St. Peter's Lutheran Church-LCMS

About Our Church

Lutheran Church near me in Lebanon, WI

St. Peter’s- a congregation of about 400 souls – is a member congregation in the South Wisconsin District of the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod. We have been a vital part of the Lebanon Community for over 135 years. We celebrate two sacraments. In Baptism, God freely offers his grace and lovingly establishes a new community. In Holy Communion those who come to the table receive in bread and wine the body and blood of their Lord. This gift is itself the presence of God’s forgiveness and mercy, nourishing believers in union with their Lord and with each other.

Download our church pamphlet.

Lebanon Lutheran Church Service
Lutheran church in southern Wisconsin

What We Believe

St. Peter’s Lutheran is a congregation of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS). Our Church believes that:

  • The Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is the one, true, living and almighty God.
  • The Bible, the inspired Word of God, is the only reliable source of truth for Christian faith and life.
  • All people, by nature, are sinful and deserve God’s anger and punishment for their sins.
  • Jesus Christ, true God and true man, through His innocent suffering and death, has redeemed the world from sin and hell and cleanses us from all sin.
  • By His glorious resurrection, Jesus defeated death and gives to all believers the gift of eternal life and at death, the believer enters glory in Heaven.
  • These blessings are received by God’s grace (His undeserved love) through faith in Jesus, worked by the Holy Spirit through the hearing of God’s Word and Holy Baptism.
  • We are strengthened in our faith in Jesus Christ through the regular use of God’s word and the Lord’s Supper.

About the LCMS

St. Peter’s is a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) is a mission-oriented, Bible-based, confessional Christian denomination headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., founded on the teachings of Martin Luther. The LCMS is a conservative denomination and is the second largest Lutheran body in the United Sates. The official mission of the LCMS is:

“In grateful response to God’s grace and empowered by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacraments, the mission of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is vigorously to make known the love of Christ by word and deed within our churches, communities and the world.”

Lebanon Lutheran Church Service

Baptism

Lutherans believe that the Bible teaches that a person is saved by God’s grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The Bible tells us that such “faith comes by hearing” (Rom 10:17). Jesus Himself commands Baptism and tells us that Baptism is water used together with the Word of God (Matt 28:19-20). Because of this, we believe that Baptism is one of the miraculous means of grace (another is God’s Word as it is written or spoken), through which God creates and/or strengthens the gift of faith in a person’s heart (see Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16; 1 Peter 3:21; Gal 3:26-27; Rom 6:1-4; Col 2:11-12; 1 Cor 12:13). Terms the Bible uses to talk about the beginning of faith include “conversion” and “regeneration.” Although we do not claim to understand fully how this happens, we believe that when an infant is baptized God creates faith in the heart of that infant. We believe this because the Bible says that infants can believe (Matt 18:6) and that new birth (regeneration) happens in Baptism (John 3:5-7; Titus 3:5-6). The infant’s faith cannot yet, of course, be verbally expressed or articulated by the child, yet it is real and present all the same (see e.g., Acts 2:38-39; Luke 1:15; 2 Tim 3:15). The faith of the infant, like the faith of adults, also needs to be fed and nurtured by God’s Word (Matt 28:18-20), or it will die.

Although we do not claim to understand how this happens or how it is possible, we believe (because of what the Bible says about Baptism) that when an infant is baptized God creates faith in the heart of that infant. This faith cannot yet, of course, be expressed or articulated, yet it is real and present all the same (see e.g., Acts 2:38-39; Titus 3:5-6; Matt. 18:6; Luke 1:15; 2 Tim. 3:15).

Lutherans do not believe that only those baptized as infants receive faith. Faith can also be created in a person’s heart by the power of the Holy Spirit working through God’s (written or spoken) Word. Baptism should then soon follow conversion (cf. Acts 8:37) for the purpose of confirming and strengthening faith in accordance with God’s command and promise. Depending on the situation, therefore, Lutherans baptize people of all ages from infancy to adulthood.

The LCMS does not believe that Baptism is ABSOLUTELY necessary for salvation. The thief on the cross was saved (apparently without Baptism), as were all true believers in the Old Testament era. Mark 16:16 implies that it is not the absence of Baptism that condemns a person but the absence of faith, and there are clearly other ways of coming to faith by the power of the Holy Spirit (reading or hearing the Word of God). Still, Baptism dare not be despised or willfully neglected, since it is explicitly commanded by God and has His precious promises attached to it. It is not a mere “ritual” or “symbol,” but a powerful means of grace by which God grants faith and the forgiveness of sins.

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lutheran church near me in lebanon wi

Lord’s Supper

At a basic level, it is important for a Christian to remember that when Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead, God pardoned us of all sin. As Scripture puts it, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them….” (2 Cor. 5:19). Objectively, we have already been forgiven of our sins, those that we have done in the past and those that we will do in the future. This is what makes the work of Christ such good news! The means of grace are the channels through which we come to know and believe this good news, and the means through which the forgiveness of Christ is continually made known and given to us. Paradoxically, what is already ours becomes ours. Like water that already belongs to us in a storage facility, it becomes ours continually when it is piped into our house so that we can drink it. One Lutheran theologian has written, “If God had not forgiven all sins, there could be no means by which the forgiveness is offered.” This is exactly correct.

The Gospel and the Sacraments, including the Lord’s Supper, are the divinely ordained ways in which the merits of Christ are revealed, offered, and imparted to us. The words of institution in the Lord’s Supper, then, are God’s way of saying to us: “Your sins have been forgiven already, and again I am giving you anew this wonderful blessing. Be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven.” In this way we can go our way with a clear conscience and a renewed heart.

“In addition to the words of Christ and of St. Paul (the bread in the Lord’s Supper ‘is true body of Christ’ or ‘a participation in the body of Christ’), we at times also use the formulas ‘under the bread, with the bread, in the bread.’ We do this to reject papistic transubstantiation and to indicate the sacramental union [emphasis added] between the untransformed substance of the bread and the body of Christ…..so in the Holy Supper the two essences, the natural bread and the true, natural body of Christ, are present together here on earth in the ordered action of the sacrament, though the union of the body and blood of Christ with the bread and wine is not a personal union, like that of the two natures of Christ, but a sacramental union” (emphasis added; 35-38).

The language of “in, with, and under,” which is found also in Luther’s Small Catechism, was carefully chosen and was directed at specific errors encountered by the Lutheran confessors (for example, “in” was chosen to reject impanation and “with” to reject transubstantiation). Moreover, the expression “sacramental union” is used as a technical designation for the Lutheran understanding of the Real Presence. The word “under” in the phrase “in, with and under” used to express the Lutheran understanding of the sacramental union serves as a reminder that Christ’s true body and blood in the Lord’s Supper are “hidden under” the earthly forms of bread and wine (like a “mask” hiding someone’s face–the face is “under” the mask). In fact, Luther often used the term “mask” to describe how God “hides” his work under humble, earthly, external means (sacramental and otherwise).

Wedding Planning

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
-John 15:12

The documents below will help plan your wedding at St. Peter’s.

St Peter’s Wedding Handbook

St Peter’s Wedding Informational Document

Wedding Fees

Payment of all wedding fees must be made two weeks prior to the wedding

Please contact the church to get the names of who to write the checks payable to.

Church Custodian fee-$50-Cleaning of church only
School Custodian fee-$50-Cleaning of bathrooms/school rooms- if used to get dressed for wedding
School Custodian fee-$50-Cleaning/set up for reception event in fellowship hall.

Payment made direct to the custodians for wedding clean up-Non-Members:
Church Custodian fee-$100-Cleaning of church only
School Custodian fee-$100-Cleaning of bathrooms/school rooms- if used to get dressed for wedding
School Custodian fee-$100-Cleaning/set up for reception event in fellowship hall.


lutheran church wedding planning
st peters lutheran church in lebanon

Funeral Planning

St. Peter’s can help guide you through this difficult time.  Please see our document below.

Funeral Planning

Cleaning Fees after funeral:

Church Custodian fee-$50-Cleaning of church only.
School Custodian fee-$100-Cleaning of bathrooms/fellowship hall.
School Custodian fee-$50-Set up for reception event in fellowship hall.

Please contact the church to get the names of who to write the checks payable to.

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