We Believe
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church - Statement of Beliefs Updated (8/13/9)
We believe that the Holy Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God, and the only source and norm for Christian doctrine and practice.
- We believe that there is only one true God, who has revealed Himself in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- We believe that, by His innocent suffering and death on the cross in our place, Jesus Christ made full atonement for our sins.
- We believe that Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morning, later ascended into heaven where He now lives and reigns to all eternity.
- We believe that Jesus will return on the last day to judge the living and the dead and take all believers in Him to eternal life and glory.
- We believe that God comes to us in His Church through chosen means of grace which are the Word of God (The Holy Scriptures) and the Sacraments of Baptism and The Lord's Supper (Holy Communion), and that through these means of grace He conveys to us His forgiveness.
- We believe that we are saved only by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, which is a free gift of The Holy Spirit to us. We believe that Holy Baptism brings us into God's Kingdom and makes us members of the Body of Christ as we receive the Holy Spirit, who works faith in our hearts.
- We believe that the Sacrament of Holy Communion is the true body and blood of Christ which is received with the bread and the wine (Real Presence). It is not a Symbolic eating and drinking. We believe that those who receive this Sacrament actually eat and drink the body and blood of our Lord and Savior shed for us on the cross. We celebrate "closed" communion and ask only those who are members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, or, are members of a church with which we are in Altar and Pulpit fellowship with would participate in the Sacrament. (See A Statement about the Lord's Supper)
The Book of Concord is the Lutheran Confession of Faith.
You can find a great copy of it at Concordia Publishing House. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions-A Readers Edition of the Book of Concord - 2nd edition
Luther's Catechisms are handbooks for the Christian faith and express the faith in simple terms.
See also Rev. Scot Kinnaman's blog "Blog My Soul."
Trinity is a congregation of The Lutheran Church -Missouri Synod
What does the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod Believe? Look here