Our Beliefs and Values
We are a church that walks by faith, trusting God’s promise in the gospel and knowing that we exist by and for the proclamation of this gospel word. We proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and raised from the dead for the life of the world.
God
We believe that God acts out of love and grace and that ultimately it is love that changes people.
We think that what truly matters in the life of faith is God’s choice of us and not our decision for God.
We see God as both revealed and hidden. The crucified Jesus reveals to us the heart of God. Yet for us, God remains a deep mystery. We think we need to be a bit humble when it comes to making statements about what God is up to in the world.
We Lutherans believe that before God and in the presence of the crucified Jesus all of us are beggars. We think that ultimately our worth and purpose in life come as gifts from God, not from anything we do.
Sacraments
We believe there are two sacraments or ways that God comes to us in ordinary things like bread and wine and water.
We believe that the ordinary world is where God meets us. We think that God comes to us through means like water, bread and wine, and other people. We get a little nervous when people think they have a direct pipeline to God.
While it isn’t a sacrament, we do talk a lot about the Bible. For us, the Bible is a “living word.” It is an address from God that invites us into a deeper relationship with God. We value it too much to think that it is infallible or without error.
Church
We think that Christians live in a both/and relationship with the world. We don’t despise the secular realm, but we also don’t think that it is ultimate. We welcome scientific study but don’t feel that life can be fully captured by scientific analysis.
For us, the church is a creation of God, not the result of religious experiences or the actions of leaders.
We believe that the church is a community of faith in which all have a role to play. For us, all of us are ministers.
We think that Christians of today are connected to Christians of every time and place. We do certain things in worship and in church life because those things reflect our deep connection to those who have come before us. We are people of tradition, but believe that changing and being changed is what our tradition is all about.
"Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church is a congregation that seeks to follow Jesus together as we reflect God’s light through love and service. We know that we are always in a process of becoming and have never fully arrived until we meet God and Jesus face to face. We would love to welcome you on the journey with us!"