Purposes

IDENTITY

The Association of Ministers for Baptist and Evangelical Renewal (AMBER) is an

independent association of like minded pastors and churches who have covenanted together to work for renewal.

We are distinctively Baptist, being rooted in a rich confessional heritage, and warmly evangelical

which means that we prize the gospel of Jesus Christ and seek to establish it at the very center

of our lives and mission.

STATED PURPOSES:

We exist for the renewal and nurture of healthy Christ centered churches, intent on making

disciples, cultivating biblical faith, and taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. All of this is

ultimately for God’s glory and by his sovereign hand and so we are utterly dependent upon him.

All of our efforts in cultivating renewal are contained within the following three priorities:

1. We desire to establish and defend a high view of Scripture. We believe in the authority,

inerrancy, necessity, sufficiency, and clarity of Scripture. Where the Scriptures are properly

held, the people of God are sufficiently equipped for the work of the ministry, the body of

Christ is built up, and the church is spurred on toward unity, maturity, and stability amid the

turbulence of our time (Eph. 4:12-17). If the Scriptures are not restored to their proper place,

the church will lose its prophetic voice.

2. We desire to see Evangelical renewal, which is to say that we preach Christ and him

crucified. The gospel has become a catchword in our day, standing in for absolutely

everything and simultaneously meaning nothing at all. We will work to recover first clarity on

what the gospel is and then a renewed sense of urgency in preaching Christ in all his saving

beauty to the lost.

3. We desire to see the retrieval of the distinctive principles of Baptist ecclesiology (the

doctrine of the church. See An Abstract of Principles). The church is the context for

the Christian life and the atmosphere in which disciples are made. Much of our heritage has

been either forgotten, or reinterpreted along progressive lines, but we believe that should

we witness the retrieval of our distinctive principles, the church will flourish, and the gospel

will advance.