A New LCMS Congregation for Percy-Steeleville, Illinois

Question --- Is it time to begin forming a new Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod congregation for Percy, Steeleville and the surrounding areas?

     Sixteen friends gathered on Tuesday, January 6th, Epiphany, to discuss the possibilities. We quickly agreed that:

• We love Jesus our Savior and want to serve Him faithfully.
• We praise our Father in heaven for creating us and providing for all of our spiritual and physical needs.
• We trust that God the Holy Spirit will continue to keep us in the one true faith and guide us to live God-pleasing lives. 
• This One Triune God has revealed Himself in the written words of the Bible. We love His whole divinely inspired Word, the Bible and want to believe it, teach, live by it, and confess it faithfully.
• We believe that the Lutheran Confessions, published in the Book of Concord of 1580 are the true and best interpretation and presentation of the teachings God has revealed in Bible. These confessions also properly instruct us in God-pleasing life that the Holy Spirit guides us to through the Holy Scriptures.
• We believe that God calls His people together to serve Him and one another in Christian love. Because God has first loved us in Christ, we want to continually grow in loving Him and one another. "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" 1 John 4:10–11 (ESV).
• We believe that the best way for us to live out our love for God and one another is in the fellowship of a Lutheran Christian congregation that is committed to the doctrine and practices of the Bible, the Lutheran Confessions and the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod.

    So we concluded together that, YES, this is the time for us to begin gathering for worship, hearing faithful instruction from God's Word and responding to God with praise and prayer.

       Saturday evening, January 10th at 6:30 pm, we will meet at the home of Glenn and Tammy Steele, at "Rolling Oaks," 321 Windy Pines Trail, Percy, IL 62272. In the spirit of Christian Love, all are welcome. The worship service will be followed by a time of Christian Fellowship and interactive Bible Study.  We will have some copies of Lutheran Worship (c) 1981. If you have a copy of Lutheran Worship at home, bring it and your personal Bible.

     In the future, we look forward to choosing a name for our congregation. We've already received some suggestions: 

• St. Matthew Lutheran Church (first chapter of a new beginning)
• Emmanuel Lutheran Church (Emmanuel means "God with us")
• Epiphany Lutheran Church (because of our meeting on Epiphany, January 6th)
• Good News Lutheran Church (evangelion (greek) and gospel mean "good news")

    We also look forward to drafting a constitution and applying for membership in the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod.