+ What We believe, teach, and confess +

Along with the historic Christian Church, we worship the triune God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- three persons in one divine essence. We know Him to be our creator, our redeemer, and our sanctifier.

We believe that God the Father has created all things, Jesus Christ the Son died, rose, and has won salvation for the whole world, and the Holy Spirit creates and sustains faith through Holy Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the proclamation of His inspired Word, the Holy Bible. 

And because they accurately testify of these truths drawn from Holy Scripture, we confess the three ecumenical creeds, namely the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds. 

In accordance with Holy Scripture and with all of Christendom, we confess we are sinners who sin. Not only do we commit transgressions against both God and our neighbors, but we were sinful since the moment of our conception in the womb due to original sin inherited from our first sinful parents, Adam and Eve.

We confess that all sin, both original sin and the sin that we commit in our daily lives, separates us from our Holy God and that we are condemned to hell eternally apart from faith in the life-giving and fully atoning blood of Christ, which takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds. He broke into this sinful world as an infant in Bethlehem to redeem it. He lived a perfect life, suffered, was crucified, buried, and was raised according to the Scriptures. He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

As members of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, we believe that Holy Scripture is the inspired, inerrant, infallible, sufficient, and efficacious Word of God (sola scriptura), that we are saved by grace through the blood of Jesus Christ (sola gratia), and that we are justified through faith, not by our works (sola fide).

In addition, we hold to the confessional documents found in the unaltered Book of Concord of 1580 because they are a faithful exposition of scripture.

We confess that the law comes to us in the Ten Commandments to curb our sin, to show us our great need for a Savior, and to teach us how to live as Christians. In the Apostles' Creed, we confess who God is and what He has done and continues to do for us. And in the Lord's Prayer, we are taught of our specific needs as the children of God and how to ask them of our gracious and loving Heavenly Father.

We also confess that God does not forsake His bride, the Church, but rather comes to her still today to lavish upon Her the forgiveness of sins in the sacraments of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion.

We confess that there is one holy and apostolic Christian Church on earth and that the Church is found where God's sheep hear the voice of their Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

We confess that God comes to us each week in the Divine Service where He serves us, His Church, the forgiveness of sins through His external word and sacraments. Only after He has given us new life are we then able to respond in joyful worship and adoration with prayer and songs of thanksgiving.

We confess that God speaks two general words to us throughout all of Holy Scripture: the Law and the Gospel. Both are good and necessary, but each has a unique purpose. The Law tells us what we must do, the Gospel tells us what Christ has already done for us. The Law diagnoses our terminal illness, the Gospel presents to us Christ, the treatment for our illness and our medicine of immortality. The Law convicts and condemns us, the Gospel acquits and frees us for the sake of Christ.

While we confess that as redeemed children of God who are being sanctified, we can begin to keep the Law, we also confess that we are still and will always be sinners this side of Heaven.

We confess that a proper understanding and distinguishing between God's words of Law and Gospel are necessary to understand Holy Scripture.