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A very helpful graphic-based explanation of the Christian faith can be found here:
Please click on the picture to the left or the above link to visit the explanation and animation.
A summary of what be believe at Trinity Church:
We believe that God made the world. He made people to be stewards of the world under his rule. He loves all he has made.
But we messed up. We turned our back on God’s loving rule and decided to call the shots ourselves. It’s not just that we break the rules, it’s that we make the rules. We decide how we should live – and ignore God in doing so.
God was none too pleased about this and told us that the punishment for our rejection of him is death.
Sounds harsh? Would you rather he turned a blind eye to all the things that hurt, spoil and ruin our relationship with him and with each other?
But God, knowing that we could do nothing to work our way back into his good books or make up for our rebellion by helping old ladies across the road, decided to act in love. Again.
So he sent his only Son, Jesus, into the world. He was born in extraordinary circumstances. But if his birth was amazing, the reason he came was even more amazing: He came to die. After only 3 years of public ministry (healing the sick, restoring broken relationships, forgiving sins, raising the dead, challenging the mistaken religious beliefs of the priests, etc.) he was executed at the age of 33 for claiming equality with God and calling people to follow him and put their trust in him.
By dying on a Roman cross, he was taking the punishment for our sins. God’s anger at our rebellion was turned on Jesus. But Jesus went to the cross willingly, he wasn’t forced into it by an unloving Father. By dying for us justice was done, sins were paid for.
On the third day, however, the tomb where they laid Jesus’ body was empty – not grave robbers, Jesus was risen from the dead. That doesn’t happen every day. Many people in different places saw him alive over a period of 40 days and testified to it. Could they all have been mistaken or liars?
Then Jesus was raised up into heaven, where he had come from. That’s where he is now, reigning in glory before he returns to judge the living and the dead. Judgement will be based on what we’ve done with Jesus – whether we’ve taken him as our Saviour and our King or whether we’ve lived for ourselves.
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