Who We Are:

We are Called by the Holy Spirit, Equipped to Serve, Sent to love all.

We at St. Mark's are learning how to be God's people together. We worship, we pray, we try to form deeper relationships with ourselves and the community around the Church. We know we don't always get it right, but we are on the journey together.   .

​We are Christians:
That term can carry some baggage. Christians are people who encounter God in Jesus and the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is a book of God’s people. In that book, we experience again and anew the ways in which God’s people have encountered the divine. We believe the living word is not simply a book, but an encounter with scripture and the Spirit. We view the Bible reverently, seriously, thoughtfully, and critically.​

We are the Church:
Well, yes and no. Anytime a few gather together in Jesus’ name, you have the church. The universal church is of all times and places, and when we gather, we’re a part of that body that transcends culture, time, and space. And because we believe God is graceful and a lot more mysterious and broad than we are, we believe that while we are the church, we are not the church alone. We know, it’s paradoxical. But so is life!​

We are Lutheran:
 Lutherans are Christians held by the experience that God’s grace always comes to us freely. We receive it just as we are and who we are.  We view humanity and all creation as beautiful, complex, broken, and beloved. We think this is radically liberating: You don’t have to "get saved" by making a choice or invitation to God. You don’t have to be good enough. God loves you and grace calls you to respond to that love with a life more and more reflective of that love. We especially and tangibly are embraced by grace when we encounter the living word together, are baptized and marked as God’s own, and share the communion meal together.

We don't have all the answers:
There, it’s out in the open. We don’t tell people what to do. Together, we encounter the living God in Jesus. And when we do that, around simple stuff like scripture, water, bread, and wine, God works through the gathering. We discover what we were born to do: Love God and love our neighbors. Sometimes we get comforted by what we find. Sometimes we get challenged by it.​​

We are part of the ELCA

We are part of the ELCA:
The ELCA is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It’s a family of faith that emerged through a LOT of mergers of smaller families of faith all over the US and Caribbean. There are millions of Lutherans all over the world. There are about 4.8 million ELCA Lutherans in over 10,000 congregations in the US, and over 66 million around the globe who work together in the Lutheran World Federation.

A note about the word evangelical: The word simply means "good news."
​It s what Lutherans called themselves in Europe, and usually still do. The word has taken on different meanings in the US for different groups. We think it means encountering God should be good news. Period.