What We Believe

Here at Genesee Lutheran Parish, we are driven by a single goal:  

to Show our Love in ACTION!  We belong to ELCA and invite and accept EVERYBODY. 

ALL really does mean ALL to us. 

The ELCA-

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is NOT a "conservative Evangelical" church. We interpret God's love very differently and our worship reflects that. As do our beliefs!  We declare "By grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:8). We are a faith based community, believing that no matter how hard we work (works-based), we can NOT work our way into Heaven. We believe that's what Jesus is for! HE has redeemed us, He has called us by name, He has done the work that no mortal can do. We declare "you have been set free" to go and be the hands of God, working to share the Love of the Gospel. 

From the official elca.org website: 

-What do Lutherans believe?

We believe that all people are imperfect and are saved (made right with God) by God’s grace and God’s grace alone, through Christ. There is no special prayer you need to pray, no special state of mind you need to achieve and no good deed you need to perform. We believe that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God became one of us and took upon himself the sin and suffering of all the world. God did this to demonstrate God’s love for us. We believe that we receive the gift of grace by faith alone on account of Christ. We live in the tension of still being sinful but trusting that we are forgiven and that God is at work in us. The gift of grace expresses God’s unconditional love, and in response to that love we are set free to live gratefully and lovingly.

-Who is God? 

God is the creator of the world; the giver of life; the source of wholeness, healing and forgiveness; the champion of the poor and oppressed; the power of new life and resurrection. God creates, redeems and continues to sustain the world. Christians know God as the Holy Trinity — one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Christians, we believe all people are created in God’s image and loved by God. We know about God thanks to the witness of the Scriptures and especially through Jesus Christ, who embodied God’s love for humanity. God’s grace is a gift, given through Christ and received by faith. There is nothing we can do on our own — good or bad — to earn this gift. We call this “good news” or the “gospel.” Through this gift of God, we are led by the Holy Spirit to love and work for justice and peace. 

-What do [ELCA] Christians believe?

Christians believe that God came to us in Jesus Christ, a true human, humble and vulnerable. Jesus lived among us and demonstrated the good news in all he was and did. The good news is the promise that God loves us and saves us by grace alone. This promise was realized when Jesus was crucified. He died on the cross but was raised again in the body and in a new wholeness. As a result, through the gift of grace received by faith, all people can be made whole in Christ and set free to love and serve all people, particularly the vulnerable, just as God loves us. 

-What is faith and why is it important?

Martin Luther, after whom the Lutheran branch of Christianity is named, once wrote, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that you could stake your life on it one thousand times. … Through faith, a person will do good to everyone without coercion, willingly and happily; serving everyone, suffering everything for the love and praise of God, who has shown such grace.” Faith, then, is not about intellectually agreeing to a set of beliefs but about living in a trusting relationship with God in response to God’s grace. Faith is our confident hope that living in God’s promises sparks renewal to love and serve neighbors, as God in Christ loves us. 

How does someone become a Lutheran? 

People who identify as Lutherans are those who actively practice their faith in the Lutheran tradition or who have joined a Lutheran congregation through membership. Becoming a member is a way of expressing one’s long-term commitment to the life and work of the church. It also expresses a commitment of resources to sustain the work of the congregation as well as the national and global church. 

-Who attends church in the ELCA? Can  anyone join? 

People who identify as Lutherans are those who actively practice their faith in the Lutheran tradition or who have joined a Lutheran congregation through membership. Becoming a member is a way of expressing one’s long-term commitment to the life and work of the church. It also expresses a commitment of resources to sustain the work of the congregation as well as the national and global church.