What We Believe

We believe that God made everything, and God made everything good. God has a deep and unending love for everything that God has created. We believe that we experience a right relationship with God and with one another by grace alone (a free gift) in Jesus Christ and not by any action of our own. God chooses us. We experience the love and grace of God through chiefly the Word of God and the Sacraments (baptism and communion).

So that we can know we are loved and forgiven, Jesus came as one of us to give himself away, all the way to death. We are called to give ourselves away by practicing acts of compassion, forgiveness, and hospitality to all we meet. We believe in the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God to save all who believe. We believe that God is present with and among us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation. We believe the Bible is the written Word of God. Inspired by God’s Spirit speaking through their authors, they record and announce God’s revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them God’s Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world.

We believe that the church is the primary way in which God’s kingdom is being built on earth. We are called to share and live out our faith with everyone we meet.

Adapted from the Constitution of the ELCA

What Lutherans believe