Two weeks ago, I was amazed to see the students of Northside’s confirmation class encounter God on their retreat to Tiger, Georgia. Despite a few injuries, the students were able to connect with God through worship, devotions, and practicing the Stations of the Cross.
I had the honor of delivering most of teaching (and most of the candy), in our Saturday class time. The theme for Confirmation is IBAC which stands for “I Believe in the Apostles’ Creed.” The majority of our discussion in class revolve around the nature creeds and what the Apostle’s Creed means to us.
During the course of our lesson, I stop out students and asked them, what does the term “Apostle’s Creed” really mean?
Credo from which we get the wood creed simply means “I believe” in Latin. It is the first 
word in the Latin rendering of the text. Our students remembered this from our class time, but it’s important to understand that belief is different than knowledge.
As Methodists, we emphasized that people encounter God through reason and experience as well as tradition and the Bible. Knowledge is gained through reason and belief is gained through a real experience of Christ. When we recite the creed, we are not just talking about information gained through reason. We are articulating an experience of the creed as an ordering principal in our lives because we have encountered Jesus.
There are facts about Jesus and the nature of the world which we can know in our minds, but that does not mean anything unless we have been shaped by an experience of the Godhead. Through experience and reason the person is able to say the creed and mean it from the core of their being. This is what we mean by belief, and this is what we mean by Credo.
Now what exactly is an Apostle? At first glance, many would argue that apostle, or aπόστολος in Greek, signifies Jesus’ famous 12 Disciples. I think this is nearly right, but does not quite capture all the nuances of the word.
You see, the Greek word for “disciple” is mathaytes, μαθητής, and means something like student or follower. Jesus had a core group of 12 Disciples that followed him but there were other men and women that learned from his teaching too. In fact, we are all called to be disciples. On the other hand, apostle, or aπόστολος in Greek actually means “one who is sent.” The idea is that one with the title of “Apostle” had learned enough from their teacher to go away to teach others.
Most of the 12 Disciples are also considered Apostles to various lands. Thomas famously spread the gospel to India and James spread the Gospel to Spain. Paul claimed to be the Apostle just to Gentiles or non-Jewish people, and in Romans 16:7 he refers to a woman name Junia as an Apostle as well.
The Latin word for Apostles is Missio , and it is where we derive the English term “mission” and “missionary.” Through this tradition Christianity has identified other Apostles in the ministry of St. Patrick in Ireland and St. Boniface among the Germans. 
We we say the Apostle’s Creed in church, we are saying that we believe in the ministry and message of those sent before us. We set our hearts on a teaching that people have risked life and limb to deliver to us. We identify with their passion for Christ and the Gospel, and we recognize that if ministry of Jesus to be done then people must be sent.
We are all sent each week from our places of worship into the word to be missionaries. The benediction of the preacher sends us forth with a message which we have set our hearts upon, and which we agree needs to be shared. We are charged each week to show the world that God offers forgiveness for sins, resurrection for the body, and the life everlasting. And when we share that messages, we participate in apostleship too.
Kena Hawkins Newkirk 