Beliefs
Our Foundational Beliefs about…
God
We believe in one God who exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At the beginning of time, God created the entire universe and all its creatures. He continues to exercise His supreme power to sustain His creation. Throughout history, He has expressed His desire to be our God and to have a personal, eternal relationship with us. We believe that Jesus Christ is the second member of the Trinity (the Son of God) who became flesh to reveal God to humanity and to become the Savior of the lost world. We believe the Holy Spirit dwells in every Christ-follower. His indwelling presence gives spiritual life to believers and distinguishes them as children of God. The Holy Spirit guides Christ followers in applying God’s principles and equips Christ-followers with talents and abilities for the purpose of building up God’s kingdom.
Humanity
We believe that all people were created in the image of God to have fellowship with Him but became alienated in that relationship through sinful disobedience. As a result, people are incapable of regaining a right relationship with God through their own efforts.
Salvation
We believe that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross, provides the sole basis for the forgiveness of sin. Therefore, God freely offers salvation to those who place their faith in the death and resurrection of Christ as sufficient payment for their sin. We receive this gift of God’s grace so that we might experience abundant and eternal life.
Scriptures
We believe the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God and that people were moved by the Spirit of God to write the very words of Scripture. Therefore, we believe the Bible is entirely accurate, reliable, and complete.
Christian Life
We believe all Christians should live for Christ and not for themselves. By obedience to the Word of God and daily yielding to the Spirit of God, every believer should strive toward maturity and be conformed to the image of Christ in His perfect love for all.
Church
We believe that the Church is the body of Christ, of which Jesus Christ is the head. The members of the Church are those who have trusted by faith the finished work of Christ. The purpose of the Church is to glorify God by loving Him and by making Him known to the lost world.
Our Lutheran Heritage
We believe in the historic and authoritative roots of the Church as established by Jesus Christ. We also believe God called Martin Luther and other Reformers to facilitate renewal and theological course correction to His Church.
Human Life & Healthy Relationships
We believe God has created each person in His image; therefore, we affirm the sanctity of life. We also believe God created us to live in healthy relationships as established in Scripture.
We believe, teach and confess…
We believe, teach, and confess the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe, teach, and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe in him.
- Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation.
- The proclamation of God’s message to us as both law and gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy in the person and work of Jesus Christ through whom God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself.
- The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the 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, teach, and accept the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the sole authoritative source and norm of our proclamation, faith, and life. We accept the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as true declarations of the scriptural faith we believe, teach, and confess.
We believe, teach, and accept the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and the Small Catechism as true witnesses to the Word of God, normative for our teaching and practice. We acknowledge that we are one in faith and doctrine with all churches that likewise accept the teachings of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.
We believe, teach, and confess the other confessional writings in the Book of Concord, namely, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise, the Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord, as further valid expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
We believe, teach, and confess the gospel, recorded in the Holy Scriptures and confessed in the ecumenical creeds and Lutheran confessional writings, as the power of God to create and sustain the priesthood of all believers for God’s mission in the world.
We believe God specifically and directly created human beings in His image (Imago Dei). Human life is sacred, beginning at conception. God wonderfully and immutably creates each person as a male or female. These two distinct and complementary biological genders reflect the image and nature of God (Gen. 1:26-27). As such, one’s birth gender determines the standard for Biblical behavior in lifestyle and sexual conduct. Throughout scripture, the husband-wife relationship illustrates the covenant relationship between Jesus Christ and His Church, the “Bride of Christ”. It is our belief that the term “marriage” has only one meaning – the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, delineated in scripture (Gen. 2:18-25).
Our Roots
In 2017, five families searching for a vibrant liturgical and biblical worship life connected. It was determined, through ongoing prayer and conversation, that a call by the Holy Spirit to begin something new was felt! The research of Lutheran organizations with an aligned theological vision to the founding families began, and later that same month the commitment was made to join over 900 congregations worldwide and associate with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC). Faith’s first official worship service (outside of home meetings) was on June 11, 2017, with LCMC Pastor Mark Martin presiding. On July 9th, 2017, Pastor Brian Goke accepted the call to be Faith’s first Senior Pastor.
Faith Lutheran Church is a non-denominational congregation. As such, we are self-governing and answerable directly to God Himself. We are associated with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC). We’re all working together to fulfill Christ’s great commission to go and make disciples of all nations.