Here you will find information about who we are and what we believe. What is Lutheranism? What do Lutherans believe? What makes them different from other Christian churches? How do they worship? What do they think about the Bible, God and Jesus, other religions, and the controversial issues of this day?
The great reformer Martin Luther (after whom Lutheranism is named) distilled his theology into what he called "the five solas." "Sola" is a Latin word meaning "alone", and these are the five most important principles that guide our lives as Christians.
Christ
We believe that God, the great big hard-to-define "Ultimate Reality" or "Ground Of All Being", became a human being named Jesus who lived 2000 years ago and who revealed to us directly what God is like and what God wants for us. Through Jesus we learned that God wants to live in a good relationship with us, and to have us live in good relationships with each other and with creation. By the life and teachings of Jesus, and by what we believe is His continued presence in our lives, we have come to know that God's defining characteristic is love.
Grace
This love of God's is expressed by Her grace. Grace is the good news that we don't need points. As human beings we have created all sorts of diabolical little point systems - we get points by winning wars or believing the right things or having lots of money or by looking good or having a lot of stuff or a lot of friends. But God reached down and told us that our wars, doctrines, wealth, success, looks, popularity and any other way we oppress ourselves don't matter. God loves us just the way we are. We are free.
Faith
The Christian life is built on trust. We trust that Jesus was who He said He was and we trust the people who taught us about Jesus. We trust that our continued experience of Jesus in our lives and of the desire of God to be in a relationship with us is genuine. We trust that God does love us just the way we are. "Faith" is not believing in certain doctrinal propositions about God, but living by trust in God. And this faith is not even a choice we make, but is itself a gift from God. We trust because we have reason to trust, not because we make ourselves trust.
Scripture
For thousands of years, people who have trusted in God and had a relationship with God wrote their experiences down in books and poems and myths and letters and songs which were later collected together and called the "Bible". We look to the experience of these ancient writers to help guide us in our journey with God, holding their direct experiences through the liberation from Egypt and the words of the Prophets and their relationship with Jesus as authoritative.
Cross
The cross is the truly hard part of Christian experience because it tells us the cost of God's grace and the cost of our own trust in Her. The world stands in opposition to God... Through our systems of points and our broken relationships, we have created a Hell on earth that hates God and everything God is about. The world made this painfully clear when God became a person named Jesus. During His life, Jesus taught that we don't need points. He forgave us our sins, delivered us from our oppressions, was friends with sinners and the outcast (those without enough points), and told everybody that God loves them just the way they are. The rulers of the world and the status quo of greed and hate and vanity they protect didn't like that and they murdered Him by hanging Him on a cross. It is the clear sign that, by living by trust in God's grace and trying to live in reconciled relationships, we will stand in opposition to the world and we will, by all rights, die for it. But even then we trust that it is still the better way and that it is the victorious way because the cross was not the end of Jesus. Greed and hate and vanity did their worst and failed: Jesus didn't stay dead. We trust this is true, and that trust makes all the difference.
Long before Martin Luther, in the early centuries of the Church, Christians gathered together to define what made them Christian. Amidst the great diversity of theology and ideas, they determined a core set of beliefs that they all shared. They called these "the ecumenical creeds." The two main ones are the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed.
We still adopt and recite these creeds today. It may sound a little weird to hear a church full of people all saying the same creed at the same time. But when we recite these creeds together, we are reminding ourselves of our identity as Christians and our shared community of faith. We remember that despite our personal differences, we love and are loved by the same God who created us all. We are also sharing our story with visitors to our church... No surprises here!
The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended into Hell.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Historic Trinity Lutheran Church is not a church all by itself. We are also part of a larger national denomination called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. As a congregation we manage our own affairs, but being part of a larger community of faith connects us to fellow Lutherans across the country. Click on the logo below to find out more about them.
