WHO      IS      JESUS     ?           Click here to find out

1.    The ultimate answers and hope for life comes from God.

2.    There is one God, who is three persons in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He made all things.

3.    Every person needs a relationship with God, but every person is naturally separated from Him due to the fact that everyone has failed to do God's will perfectly. It is impossible to have a true relationship with Him by our own ability and left to ourselves, we are destined to be separated from Him and under His punishment.

4.    God loved us so much that He became human, the person of Jesus. He taught us about God, lived a perfect life, suffered the punishment of our sin by dying on the cross for us, and was physically raised back to life. He ascended into heaven to fully exercise his glory and authority as God.

5.    By faith Jesus, God gives the gift of forgiveness and removes all that separates us from a relationship with Him. This saving faith is created by God as a person hears the message of Jesus and as God works through baptism.

6.    On the last day, Jesus will return and will raise up bodily all the dead, to give to every believer a glorified body and eternal life and will condemn all those who have ignored or rejected his forgiveness.

7.    A true spiritual relationship with God is a growing process throughout your life, so believers need to encourage each other, meeting together regularly for worship, study, prayer, to celebrate the Lord's Supper, and to love and care for each other.

We are a Christian fellowship that believes God has done something incredible for us: He has brought us back into a relationship with Himself through what Jesus has done. Because of His love for us, Jesus paid the price for our failures to do God's will perfectly. By faith in Jesus we receive forgiveness and a renewed relationship with God so that we might live each day with Him as our heavenly Father.

Our purpose is to spread this good news of what God has done and to help each other grow in trusting God and following Him more closely.  Everyone is invited to every worship opportunity. For more information on our worship services, click here. For education opportunities, click here.  If you have young people in your home, check out our youth page.

Everyone is welcome to join us in any of our fellowship activities. For those ready to take the next step of commitment to spiritual growth, we encourage a commitment of membership to the fellowship of Prince of Peace. Membership consists of three things:

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1.    Commitment to the teaching
What a person believes is critically important. For that reason, all members share a common, basic faith. These basic teachings are examined in the two classes "Basics" and "Second Step" (or one can transfer membership from a sister church of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, but we encourage everyone to attend these classes before meeting with our pastors about membership).

2.    Commitment to fellowship
God calls us to be in partnership with each other, to support, to encourage, and to have a healthy accountability. For this reason, membership includes a commitment to worship and to be actively involved in developing relationships with each other around God's Word.

3.    Commitment to purpose
The purpose of a church is to share the love and truth of God which he showed us in Christ so that more people believe and to encourage those who have this faith. For this reason, membership includes a commitment to use your abilities, time, and financial resources to help the church accomplish this purpose.  

After The Second Step A few times each  year, following the completion of "The Second Step" class, we receive new members into our congregation. Is this the next step for you in your spiritual growth? Talk to one of our pastors or plan to attend the next "Basics" class. Need more information? Talk with any of our members!

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Years ago, Art Linkletter wrote a book called Kids Say the Darnedest Things.  That title comes to mind sometimes when I hear Jesus speak.  He says the most outrageous things.  We have the benefit of hindsight by which to interpret those things, but had we been there when he said them, he would have left us just shaking our head.

“I am the light of life” . . .  “all people will hear my voice and come out of their graves”. . . “I am the truth”. . . “I am from above” . . . “you will see me in my glory” . . . these are all things he said that if they had not seemed arrogant, they would have seemed delusional.  Having heard these claims and having experienced his miraculous power, it is no small wonder that his disciples were utterly confused when he allowed himself to be taken a prisoner, beaten brutally, then executed in a gross and inhumane manner.  Watching that would have created a fair bit of skepticism about his claims.

Sometimes we stop hearing the outrageousness of Jesus’ words because we have heard them so often.  It is, however, the very fact that these words are so unbelievable that provides us hope and peace beyond what normal words could ever give.  This Lent, as we head toward the celebration of his resurrection (how outrageous is that!), spend a little more time hearing him.  The more we do, the more we understand that they can be trusted because he threw self-esteem to the winds and gave himself over to outrageous treatment.  In his death he validates his claim to give life.  Being accused of blasphemy, he reveals the truth about God.  His claim to quench our deeper thirst is enabled by his hungering and thirsting.  Ultimately, his claim to give resurrection is validated by his own resurrection.

He is outrageous, promising things that shouldn’t be possible and doing things on our behalf that no self-respecting god would do.  In that process, he gives us grace and hope and peace that are beyond normal.  They are outrageous!

The Golden Compass

I have received a number of emails and questions about the movie The Golden Compass, a children's adventure movie that comes out this month.  Due to the concerns, I have read the books) - this is the first of a trilogy - to see if the concerns by Christian groups is justified or accurate.

Philip Pullman has become one of the most significant living British writers, authoring close to thirty books and winning numerous awards.  His Dark Materials is the name of this trilogy that begins with The Golden Compass (known in England as Northern Lights), and is followed up with The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.  Pullman is an outspoken atheist and rather freely admits, "I'm trying to undermine the basis of the Christian belief."  About these books he recently said, "My books are about killing God."  Until the end of the first book, there is very little about which to object from a Christian perspective.  A significant concern is that, although the movie is supposed to have tamed down the anti-church content, the movie will likely spark interest in the other two stories which are significantly more overt in their anti-Christian position.

At the heart of the concern over the story is that the church is in league with the "villains" of the story.  Writing in a very clever use of children's fantasy, "Dust" becomes a metaphor for original sin which settles on people as they move from being children to adults.  Therefore, the villains' role is to capture children and to harm them in such a way as to keep "Dust" from settling on them.

There are certain presumptions behind Pullman's plot.  First, he views the church's primary role as enforcing morality and restraining free thought.  Second, God is not truly the deity, but rather an angel who is senile and obsessed with controlling people's lives.  Next, he views the fall into sin as an advancement for mankind, not a loss.  The title of the trilogy derives from Milton's Paradise Lost and Pullman contends that Satan is the hero in that epic as he leads Adam and Eve out of blissful childlike ignorance, from innocence to experience.  With these presumptions, Pullman's story has the "savior" (the child Lyra) defeat the villains and allow people to think freely, covered in "Dust".

Sadly, Pullman seems to be unaware that the heart of the work of the church is to proclaim the love and grace of God given us in Jesus Christ.

He fails to understand that God's direction for daily living is meant to be a blessing by God, not some mere repressive force.

So what do you do with this "blockbuster" movie?  First, it is a wonderfully written tale filled with adventure.  I found it more readable than the Harry Potter books, so I am sure they will become quite popular.

The first book doesn't become overtly anti-church until the very end and, I understand, the movie tones that down substantially.  However, in the second and third books (and sequel movies?) it cannot be avoided.  The third book is absolutely vindictive toward a caricature of the church as oppressive and evil.

Should we see the movie?  Here are some responses you might consider: 

• Don't see it.  Viewing it could send a confusing message to children, questioning believers, and others without the benefit of deeper conversation regarding the issues involved.  In addition, not funding this type of "entertainment" in which profit is the motive sends a message that we are discerning about what we expose our children to.
• See it, but don't buy the next two books.  (Without seeing the movie, I cannot tell you how strong the anti-church bias comes out at the end of the movie.  You may need to have a follow up conversation that the "church" that is in league with the villains isn't like your church.)
• See it and use the opportunity to talk about the Christian faith and the church with your older children.  These conversations could include talking about the heart of the Christian faith as God's grace given us in Jesus, the role of God's law in our lives as a blessing, ways in which the institution of the church through the ages has, at times, not acted according to God's Word (e.g., the Crusades or times of enforced militaristic morality), original sin, and a living relationship with God.  If you have the follow up conversations, it could be helpful in equipping our youth to identify preconceived caricatures of Christians and the straw man arguments against the faith, as well as fostering a deeper understanding of what it means to be saved.

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