Statement of Faith

If you are a pastor deciding whether to let this near your people, this page and How We Use AI are the two you want. We would rather you find our boundaries here than discover them in a screenshot from a member of your congregation.

This statement was written by Jason, who builds Wayward Found. Who I am and why I built this.

The creedal floor

Wayward Found serves Christians across many traditions, so our doctrinal floor is the faith the whole Church has confessed together, summarized in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. This is the same standard the AI in this product is held to, and it is written into the system instructions of every AI feature we run.

• •We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
• •We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, truly God and truly man, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; who rose bodily on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
• •We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who indwells, sanctifies, and empowers the people of God.
• •We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, meaning the whole company of God's people across every tradition and age, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Core convictions

Scripture

The Bible is the inspired, trustworthy, and authoritative Word of God, and it is the final authority for faith and practice. Where Scripture speaks plainly we do not soften it. Where Scripture is silent we do not invent. We display the Berean Standard Bible throughout the product.

The gospel

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It is the gift of God and not the result of anything we achieve, produce, or complete. No streak, practice, or exercise in this product earns anything before God.

The Church

The local, gathered church is not optional and is not replaceable by software. Baptism, the Lord's Supper, gathered worship, the laying on of hands, shared meals, church discipline, and being physically known by people who can sit with you in a hospital room belong to the local church. We do not perform them, simulate them, or claim to substitute for them.

Prayer

Prayer is a person speaking to the living God. It is an act of the heart, not an act of text generation. Nothing produced by this product is a prayer until a person means it and offers it.

Human beings

Every person is made in the image of God and has dignity that no technology confers or removes. That includes the person on the other side of a hard conversation, and it includes you at your worst moment.

Where we draw lines

• •We hold to the historic Christian consensus expressed in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. We are not a Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witness, Christian Science, or Unitarian organization, and we do not teach their distinctives as Christian doctrine.
• •On genuinely disputed questions among orthodox Christians (baptism, church government, spiritual gifts, eschatology, the finer points of soteriology) we present the major views fairly and send you to Scripture, your pastor, and your tradition. We do not take a house position and we do not pretend the disagreement does not exist.
• •We are not a church. We do not ordain, we do not administer sacraments, we do not exercise church discipline, and we do not claim spiritual authority over anyone.
• •We do not accept money in exchange for spiritual outcomes, and we never will.

The Bible we use

Every verse this product displays is the Berean Standard Bible, served from our own copy of the text. The same reference always returns the same words. You can link out to your preferred translation from any verse, and your preference changes those links, never the text we show you.

Our AI is never permitted to write out a verse. It may only cite the reference; the words you read are looked up from the Berean Standard Bible afterward. That is a deliberate design decision, and How We Use AI explains why. See also our Scripture copyright notice.