Lutherans believe in the Triune God - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as revealed to us in the Bible.  This God, who creates and loves all of creation, is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and is present to us by stirring up faith within us and by renewing the world. Lutherans also believe that we humans live in a paradox.  We are both saint and sinner at the same time.  This means that we are broken people who are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.  Our sinfulness is evident, for example, in our loneliness, fear, despair, and violence.  However, we are also forgiven by God’s abundant grace given to us in Jesus Christ.  We do not earn this salvation; rather it is a free gift of God.  In baptism, we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection and called to live in that new life that has been given to us. Part of living out this new life involves living in community as God’s people, particularly as the Christian church throughout the ages and around the world.  As part of this larger church, we express shared statements of belief called creeds.  The three shared creeds are The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.  As part of the Lutheran church in particular, we hold to the confession of our faith as given in the Augsburg Confession and all of the documents of The Book of Concord. For more information about what we, as a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, believe, see http://www.elca.org/Faith/ELCA-Teaching