Expert: Gordon F. Stoneburner - 4/18/2008

Question
I am a marketing consultant, i am working with 4 Lutheran church schools on increasing their student enrollment over the summer. I would like to know what are the distinctions between Lutherans and other denomination's, Catholics, Baptist, Presbyterians etc?

Answer
Jeff:

First of all, there are different Lutheran churches, but since you are working with schools, I assume you are working with LCMS (Missouri Synod) Lutherans.  

Lutherans strongly base our faith on the Word of God alone.  No pope,
church head, so to speak, or other authority outside of God himself.  Our sacraments of baptism and communion are practiced according to scripture.
We practice infant baptism and believe that Jesus is present in communion.  We believe that God works faith through His Word and Sacraments.  We
maintain the Christian belief, as taught by Christ, that salvation is
available to all, but only those who die with a faith in Jesus Christ as
their savior will go to heaven.  Heaven is a reward for faithfulness, not
"being good".  We believe in a literal devil and hell for the unfaithful.

I hope this helps.

In Christ's Service,

Gordon Stoneburner