WHAT WE BELIEVE
We believe in one God who has revealed Himself to us in three Divine Persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We call our God the Holy Trinity;
We believe that this Triune God has caused His Word to be perfectly recorded in the Old and New Testament Scriptures by inspiration of the Holy Spirit; therefore, the Bible has no mistakes and errors of any kind and can be trusted absolutely; the Bible is the only source and norm of Christian teaching;
We believe that by His almighty Word God created a perfect world in six days but that this perfect world was ruined by Adam and Eve's rebellion against their Creator; their sin has corrupted all humanity so that all people are now conceived and born dead in sin, in bondage to the devil, under God's wrath, and unable to free themselves or make themselves right with God by their own powers;
We believe that out of undeserved love God the Father sent His eternal Son into our sinful world to assume our flesh from the virgin Mary and to satisfy God's anger against our sins by His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death on the cross;
We believe that this same Son of God, Jesus Christ, not only died for the sins of all people but that He rose bodily from the dead after three days, declaring His victory over death and the grave for us;
We believe that God the Father has graciously declared the whole world righteous or “not guilty” of sin because of what His Son, Jesus Christ, did on the cross; before He ascended into heaven, Jesus told His Church to proclaim this good news (Gospel) to all people;
We believe that God freely distributes His forgiveness and is present today among His people through the "means of grace" (the Word and Sacraments) and that God's Church is found wherever these means of grace are used;
We believe that the Preaching of the Gospel is one of these “means of grace” through which God creates, strengthens, and sustains faith in Jesus Christ;
We believe that Baptism is another "means of grace" through which God, by water combined with His almighty Word, calls people (including infants and little children) into His Church or family, giving them the new birth of faith, and forgiving them all their sins;
We believe that the Lord's Supper is another "means of grace" in which our risen Savior gives all communicants His true body to eat and His true blood to drink hidden in, with, and under bread and wine for the forgiveness of all their sins;
We believe that the Absolution is another “means of grace” by which we hear the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins from the pastor who speaks this word “in the stead and by the command” of Jesus Christ;
We believe that the Holy Spirit no longer speaks directly to people as He did to the prophets and apostles in the Bible but works in us today only through the Ministry of Word and Sacraments;
We believe that, through congregations like ours, God calls qualified men into the public Ministry of Word and Sacrament to represent Him and to speak His Word in His Church;
We believe that as the branches are attached to the vine and bear fruit, so too we Christians who are attached by faith to Christ bear the fruit of good works toward one another in the vocations to which God has called us;
We believe that Christ’s Church is to extend God’s mercy to the poor and weak and defenseless, showing love to our neighbors;
We believe that our risen and ascended Savior Jesus Christ will visibly return on the last day as He has promised in order to assign all unbelievers to eternal punishment in hell but to take all true believers to live with Himself in heaven forever;
We believe that all of the teachings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as we have learned them from Luther’s Small Catechism and as they are thoroughly explained in the Book of Concord of 1580, are a correct exposition of the Word of God and continue to reflect our faith today.
We believe that the historic and traditional liturgies and hymns of the Lutheran Church ought to be practiced and encouraged so that we would have harmony and uniformity among God’s people, as God teaches in Romans 15:5-6.
We believe that this Triune God has caused His Word to be perfectly recorded in the Old and New Testament Scriptures by inspiration of the Holy Spirit; therefore, the Bible has no mistakes and errors of any kind and can be trusted absolutely; the Bible is the only source and norm of Christian teaching;
We believe that by His almighty Word God created a perfect world in six days but that this perfect world was ruined by Adam and Eve's rebellion against their Creator; their sin has corrupted all humanity so that all people are now conceived and born dead in sin, in bondage to the devil, under God's wrath, and unable to free themselves or make themselves right with God by their own powers;
We believe that out of undeserved love God the Father sent His eternal Son into our sinful world to assume our flesh from the virgin Mary and to satisfy God's anger against our sins by His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death on the cross;
We believe that this same Son of God, Jesus Christ, not only died for the sins of all people but that He rose bodily from the dead after three days, declaring His victory over death and the grave for us;
We believe that God the Father has graciously declared the whole world righteous or “not guilty” of sin because of what His Son, Jesus Christ, did on the cross; before He ascended into heaven, Jesus told His Church to proclaim this good news (Gospel) to all people;
We believe that God freely distributes His forgiveness and is present today among His people through the "means of grace" (the Word and Sacraments) and that God's Church is found wherever these means of grace are used;
We believe that the Preaching of the Gospel is one of these “means of grace” through which God creates, strengthens, and sustains faith in Jesus Christ;
We believe that Baptism is another "means of grace" through which God, by water combined with His almighty Word, calls people (including infants and little children) into His Church or family, giving them the new birth of faith, and forgiving them all their sins;
We believe that the Lord's Supper is another "means of grace" in which our risen Savior gives all communicants His true body to eat and His true blood to drink hidden in, with, and under bread and wine for the forgiveness of all their sins;
We believe that the Absolution is another “means of grace” by which we hear the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins from the pastor who speaks this word “in the stead and by the command” of Jesus Christ;
We believe that the Holy Spirit no longer speaks directly to people as He did to the prophets and apostles in the Bible but works in us today only through the Ministry of Word and Sacraments;
We believe that, through congregations like ours, God calls qualified men into the public Ministry of Word and Sacrament to represent Him and to speak His Word in His Church;
We believe that as the branches are attached to the vine and bear fruit, so too we Christians who are attached by faith to Christ bear the fruit of good works toward one another in the vocations to which God has called us;
We believe that Christ’s Church is to extend God’s mercy to the poor and weak and defenseless, showing love to our neighbors;
We believe that our risen and ascended Savior Jesus Christ will visibly return on the last day as He has promised in order to assign all unbelievers to eternal punishment in hell but to take all true believers to live with Himself in heaven forever;
We believe that all of the teachings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as we have learned them from Luther’s Small Catechism and as they are thoroughly explained in the Book of Concord of 1580, are a correct exposition of the Word of God and continue to reflect our faith today.
We believe that the historic and traditional liturgies and hymns of the Lutheran Church ought to be practiced and encouraged so that we would have harmony and uniformity among God’s people, as God teaches in Romans 15:5-6.