* Know what you believe

* Think through why you believe it

* Stay ministry engaged

* Keep a hunger for God

“Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which – a functional protein or gene – is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?”

“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Then God said . . .

* The high view of God

* The high view of human beings

1. Transformation of earth’s atmosphere from opaque to translucent;

(Day 1)

2. Formation of a stable water cycle; (Day 2)

3. Establishment of continent(s) and ocean(s); (Day 3)

4. Production of plants on the continents; (Day 3)

5. Transformation of the atmosphere from translucent to transparent;

(Day 4)

6. Production of small sea animals; (Day 5)

7. Creation of sea mammals; (Day 5)

8. Creation of birds; (Day 5)

9. Making of land mammals; (Day 6)

10. Creation of mankind. (Day 6)

* Young Earth Creationists

* Old Earth Creationists

* Evolutionary Creationists

(Badger and Tenneson, Christian Perspectives on Origins)

* The universe and everything in it had a beginning;

* Human history had a beginning;

* There is only one God, and He is Yahweh;

* God is personally and intimately involved in His creation;

* God considered the creation good;

* God created everything - including life - in the physical universe;

* God brought everything into existence for His own purposes;

* Humans (and only humans) are created in God's image.

* God created humans to live in loving relationship with Him and with each other;

* The first humans disobeyed God (sin), destroying our relationship with God;

* God punished humans for disbelieving and disobeying Him.

* The rest of Genesis - indeed, the rest of the Bible - reveals God's great desire for fellowship with humans to be restored.