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What We Believe
We Believe...
Along with the universal Christian Church of all time around the world, we believe and respond with praise and thanksgiving to the grace, mercy, and love of the One True Triune God. We believe that all three persons of the Holy Trinity are coequal, coeternal, and coessential, as One God.
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God the Father
The Almighty Creator of all that exists, known and unknown.
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God the Son - Jesus Christ
The only-begotten Son of God, who humbly became a human being in order to suffer and die on the cross for the forgiveness of all the sins of all people, and who rose from the dead and back to new life, achieving the ultimate victory over sin, death, and Satan (the devil), once and for all who believe.
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God the Holy Spirit
Our Holy Advocate, who creates, sustains, and grows faith through God's Word and Sacraments.
We Teach...
First, what is a Lutheran? Lutherans got their name from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, a German monk, priest, and professor in the Medieval Roman Catholic Church. Luther inspired the Reformation of the Christian Church when he nailed his 95 theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517.
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The teachings of Luther and other Lutheran reformers can be summarized by three brief phrases:
Sola Gratia - Grace Alone
God loves all people of the world, even though we are all sinful and rebel against Him in our acts of commission and omission; through our thoughts, words, and deeds. For our sins against God, we do not deserve His grace, mercy, and love; we only deserve His anger and wrath.
And yet, God demonstrated His love for us by sending His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to love the unlovable and save the ungodly, all through His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.
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Sola Fide - Faith Alone
By His suffering and death on the cross, Jesus Christ became the ultimate substitutionary sacrifice for all people of all time. Through His death, Jesus purchased and won the forgiveness and salvation for all who believe in Him. In other words, all those who have faith in (trust in) Him.
Everyone who hears this Gospel message (His Good News) and believes in it, will automatically and immediately obtain the forgiveness of their sins, salvation, and eternal life that Jesus' sacrifice offers. By His Holy Spirit, God creates, sustains, and grows faith in Jesus Christ through God's Word and Sacraments, which gives those faithfully repentant believers all of God's gifts and blessings.
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Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone
The Bible is God's Word written down. It is inspired (breathed out) by God to the writers (His prophets and apostles). It is inerrant (without error in all it says), infallible (perfect and cannot err because God is perfect and cannot err), perspicuous (has a clear presentation, is understandable, and unambiguous), unchanging (timelessly remains the same), all-sufficient (contains all that we need to know, not all we want to know), efficacious (has the power to produce the effect of faith).
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The Bible is where God reveals His Law (what He expects of us) and His Gospel (forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ). The Bible is the sole rule and norm for all Christian doctrine and theology.
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Because the Bible is God's divine Word, only Scripture can properly interpret Scripture. That means that the proper interpretation of Scripture must be performed by and checked only against Scripture. This allows the Bible to be the final authority in all Christian doctrine and theology.
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Here at Redeemer, we primarily teach from the Bible (Holy Scriptures), from the perspective of the Lutheran Confessions, as they are written in the Book of Concord in the 16th century.
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"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" (Romans 1:16-17 ESV)​
We Practice...
The pure preaching and teaching of God's Word.
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The rightly administered Holy Sacraments, as they were instituted by Jesus Christ Himself.
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Holy Baptism
Both Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions call Baptism a "second birth." They both teach that Baptism is the creation of a brand new life, which is only begun in Jesus Christ. This is a new life that will reach its fullness on the Last Day, the day of the resurrection of the dead.
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Baptism is not just plain water, which only externally washes us clean. Baptism is water combined with God's Word and on God's command, which washes away all our sins. Baptism is solely the work of God, in which He claims the person being baptized as His child, creates faith in them, bestows forgiveness and salvation upon them, and gives them a new, eternal life in Christ.
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Holy Communion
Both Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions teach that in Communion (the Lord's Supper), we receive the true Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in, with, and under the bread and wine. They both teach that in receiving Jesus' true Body and Blood in this sacred meal with a penitent heart, we truly receive the forgiveness of our sins, salvation, and eternal life.
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Holy Absolution
Both Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions teach that both public, corporate confession and private confession of your sins are part of the sanctification of your faith by the Holy Spirit. When you confess your sins to God and before others, this is a public or private demonstration of your repentance and faith, in which you can then receive the Absolution of your sins from God.
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If you desire to privately confess your sins to the pastor, feel free to make an appointment with him. Rest assured, the pastor must keep your confession confidential and not divulge it to others.
If you would like more information about
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, visit: www.lcms.org.
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