A Short Course in the Christian Faith....

from a Lutheran perspective

 
 
Welcome!   These web-pages are intended to help you discover a way to answer life’s BIG question: “Who am I?” That’s what we are all trying to figure out isn’t it? Who am I? How you answer the big question, sets the stage for just about everything else in your life. Your identity is the core from which you form your ideas of what is right and wrong, good or bad. It gives your live direction and purpose and informs your relationships with others. Your answer will tell you what is important in your life. To start finding the answer to the big question, you have to go back... all the way back to the very beginning.... In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Genesis 1:1-5 Genesis, the first book in the Bible proclaims that God is the source and center of creation. God’s Word creates. In Genesis, God says it: “Let there be light!” and light comes into being. God creates all that is ... including you. Bottom line, that means you are a child of the living God. If no one has ever told you that before, then we are extremely excited to bring you that good news! We know who we are... when we know whose we are. Do Not Remove the Tag! Often when you buy a item of clothing there will be a tag or label sewn onto it. The tag is placed there by the manufacturer to tell you what it is made of and how best to care for it. In the same way, since we are created by God, He is the logical place to turn to for information about the purpose of our life and what we need to be who He has made us to be. But Genesis is not the only book in the Bible that has something to tell us about God’s creative power. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1: 1-5 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. John 1: 14 Later in the Bible, in the Gospel of John, the power of God which is responsible for creation, God’s Word, is proclaimed to have become flesh and blood in the person of Jesus. The Christian Faith proclaims that Jesus is God’s creative Word become human form. To people who trust in this proclamation, this means that what Jesus says and does reveals special insight into the heart, mind and personality of God himself. So people of faith look to Jesus as a model of what it means to live as a child of God. Those who follow Jesus are called disciples. For people of faith, another way to ask the big question is: “What does it mean for me to be a child of the living God and a disciple of Jesus Christ?”     That really is the big question, because your answer will determine a whole lot more than how you spend your Sunday mornings.... it make a difference that will show up in every aspect and moment of your life. Being a disciple will change you. We offer these pages to you as a tool to assist your life-long response to the Big Question.

The “BIG” Question