In fall 2006, "We Believe: God’s Word for God’s People" began its second cycle. The scope and sequence for each age group promises material that remains theologically grounded in the Reformed tradition of faith, illuminating the life of Scripture and enlivening our confessional heritage.

The theme for Year 4 (2006–2007) is "Providence: God’s Creating Word". The providence of God is an important theological theme of the Reformed faith. Theologians use providence as an image to describe God’s relationship with the world. The word providence is derived from the Latin word that means “to provide for or foresee.” Reformed faith professes that while God is transcendent to the world as Creator, God is also very much related to the world and the creatures that inhabit it as Redeemer and Sustainer-Renewer. Scripture is the basis of this profession, but it is also confirmed in human experience.

The doctrine of the providence of God makes it clear that God has continually entered into relationship with God’s people and has upheld, guided, sent and renewed us. God has not ceased speaking God’s Word to create new forms of hope-filled love in the world. The Word was made flesh as unconditional love in Jesus Christ. Through the Word the world was created anew through the forgiving, redemptive love of God in Christ.

This theme of redemption is the focus of Year 5 (2007–2008). Scripture clearly shows God did not abandon the world to sin and how, despite human faithlessness and idolatry, God reached out in unconditional love to redeem us purely out of grace. By sending Jesus Christ, of God’s own flesh and as God’s own Word, God prepared the world for its redemption. Through Christ’s birth and life, God redeemed death. Literally, God “bought back” creation from sin and death. The depth of God’s passion — God’s suffering love — was revealed in the crucifixion and resurrection of God incarnate, Jesus Christ. In turn, Christ promised that his own unique presence and redemptive power would remain after his death and resurrection through the Holy Spirit.

In Year 6 (2008–2009), we focus on Hospitality as the Word in our Hearts. Through the grace of Jesus Christ working through the power of the Holy Spirit, God takes the initiative and invites the world into this redeemed relationship. God has called prophets to proclaim the need for repentance, for people to open their hearts to God rather than to idols. God reaches out through the faithful as both givers and receivers of this hospitality. As we Christians are fed through communion with Christ, particularly in the Lord’s Supper, we are sent out to feed the world with Christ’s love, manifested in acts of justice and mercy.

As Reformed Christians, Presbyterians proclaim the sovereignty of God, the lordship of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. We profess our faith in the triune God as God is revealed in Scripture — one God who is revealed in these three ways. The same God who is Creator is Redeemer and Sustainer-Renewer, who holds us in tenacious love. There is no distinction between God in the Hebrew Scriptures and God in the Gospels. When we “divide” God as a topic of study and focus on one of the persons of the Trinity, we cannot forget that we also know God as the other two. Although each year is intended to focus on God the Creator, God the Redeemer and God the Sustainer-Renewer as we move through the seasons, the other two divine persons remain very much present.

In the end we have to confess that although we can know God in Scripture, and as fully revealed to Christians in Christ, there is much more to God than we can ever know. But we do know important things about God, namely that God loves and cares for us and calls us forth to love God, to love and serve one another as we love ourselves. As we respond to God’s love for us in loving acts, we become more deeply drawn into our relationship with God.