St. Paul Lutheran Church 617 St. Lawrence Ave. Beloit WI 53511 608-365-7064

Everyone is welcome at St. Paul! We are saint, sinner and everyone in between. God accepts you just as you are and so do we. Come and See. We practice open Communion. We welcome all who believe Jesus Christ is truly present to share in this holy meal. You need not be a member of the congregation, a specific age, or have taken a special class. Jesus instituted this meal with the assurance of the forgiveness of our sins. Come and freely receive this gift of God’s grace. Women are full partners in all aspects of leadership at St. Paul. Across the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, women serve as pastors, bishops, theologians, and professional leaders. Jesus said “let the children come.” We value children and seek to help them know the same love of God that we have experienced in Jesus Christ. We invite children to participate fully in worship. Even though children may not understand everything about worship, we believe their understanding is being shaped through exposure to the community of love and faith at St. Paul. We believe we are called into mission. Knowing that God is creator of all that exists and that we have experienced generosity from God ourselves, we cannot help but want to share and give back. As we have been blessed, we affirm that we have been blessed to be a blessing to others. We have been called to a feeding ministry. Our Wednesday Soup Lunch was born of that calling. We find great joy in sharing of our time, talent, and money with the least, the lost and the oppressed. We believe in the Bible. Martin Luther said the Scriptures were "A cradle that holds t he infant Jesus." Simply stated, the Scriptures tell about God’s steadfast love and mercy in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures to present Jesus to all who listen to or read them. That is why Lutheran Christians say that the Scriptures are the “source and norm” of their teaching and practice. As the Gospel writer John wrote, “these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Because these writings originate from a time period that spans about a thousand years and come to us in a variety of handwritten manuscripts and fragments, they have been studied carefully with all the tools of research that are available. Thus, we read Scripture using a historical, critical method paying attention to the context and people for whom they were written. Finally, we affirm in our confessional writings the three ecumenical creeds — the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. These written documents originate from the earliest centuries of the Christian church’s history, a time when theological and philosophical questions about the identity of Jesus were widely debated among Christians. All three creeds affirm that God is fully present in Jesus, that Jesus Christ is both God and human (not a semi-divine or superhuman creature that is neither).

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"St. Paul Lutheran Church is called to be an Inviting, Christ-Centered, Spiritually-Growing and Community-Serving church where we are led by love to implement Jesus' teachings."