God’s Word at Work

We Believe, Teach, and Confess

… what The Church has believed, taught, and confessed from the beginning. We are not espousing “something new,” but we are holding fast to “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”

Details and specifics of what we believe are at:

• Book of Concord
• The Three Ecumenical or Universal Creeds
• The Augsburg Confession
• The Apology [Defense] of the Augsburg Confession
• The Large Catechism by Martin Luther
• The Small Catechism
• The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther
• A Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope
• Epitome of the Formula of Concord
• Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord

The documents above are useful BECAUSE they are clear expositions of the teachings within Scripture — the only source and norm of faith.

Pastor’s thoughts on the

Synodical Convention in

Houston this July

Our Synod in convention in July will decide if the LCMS will remain Lutheran! To be Lutheran is to remain faithful to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. Nothing less will do ifwe wish to retain the title, “Lutheran”. If we become a synod which continues to walk the incremental path towards women’s ordination, open communion, fast and loose Church fellowship standards, abandonment of the Divine Service to a shallow, emotional conteJ1lporary hodge podge, and an open view of the Scriptures that fully compromises the distinction between law and gospel and the authority of God’s Word, then there will be no way that we can continue to call ourselves “Lutheran” in any meaningful sense of the term. To do these things is to abandon the faith of the Bible, the true visible Church, the apostles, Luther, Walther, and our forefathers. May God grant that faithful pastoral and lay delegates be discerning, and lead our synod back to true Lutheranism and thereby preserve this unique and precious heritage for our children and our grandchildren.
Pastor Teichmiller

Since Scripture is the only source and norm for sound doctrine, we are not tied to mere fads and fashions within the worship service. God Himself comes to us and serves us, we have the privilege of responding in the faith that He has given us and strengthens within us.

Our services echo the best traditions from the past — the ones that truly teach and prepare us for life here and in eternity. We use the liturgy that reminds us of the things we most need to know: The Law offends us with how deeply we have sinned, then The Gospel sweetly tells us what God has done and continues to do in the lives of His people in forgiveness and grace.

We treasure Hearing of The Word and the Sacraments: Baptism and Communion. These three gifts are called “The Means of Grace,” and are the methods God has chosen to communicate with His people.

(To all who wish to Commune with us at Zion: Our practice of Closed Communion is the historic practice of the Church. It is prompted by love, both for God’s Word and for God’s people. It does not deny that members of other denominations may be Christians. Rather, it bows the knee to God’s deep concern for doctrinal truth (Romans 16:17), and the Bible’s witness that doctrinal unity is central to the common reception of this sacrament. We therefore commune only those we know share the true doctrine in all its parts with us. If you are not a member of this congregation, we ask you to speak with the Pastor before coming to commune. We ask you to respect our confession of faith in this matter)