Some backstory: Adam Walker Cleaveland, recent PTS grad and proprietor of pomomusings, is a candidate for ordination in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). As part of his final steps towards ordination, he must be examined by his Presbytery of Call, and part of that examination includes the presentation of a statement of faith.

These statements of faith are typically a page or so (single spaced), and cover things like who God is, humanity’s relationship to God, who Jesus is, what the Bible and Sacraments are all about, and so on. Its not easy to condence the basics of one’s religious beliefs to a single page, but those of us who’ve been examined by a presbytery for ordination are asked to do it, and he’s working on it.

Also, you should know about what twitter is: a social-networking tool that enables people to “micro-blog,” similar to status updates on facebook, using 140 characters or less. For those who love status updates on facebook, this is right up your alley, and you can access it through the web, through a number of apps, through SMS Text Messages, etc. (Adam also wrote about why one should use twitter at pomomusings.)

So Adam has been twittering about his writing of this statement of faith, and Shawn Coons of igeekrev suggested that those who know him try to use twitter to make a statement of faith, that is, to write one using 140 characters only.

The thing has taken off today, and is now called Twitter of Faith. Adam posted the particulars on his website, but you can also look at the facebook page.

The original challenge was:

Twitter of Faith: What do you believe? You have 140 characters – give us your statement of faith in 140 characters. #TOF

And here was my offering:

God is love, and lovingly empowers, forgives, redeems me. Thus I am God’s, and live to do the same for others, so that love might win. #TOF

You can keep up with the various postings about it here. Its pretty cool!

Update (11/23/08): I slept on the above, and really like it, but see that my first TOF leaves out Jesus Christ. I’m ok with that, but it is incomplete. So I offer this modification, which adds Christ but which makes it slightly different:

God is love, and in Xp lovingly calls, forgives, redeems me. Thus I am God’s, and live to do the same for you, so that love might win. #TOF

Take your pick. I like to place them together, but that’s against the rules.

There is now a post about this up on presbymergent, and the following blogs as well: wendy, mark, mycontemplations. Its taking off..