"The Call" by Jay Earheart-Brown

The 1984 Confession of Faith of the Cumberland Presbyterian Churches begins with the affirmation that “God speaks to the human family.”[1] In various ways, through many different means, we confess that “by word and action God invites persons into a covenant relationship.”[2] This invitation of God, is the foundation of any Christian understanding of the call. The Christian life is a life lived in response to the call of God. Thus Paul refers to Christians as those who are “called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7, 1 Cor. 1:2). The Greek word for church, while commonly used in the Greek world for any assembly, is literally, “those who are called out” (ekklesia). God takes the initiative to call together, to assemble a people and fashion them for God’s purpose in the world.


[1] Heading for section 1.00, Confession of Faith, in the Confession of Faith and Government of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Second Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Memphis: Frontier Press, 1984), p. 1. Hereafter COF.

[2] COF, sec. 1.03, p. 1.