WHO WE ARE
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We are a congregation of God's people who strive to welcome everyone into God's presence with open minds, open hearts, open doors, and open hands. We seek to use our minds to explore God's word, our open hearts & doors to welcome strangers, and our hands to serve our Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) and ALL are welcome in our midst.
OUR CORE BELIEFS
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We believe in the Triune God (Holy Trinity):
God the Father, who created the universe
God the Son, Jesus Christ who redeemed us from our sin
God the Holy Spirit, presence of God who empowers us
We believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
We believe that the Church, both locally and globally, is the Body of Christ and we are called upon to worship Him, serve Him, love and serve others and share the Good News of Christ with the world.
We identify with the confessions of the Lutheran Church, affirming the centrality of grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.
We believe in and practice two Sacraments:
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Holy Baptism - through which God adopts us as His children and gives us new life
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Holy Communion - Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine and grants us forgiveness
We believe that all humans are created in God’s image and have worth, value, and dignity.
We believe in the return of Jesus Christ but emphasize His presence here with us today in the body and blood of communion, in prayer, in His word, and in our fellowship with each other. We want to inspire all people to love and serve Him each and every day.
WE ARE CONNECTED
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As part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), People of Faith Lutheran Church is connected with one of the ELCA's 65 geographic areas or synods, the Florida-Bahamas Synod. For more information, click Florida-Bahamas Synod and ELCA.
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Grace Alone, Faith Alone,
Scripture Alone
Learn more about Martin Luther, for whom the Lutheran Church is named, and the Protestant Reformation, which celebrated its 500th Anniversary in 2017.
https://www.elca.org/Faith/ELCA-Teaching/Luther-and-Lutheranism
LUTHER AND LUTHERANISM
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Martin Luther was eight years old when Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe and landed
in the Western Hemisphere. Luther was a young monk and priest when Michaelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel in Rome. A few years later, he was a junior faculty member at a new university in small-town Germany, intently studying the Scriptures, “captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans.”
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Luther was tormented by the demand for righteousness before God. “I did not love,
yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God.” Then, in the midst of that struggle with God, the message of the Scriptures became clear, like a long-shut door opening wide. When he realized that a “merciful God justifies us by faith … I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”
What Luther discovered was the freedom of Christians, trusting God’s mercy in Christ. As he later wrote, “Faith is God’s work in us. It changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. This faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that believers would stake their lives on it a thousand times.”
This discovery set Luther’s life on a new course —both his own life and his public service as a preacher and teacher. When a church-endorsed sales team came to the Wittenberg area in October, 1517, Luther was concerned that the promotion and sale of indulgences undermined the promise of God’s unreserved mercy in Jesus and the faith that trusts that promise. His 95 Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences became the first of a life-long stream of books, sermons, letters, essays, and even hymns in which he expressed his confidence in this life-giving promise from God, the Gospel, and its liberating implications for all of life in church and society.