We are a welcoming, progressive Christian community in the Lutheran tradition.
We welcome inter-faith and ecumenical dialogue and experiences.
We understand and celebrate the compatibility of religion and science.
We love and welcome children, striving to make their church experience positive, joyful, and life-giving.
As a congregation on a spiritual journey, we welcome your doubts and questions, your insights and experiences, without pretending to have all the answers.
We take the scriptures seriously. We believe the scriptures proclaim truth and are filled with a variety of types of literature. They are not to be understood as simply an historical document or rulebook. Together, the scriptures tell us of God’s presence with humanity since the beginning.
Our Mission Statement
Inspired and empowered by God we seek justice, peace and inclusion for all creation.
Our Guiding Principles
- We put God first in thought and action following Christ’s example.
- We foster life-long spiritual growth and share our spiritual resources with the community.
- We create a vibrant and inclusive community by opening our hearts and doors with compassion and courage.
- We love, serve, and care for all God’s creation.
- We make decisions through prayerful consideration of our actions and their consequences.
We are Christians.
That term can carry some baggage. Christians are people who encounter God in Jesus and the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is a book of God’s people. In that book, we experience again and anew the ways in which God’s people have encountered the divine. We believe the living word is not simply a book, but an encounter with scripture and the Spirit. We view the Bible reverently, seriously, thoughtfully, and critically.
We are Lutherans.
Lutherans are Christians who understand the world and the church in the world through a particular way of being together. Without going into a history of the 16th century Reformation, Lutherans are held by the experience that God’s grace always comes to us freely. We receive it just as we are and who we are. In fact, Lutherans think human beings are never all good or all evil, but always some of both. We view humanity and all creation as beautiful, complex, broken, and beloved. Jesus is the one in whom we encounter God’s goodness filling humanity. We think this is radically liberating: You don’t have to “get saved” by making a choice or invitation to God. You don’t have to be good enough. God loves you and grace calls you to respond to that love with a life more and more reflective of that love. We especially and tangibly are embraced by grace when we encounter the living word together, are baptized and marked as God’s own, and share the communion meal together.
(A lot of these ideas were [more eloquently and thoroughly] expressed by Martin Luther, a German monk who, after many years of spiritual and personal turmoil, decided there had to be a better way to do church. One that didn’t involve people paying money to get a better seat in the afterlife, among other things. So he married a former nun, got in not a little bit of trouble with the powers-that-be, got kicked out of the church, and inspired a lot of people. “Lutheran” was a derogatory term impressed upon those who found his proclamation compelling. Here in the U.S. and some other parts of the world, it stuck. Go figure.)
We are the Church.
Well, yes and no. Anytime a few gather together in Jesus’ name, you have the church. The universal church is of all times and places, and when we gather, we’re a part of that body that transcends culture, time, and space. And because we believe God is graceful and a lot more mysterious and broad than we are, we believe that while we are the church, we are not the church alone. We know, it’s paradoxical. But so is life!
We don’t have all the answers.
There, it’s out in the open. We don’t tell people what to do. Together, we encounter the living God in Jesus. And when we do that, around simple stuff like scripture, water, bread, and wine, God works through the gathering. We discover what we were born to do: Love God and love our neighbors. Sometimes we get comforted by what we find. Sometimes we get challenged by it.
We are affiliated with the ELCA.
The ELCA is the Evangelical* Lutheran Church in America. It’s a family of faith that emerged through a LOT of mergers of smaller families of faith all over the U.S. and the Caribbean. There are millions of Lutherans all over the world. There are about 4.8 million ELCA Lutherans in over 10,000 congregations in the U.S. and over 66 million around the globe who work together in the Lutheran World Federation.
*A note about the word evangelical: The word simply means “good news.” It s what Lutherans called themselves in Europe, and usually still do. The word has taken on different meanings in the U.S. for different groups. We think it means encountering God should be good news. Period.
