What We Believe

Jacob’s Porch is a place dedicated to making God’s presence known. We are concerned with making disciples of Jesus, people who are radically head over heels for God. We are a place that puts our trust fully in the hands of a loving God. We follow out of thanks for God’s never-ending amazing love for us, His children. We follow Jesus not to “get out of jail free” but to say thank you every day for the rest of our life.

We believe God’s love story is presented in the Scriptures, aka the Bible. Scripture is the norm of our faith and life. We believe scripture is our primary source of knowing what God has done, is doing, and is yet to do. Scripture should be faithfully examined in a community.

We call this community the church. The church is not a building, a club, or location. The church is the gathered people of every time and every place. The church is a gift of God to gather, teach, encourage, and then send believers into mission. We believe Jesus came not just to save us in the next life but to be transformed in this life as well. A building cannot contain this.

We believe God has been revealed through history. The church is connected by a great web of people and theologians who have wrestled with God and what we can know about God. We believe our communal history has much to teach us about who God is today. One theologian from the ancient church named Martin Luther called the church to depend solely on God for our salvation, not on our works, what we say, what we do, or by any of our actions. Therefore we are linked to our tribe in this great web of faith called the Lutheran Church. Luther called the church to always be reforming and never get too comfortable. Sometimes following Jesus can be very uncomfortable, and that’s cool.

We believe our tiny corner of the kingdom can be a challenge. College life is not just fun and games- it can really mess you up. So, at Jacob’s Porch we have room to wonder about where Jesus fits into our life, what God is doing in the world, and even if God exists.

If you are looking for a place where everyone believes exactly the same thing, this place will make you uncomfortable. If you are looking for a group where everyone will have the same opinions as you do about politics, religion, life or whatever, this place will probably make you uncomfortable. If you are looking for a church where questions are discouraged, this place will make you uncomfortable. If you are looking for a community where they worship exactly as they always did back home, or only sing certain kinds of songs, or only use a particular book, or other “shoulds” about worship, this place will definitely make you uncomfortable. BUT, if you are ready to wrestle with God, to wrestle with your faith, to ask hard questions, worship in new ways, to go deeper in faith, in short, to be uncomfortable, then this may be the place for you...

Have Questions? Don’t we all! But if you would like to, click on the link to the left for more information on how to contact us.