Spanaway Lutheran Church

16001 A Street South

P.O. Box 1300

Spanaway Washington 98387

Sunday Worship 10 am

Sunday School 9 am

(Labor Day to Memorial Day)

Telling the Story of God's grace and calling

all people to live in faith through God's love.

Affiliations

Lutherans Restoring Creation

ELCA

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

LRC is a grassroots movement of Lutherans that is driven by laity, pastors, lay professionals, synodical leadership, and others who hold positions in the ELCA and its institutions. The movement grows out of a long history of Lutheran concern (the 1993 social statement Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice, and other pre-ELCA Lutheran documents) and involvement (1997 formation of “LENS” - Lutheran Earthkeeping Network of the Synods).

Vision: We believe that being earthkeepers is foundational to our Christian vocation and should be integral to the full life and mission of the ELCA.

Mission: Lutherans Restoring Creation (“LRC”) is a program designed to encourage the ELCA to incorporate care for creation fully into its life and mission at all levels. LRC invites ELCA members to become partners in these efforts at the congregational, synodical, semin-ary, and national levels. The goal is to incorpor-ate care for creation into the organizational patterns, worship life, educational programs, responsibility for buildings and grounds, life-style of members at home and work, and public ministry of all of these institutions, so that earthkeeping and justice for all earth commun-ity becomes integral to the identity and pur-pose of our church. For more information go to: http://www.lutheransrestoringcreation.org/

Southwestern Washington Synod

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is one of the largest Christian denom-inations in the United States, with roughly four million members in nearly 10,000 congregations across the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We are the church that shares a living, daring confidence in God’s grace. For us, as the ELCA, this faith comes through the good news of Jesus Christ and gives us the freedom and the courage to wonder, discover and boldly participate in what God is up to in the world.

We are a church that is always being made new, and at the same time, is deeply rooted in Scripture, Lutheran theology and Lutheran confessions. We are also rooted in the vibrant, diverse communities and rich histories of our congregations. It’s through these roots that the Holy Spirit guides and nourishes us so that we can be a church that is both resilient and always new.

We welcome you to join this community of faith — the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — regardless of your age, race, gender, life exper-ience, complexities and questions. You have a unique story that can only add to the richness of the larger story that makes up the ELCA. There is a place for you here!

The Southwestern Washington Synod is one of the geographical districts of the ELCA. A synod is the people of the congregations and other ministries traveling the way of faith together. Grouped into nine regions, there are 65 synods in the ELCA.

Composed of 87 congregations, the Southwestern Washington Synod has approximately 30,000 members. We also include impor-tant Lutheran ministries such as Pacific Lutheran University, Luth-eran Community Services NW, and the Tacoma Lutheran Retire-ment Community.

Our geographical area includes all of Western Washington from Federal Wa/Auburn south to the Washington/Oregon border and all of the Olympic Peninsula and the Pacific coast.

Why Lutheran?

ELCA Teaching

The ELCA confesses the Triune God — Father, Son,

and Holy Spirit. We proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord

and Savior. In our preaching and teaching the ELCA

trusts the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.

ELCA teaching or theology serves the proclamation and ministry of this faith. It does not have an answer for all questions, not even all religious questions. Teaching or theology prepares members to be witnesses in speech and in action of God’s rich mercy in Jesus Christ.

Scriptures, Creeds & Confessions

The ELCA’s official Confession of Faith identifies the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (commonly called the Bible); the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds; and the Lutheran confessional writings in the Book of Concord as the basis for our teaching. ELCA congregations make the same affirmation in their governing documents, and ELCA pastors promise to preach and teach in accordance with these teaching sources. This Confession of Faith is more than just words in an official document. Every Sunday in worship ELCA congregations hear God’s word from the Scriptures, pray as Jesus taught and come to the Lord’s Table expecting to receive the mercies that the Triune God promises. Throughout the week ELCA members continue to live by faith, serving others freely and generously in all that they do because they trust God’s promise in the Gospel. In small groups and at sick beds, in private devotions and in daily work, this faith saturates all of life.

Teaching for a life of faith

This connection to all of life is the clearest demonstration of the authority that the canonical Scriptures, the ecumenical Creeds and the Lutheran Confessions have in the ELCA. The Holy Spirit uses these witnesses to create, strengthen and sustain faith in Jesus Christ and the life we have in him. That life-giving work continues every day, as Martin Luther explained in the Small Catechism: the Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”

Luther and Lutheranism
Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Martin Luther was eight years old when Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe and landed in the Western Hemisphere. Luther was a young monk and priest when Michaelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel in Rome. A few years later, he was a junior faculty member at a new university in small-town Germany, intently studying the Scriptures, “captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans.”

In these days Luther was tormented by the demand for righteousness before God. “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God.” Then, in the midst of that struggle with God, the mes-sage of the Scriptures became clear, like a long-shut door opening wide. When he realized that a “merciful God justifies us by faith … I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”

What Luther discovered is the freedom of Christians trusting God’s mercy in Christ. As he later wrote, “Faith is God’s work in us. It changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. This faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that believers would stake their lives on it a thousand times.”

This discovery set Luther’s life on a new course, both his own life and his public service as a preacher and teacher. When a church-endorsed sales team came to the Wittenberg area in October of 1517, Luther was concerned that the promotion and sale of indulgences undermined the promise of God’s unreserved mercy in Jesus and the faith that trusts that pro-mise. His 95 Theses or Disputations on the Power & Efficacy of Indulgences became the first of a life-long stream of books, sermons, letters, essays, even hymns in which he expressed his confidence in this life-giving promise from God, the Gospel, and its liberating implications for all of life in church and society.

Our History

Our Mission

To live as God’s people spreading

the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Spanaway Lutheran Church is one of 10,000 congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (E.L.C.A.). Together with congregations across the world, we are involved in vigorous missions to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ.

This congregation was begun as a mission church in 1962. Our current sanctuary was dedicated in 1984.

We believe in and encourage the ministry of all baptized people of God. We believe that we are called to serve God through the work of the congregation and in the vocations of our daily lives.

We believe that we all fall short of God’s expectations. We also believe that we have a loving God that forgives us. We believe that it is God acting for and in us, not our own acts, that brings forgiveness. Lutherans call this "justification by grace through faith.” As a result we are new people who are not haunted by guilt or worry. We trust God who comes to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Our Vision

We tell the story of God’s grace, calling people to live in faith through God’s love.

How We Do Ministry

Spanaway Lutheran Church is a congregation in ministry. Led by laity and clergy, we work together to take Jesus Christ's message of hope, new life and freedom into our community. Clergy and staff equip the laity, helping them discover their gifts and helping them be involved in ministry at the place their interests, gifts and abilities intersect. We honor the contribution of clergy and staff, who are the equippers of ministry, and we claim the ministry of the laity, who are in fact Christ's unpaid servants.