What We Believe

Our beliefs are demonstrated through practices of joyful worship and faithful service in the daily life of congregation members. As Lutherans, we believe in the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God created and loves all of creation — the earth and the seas and all of the world’s inhabitants. We believe that God’s Son, Jesus Christ, transforms lives through his death on the cross and his new life, and we trust that God’s Spirit is active in the world.

As a young man, Martin Luther came to realize that a merciful God justifies us by faith to make us free. Our sins are forgiven and we are made righteous through his boundless mercy and grace. He wrote that faith is God’s work in us, that it changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. It is a living, busy, active, mighty thing. Justification is an unmerited gift from God granted to all who exercise faith. Even faith itself is seen as a gift of God, created in the hearts of Christians by the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word and Baptism.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), of which Trinity is a part, identifies the following as the basis of our teaching: The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (commonly called the Bible); the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds; and the Lutheran confessional writings in the Book of Concord. Every Sunday in worship we hear God’s word from the Scriptures, pray as Jesus taught and come to the Lord’s Table expecting to receive the mercies that the Triune God promises. Throughout the week we continue to live by faith, to serve others freely and generously in all that they do. In small groups and at sick beds, in private devotions and in daily work, this faith saturates all of life.

This connection to all of life is the clearest demonstration of the authority that the Scriptures and the ecumenical Creeds. The Holy Spirit uses these witnesses to create, strengthen and sustain the faith of others in Jesus Christ and the life we have in him. That life-giving work continues every day, as Martin Luther explained in the Small Catechism: The Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”