Our Mission
We Hope, We Love, We Serve through Jesus Christ in this community and the world.
What We Believe
We believe, teach, and confess the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe, teach, and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe in him.
Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation.
The proclamation of God's message to us as both law and gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy in the person and work of Jesus Christ through whom God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself.
The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God. Inspired by God's Spirit speaking through their authors, they record and announce God's revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them God's Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world.
We believe, teach, and accept the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the sole authoritative source and norm of our proclamation, faith, and life.
We accept the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as true declarations of the scriptural faith we believe, teach, and confess.
We believe, teach, and accept the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and the Small Catechism as true witnesses to the Word of God, normative for our teaching and practice. We acknowledge that we are one in faith and doctrine with all churches that likewise accept the teachings of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.
We believe, teach, and confess the other confessional writings in the Book of Concord namely, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise, the Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord, as further valid expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
We believe, teach, and confess the gospel, recorded in the Holy Scriptures and confessed in the ecumenical creeds and Lutheran confessional writings, as the power of God to create and sustain the priesthood of all believers for God's mission in the world.
2.01. To supplement and further explicate the Statement of Faith set out in the LCMC Constitution, a Statement of Faith to which the churches of Augustana expressly subscribe, the churches of the Augustana District also add:
2.02. Sinners are made right with God by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone. This is the article of faith by which the church stands or falls.[1]
2.03. The Word of God is Jesus Christ[2], the proclamation of him[3], and the Holy Scriptures[4]. This Word functions as both law and gospel, which need to be distinguished, but not separated. The law orders society and convicts us of sin, showing us our need for a Savior[5]. The gospel is the power of God that liberates us from sin, death, and the power of the devil, and brings us, by grace, from death to life.[6]
2.04. Christ commanded that his Word be proclaimed[7]. Through it, the Holy Spirit works faith when and where he pleases[8] and repentant sinners are elected unto salvation. Christians live out their earthly lives as totally justified and totally sinful.[9]
2.05. Because the church is the assembly of believers among whom the Gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly, it is not necessary that human traditions, rites, and ceremonies, instituted by men, should be alike everywhere.[10] God instituted one office of ministry through which the means of salvation are provided.[11] For the sake of good order, a pastor is authorized to function in this public office by virtue of a church’s call.[12] Churches band together in fellowship and mission to strengthen their ministries, acknowledging participation in the universal Church of our Lord.[13]
Augustana IV; Smalcald, Part II, Article 1: “Nothing in this article can be given up or compromised.”
1. John 1:1, 14
2. Matthew 18:20; I John 1:1, 2
3. II Timothy 3:16
4. Smalcald, Part III, Article II. The Law
5. Romans 1:16
6. Luke24:46-47
7. Romans 10:17; Augustana V; Small Catechism Part II, Third Article.
8. Smalcald, Part III, Article III. Penitence.
9. Augustana VII; Smalcald Part III, Article XII
10. Augustana V.
11. Augustana XIV.
12. Ephesians 4:4-6