A recent attempt at coming to grips with, or trying to understand, the church is the Confessing Movement.
I'm toying with the idea of a "layered" approach: use confessions (which is a Baptist-friendly way to say "creed") to cast nets of different sizes; to help understand the goal of unity with diversity.
First Net: Ultimate authority. Touches on Christology, the Apostles, and the Bible. This probably approximates or encompasses a typical understanding of orthodoxy. Tentatively, my first confessional net is the Chalcedonian Creed (451), Nicene Creed (381), and the Old Roman Symbol (an early version of the Apostles' Creed) or, perhaps, Irenaeus' Rule of Faith, and the infallibility and material sufficiency of the Bible. I think I can tack on to this the means of grace, by which Christ gives us the benefits of redemption to the believer: the apostles' teachings and fellowship, the breaking of bread (communion), baptism, and prayer.
Second Net: Reformation Soteriology goes here. This is where the solas would go; particularly, justification by faith alone, the primacy of scripture for theological authority, and the fallibility and non-binding nature of other sources of theological authority. We cannot save ourselves, and God is the prime mover in each believer's salvation.
Third Net: Local church practice goes here. It's not really congregational, and it's not really evangelical, though it overlaps the two.
(1) A coherent confession is the requirement for membership in the visible church.
The next two items depart from some forms of evangelicalism:
(2) Baptism is the ritual of publicly declaring one's confession, and is a visible symbol of being regenerated.
(3) Elders of the local church only have delegated power.
The next two items depart from congregationalism.
(4) Local instances of the church are accountable to one another.
(5) The local church is self-correcting (ecclesia semper reformanda) through being accountable to its congregants and its sister churches.
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