also trying to understand it within its historical and literary context, using the mind God gave us to continuously gain a deeper understanding of it. We want to avoid both the fundamentalist and the liberal errors in their views on the Bible and we are aware that we can only understand the Bible correctly with the help of the Holy Spirit.
We agree with the doctrinal content of the the creeds of the early centuries, especially the Apostles’ Creed, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Athanasian Creed.
Faith, for us, is a reality which fulfills all areas of our life and does not mean cultivation of traditional customs.
Our community is small in number and consists of people with different professions, with formerly different religious and social backgrounds. We simply want to be Christians, brothers and sisters who worship God as our common Father and Jesus as our Lord.
We reject hierarchical structures as they are in clear contradiction to God’s word and brotherly love. We are convinced that unity, which God wanted to be the reality among Christians, cannot be achieved by the controlling human structures of authority but is only the fruit of obedience of every single disciple towards the Holy Scripture. We are in unity because each of us puts his own self aside and wants to follow what God revealed in the Bible and made recognizable for everyone.
At present we know Christians in a few different countries, but we are looking forward to getting to know brothers and sisters in other parts of the world as well. We think it would be a sin against brotherly love for Christians to live side by side without taking an interest in one another. In 1 John 3:14–16 the apostle wrote:
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. …By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
PS: In order to avoid confusion we want to make it clear that we have nothing in common with the so-called International Church of Christ or any of the splinter groups that formed after its collapse.
Nor are we the followers of any present-day “prophet” or “messiah” like William M. Branham, E. G. White, Joseph Smith or Sun Myung Moon. Jesus brought us the ultimate and direct revelation, of which he is the end.
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15)
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…. (Hebrews 1:1–3)
The message of Jesus is complete and cannot be added to by any self-styled “prophets”.