About the Divine Service

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

We Believe, Teach and Confess…

That there is one God in three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
That every person is conceived and born in sin (original sin) and deserves temporal death and everlasting damnation for both original and actual sin.
That Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, was truly crucified, died and was buried, and rose again in His body on the third day. He ascended into heaven and will come again on the last day to be our judge.
That a person is saved (justified) entirely by God’s grace, through faith, which is created by the Holy Spirit where and when He pleases.
To obtain this faith, God instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry (the preaching office).
Through the means of the Word and the Sacraments the Holy Spirit creates saving faith.
Believers must do good works, but they are not to trust in them for their salvation.
There is one, holy, catholic (Christian) Church, with Jesus Christ as her head.
The Sacraments of Holy Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper are to be retained in the church.
That the Augsburg Confession (of which the above items are a summary of the first thirteen articles) is a true and faithful exposition of Holy Scripture.
The books of the Old and New Testaments are the true, inspired, inerrant Word of God.
The rest of the Book of Concord is, like the Augsburg Confession, a true and faithful exposition of Holy Scripture, and we subscribe unreservedly to it.

Worship is this congregation’s central feature. God’s love is most clearly demonstrated when He distributes His gifts of Word and Sacrament to the body of Christ in the Divine Service. Worship at St. Paul’s is formal, reverent, and Lutheran.

Formal: not the clothing, but the liturgy.

Reverend: Our worship is not a show to be done in the sight of men. Our ceremonies are driven directly by our conviction that God Himself is present in His risen Body and Blood for us, that He speaks in His Word and the Absolution, and that He is paying close attention to our prayers.

Lutheran: Some Lutherans in America have taken up the trappings of the dominant Protestant culture in America, or worse, the entertainment industry. We are committed to the Holy Scriptures, the Book of Concord, and the study of the liturgy.