A word about what we believe as ELCA Lutherans
This church confesses the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This church confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.
We believe that faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
We believe that 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 both judgment and mercy through Word and Sacrament, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are inspired by God's Spirit speaking through their authors. These scriptures record and announce God's revelation of Grace, 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.
This church accepts the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life.
This church accepts the Apotle’s, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as true declarations of the faith of this church.
This church accepts as one with it in faith and doctrine all churches that likewise proclaim Jesus Christ as savior of the world.
This church confesses 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 Church for God's mission in the world.
Lutherans
by Garrison Keillor
I have made fun of Lutherans for years - but I have also sung with Lutherans and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn. We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, and also for their secret fondness for anything containing cream of mushroom soup. But nobody sings like them. If you ask Lutherans to sing "Michael Row The Boat Ashore" they’ll smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach, and down the road! It’s natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony. They’re too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison.
I once sang the bass line of “Children of the Heavenly Father” in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it; and when we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.
I do believe this: these Lutherans, who love to sing in four-part harmony, are the sort of people you could call up when you’re in deep distress. If you’re dying, they’ll comfort you. If you’re lonely, they’ll talk to you. And if you’re hungry, they’ll give you tuna casserole(with mushroom soup in it).