BELIEFS
The people of First Evangelical Lutheran Church are a welcoming community in Christ. As a living cell within the Body of Christ, the Christian Church, we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We have accepted Jesus Christ as Son of God and Savior of the whole world. We are enabled to live as Christ’s modern-day disciples through the power of the Holy Spirit. That same Spirit enables us to do good works for our neighbors in the downtown Fort Lauderdale area as a “thank you to God” for His great love and saving grace. We serve not to earn our salvation—that’s God’s free gift to us—but to demonstrate our gratitude for what we received.
The God-Man, Jesus Christ, was God in human flesh. He is fulfillment of ancient prophecies about the coming of a Messiah, the anointed One of God. By his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ conquered the curse of sinfulness and restored the relationship God intended to exist between himself and the human family. We embrace the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative norm for our faith and life. What we believe is declared eloquently in the three great ecumenical Christian affirmations: the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds.
As a community of faith, the people of First Evangelical Lutheran Church gather every Sunday to hear God’s Word and receive the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. We also gather on Wednesday evening for supper and inspirational praise worship. As we worship together, we are nourished and encouraged to “talk the talk and walk the walk” beneath the banner of Jesus Christ as we march with him toward life everlasting.
We are Lutheran Christians which indicates that we have a particular history within the Christian Church. Our roots are in Pentecost, the biblical birthday of the Christian Church—that’s when the Holy Spirit was poured out to energize the first believers. Our roots are in the 16th century Reformation, too, when Martin Luther and other reformers sought to return the Church to the teachings of Holy Scripture. As Lutheran Christians, the people of First Evangelical Lutheran Church hold to the basic principles of theology and practice espoused by Martin Luther:
We are saved by the grace of God alone—not by anything we do.
Our salvation is through faith alone—we only need to believe that
our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake.
The Bible is the norm of Christian doctrine and life—the only
true standard by which teachings and doctrines are to be judged.
The people of First Evangelical Lutheran Church invite you to become part of our community of faith; only Baptism in the name of Father, Son, and Spirit is required. If you are already baptized, your next step is to enroll in the Pastor’s Membership Class. Active members of other Lutheran congregations usually need only to transfer their membership.
