When was the last time you heard a story that reminded you of why you are a Christian and specifically a Lutheran? In 2021, Pastor Sonja will explore this question with members of the Graceful Hills Parish. We will hear testimonies on why despite or because of everything we are still Lutheran.
Join us by listening to the conversations on your way to work or at home or wherever works best for you. You can listen to it anytime and anywhere you have internet.
Contact Pastor Sonja if you are a member of the Graceful Hills Parish who would like to have a conversation with her on why we are Lutheran: pastorsonjapilman@gmail.com or 650 431 6693
Will Olsen – member of ALC and former pastor of PVLC
Bonnie Miller – member of PVLC
Ann Henrichsen – member of ALC
Lutheran
A living, daring confidence in God’s grace.
When Lutherans talk about faith, we are talking about the relationship God’s Holy Spirit creates with us. It’s a relationship where God’s promise of steadfast love and mercy in Jesus opens us to a life of bold trust in God and joyful, generous service to everyone we know and meet in daily life.
Martin Luther was exuberant when he described the freedom of “a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that believers would stake their lives on it a thousand times.” He once wrote, “Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good things unceasingly.”
Faith convictions expressed as statements of belief flow from this confident trust in God. ELCA Lutherans share in the faith expressed in the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, in the Lutheran confessional writings (collected as the Book of Concord), and in the ELCA Confession of Faith.
At the same time faith does not close our minds to the world and our hearts to others. We continue to listen to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. We listen to the witness of others and we watch for the ways God is active in the world around us. Faith opens a place for engaging others in conversation, for seeking the truth, for asking questions and speaking love in word and deed.
Faith is a full life, liberated for a living, daring confidence in God’s grace.