About Grace
Grace Lutheran Church has been building relationships with God and community since the 1800’s. On August 5, 1866, the original cornerstone was laid for the building of Grace Lutheran Church. Trusting in God, a congregation of 22 members put forth their resources to erect the new church.
Today’s multifaceted Grace Lutheran Church offers historical architecture and modern facilities, varied worship opportunities and numerous educational, spiritual, service and social experiences. Grace Lutheran Church is located near downtown Westminster on Carroll Street, just up the hill where Main Street and Carroll Street intersect near the Carroll Arts Center.
We are a faith community in which relationships are important. Jesus Christ is the foundation of our life together. In Christ, we embrace one another with love and joyfully serve the local and global community. We are located near downtown Westminster. We’d love to meet you!
Our Vision
To be led by Jesus to be an intergenerational, multicultural, inclusive congregation that worships faithfully, learns joyfully, and reaches out compassionately.
Our Mission
Gifted with God’s grace, redeemed by God’s Son, and filled with the Holy Spirit, we grow in our relationship with God, one another, and community. Through word and sacrament, we gather to worship, learn, and go into the world empowered to serve.
What We Believe
Grace is a Lutheran church, a member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The ELCA motto is “God’s work; Our hands,” and at Grace we are always trying to live that out, using our hands (and feet and voices and resources) to accomplish the work that God is calling us to in the world.
A core Lutheran understanding of historic Christian teaching is that through the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus Christ, all people are made acceptable to God BY God. There is nothing that we do, and nothing that we or anyone else can do, to make that happen OR to prevent it from happening. God’s love and favor and mercy are a gift, given by God to us, to you, and no one can take that gift away or withhold it. God loves us, full stop. You will often hear this gift called “grace,” and it is why THIS church, like many Lutheran churches, is NAMED Grace!
If you need to be reminded that God loves you, forgives you, renews you, calls you beloved child… grace is the way, and Grace is the place, for YOU.
“But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
– Romans 3:21-24
“I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”
– Martin Luther, explanation of the third petition of the Apostles’ Creed, Small Catechism