Notes for newcomers

Welcome to St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Kemmerer and Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Evanston.

If our order of worship is unfamiliar, you may appreciate this brief explanation of its meaning. 

We are congregations of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. The LCMS is a church body that was formed in 1847 specifically to help her churches and pastors resist cultural drift and stay faithful to the Holy Scriptures.

Faithfulness to the Scriptures means that "We believe, teach, and confess that [they are] the sole rule and standard according to which all dogmas together with all teachers should be estimated and judged. . , as it is written Ps. 119:105: Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And St. Paul: Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you, let him be accursed, Gal. 1:8." (Formula of Concord, Epitome 1).

The Formula of Concord is one of eleven documents that state clearly what the Scriptures say on points that have been contested and confused at various times and in various places. These eleven documents are as follows:

• The Apostles' Creed, The Nicene Creed, The Athanasian Creed
• The Augsburg Confession and the Apology (Defense) of the Augsburg Confession
• The Smalcald Articles and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope
• Martin Luther's Small Catechism and his sermons on the same, called the Large Catechism 
• The Epitome of the Formula of Concord and its more fleshed-out Solid Declaration

All eleven of these documents are also available for listening at: LibrivoxBookOfConcord

In 1538 Martin Luther got to the heart of the Christian religion as follows:

What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I know not how to change in the least, namely, that by faith, as St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart, and God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our Mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet He will not punish or remember it. And such faith, renewal, and forgiveness of sins is followed by good works. And what there is still sinful or imperfect also in them shall not be accounted as sin or defect, even [and that, too] for Christ’s sake; but the entire man, both as to his person and his works, is to be called and to be righteous and holy from pure grace and mercy, shed upon us [unfolded] and spread over us in Christ. 3 Therefore we cannot boast of many merits and works, if they are viewed apart from grace and mercy, but as it is written, 1 Cor. 1:31: He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, namely, that he has a gracious God. For thus all is well. 4 We say, besides, that if good works do not follow, faith is false and not true. (SA XIII)