God’s Purpose for Christ Lutheran Church is to be disciples of God by praising, sharing our faith, and providing hope through divine guidance. Together in Jesus Christ we are freed by grace to live faithfully, witness boldly and serve joyfully. We pray for a world that experiences the difference God’s grace and love in Christ makes for all people and creation. Our values are grounded in faith, in our biblical and Lutheran confessions and our love of God and neighbor. They speak to the way this church lives and practices our faith, and they will guide how we journey forward in Christ as church together.
Our Mission
WE BELIEVE IN THE REFORMATION.
Central to the Lutheran Faith are the claims of the Reformation; Salvation is a gift, given to us by grace alone, through faith alone, as revealed in Scriptures alone, and through the work of Christ alone.
Our structure or form of worship is similar to that of the earliest churches; we gather in the name of the Triune God; we confess our sins and receive God’s forgiveness; we hear the Word through scripture and scriptural preaching; we come to the Lord’s Table where we are brought before the Throne of God and receive a foretaste of the eternal feast to come; and we are sent into the world to spread the news that “the kingdom of heaven has come near; Repent, and believe the Good News.”
WE BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURE.
Lutherans believe that all people are born in sin and cannot live the life God intends for us on our own. At the same time saints and sinners, we believe that we are justified by grace through faith as we confess our sins, and receive forgiveness on account of Christ.
With the Church of all times and places, Lutherans share faith with other Christians and hold the Bible as the source of truth, guidance, beliefs, and the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed are faithful summaries of God’s Word.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in them.
1 JOHN 4:16
WE BELIEVE GOD COMES TO US THROUGH THE MEANS OF GRACE.
Lutherans believe that all people are born in sin and cannot live the life God intends for us on our own. At the same time saints and sinners, we believe that we are justified by grace through faith as we confess our sins, and receive forgiveness on account of Christ.
Lutherans believe that God comes to us through instruments; or Means of Grace. These Means of Grace are
- The Word of God; He comes to us through the Law and Gospel, proclaimed and preached to sinners for repentance and forgiveness.
- Holy Baptism, in which we are adopted as God’s children into the family of God and receive forgiveness. We daily return to our Baptism, confessing our sins and asking our Lord for forgiveness.
- Holy Communion, in which we receive the true Body and Blood of our Lord.
Through these Means of Grace, God comes to us, stirs up faith in us, and so we become His own children and are sustained as members of His family, and receive the benefits of a relationship with Him. God graciously speaks to us through the Law, showing us what we need to do but cannot do without Him; and through the Gospel, in which He shows us what He has done for us through Christ.