Dear Visitor,

The Sundays after Pentecost are not a season but are called ordinary time, from the Latin “ordinalis” meaning “numbered,” as in the “Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost” et cetera. During the last months of the liturgical year, the color on paraments and vestments is mostly green signifying Christ’s Church on earth growing in the grace and knowledge of her Lord Jesus Christ, His Father, and the Holy Spirit. We celebrate several lesser festivals in the fall including St. Matthew’s Sunday (red for the blood of martyrs), Reformation Sunday (red for the fire of the Holy Spirit), and All Saints Sunday (white for purity and joy).

We are an active, intergenerational parish with many opportunities for worship, study, service, and fellowship. We take seriously that Baptism creates the only identity within the Church, which means we don’t divide people by gender, ethnicity, language, or class. We are self-consciously Lutheran in the way we do theology and ethics, and we interpret Scripture through the lens of Law and Gospel.

St. Matthew’s church welcomes area university and community college students to make their church home with us in order to grow in faith and life. We are always delighted to have all visitors from near and far to join with us in praise and adoration of the Blessed Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

St. Matthew’s is an evangelical catholic parish, which means we confess the Scriptures and creeds of Christ’s whole Church on earth, worship using the liturgy of the western Church, practice one Baptism with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins, and receive the Lord Jesus’ true Body and most precious Blood in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar every Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday, and other feast days. With all Christ’s faithful people on earth, we are unapologetically pro-life.

Out of faithfulness to the Lord and the Scriptures, creeds, and confessions of the Lutheran church, we voted on January 22, 2023, by 98% to disaffiliate from the ELCA (www.elca.org) and by 97% to join the AALC (www.taalc.org). As a former congregation of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), we must receive a peaceful release by the North Carolina Synod Council of the ELCA.

On Sunday, August 27, 2023, we voted again by 97.3% (110-3) to express our intent to disaffiliate from the ELCA. We continue to pray for, to await, and to expect that peaceful release by the North Carolina Synod Council of the ELCA. Under the supervision and with the guidance of our registered professional parliamentarian, we have crossed every “t” and dotted every “i” according to the constitutional process for disaffiliation and according to Robert’s Rules of Order. Again, in the interim, we persist in giving faithful witness to the Gospel of the Crucified Son of God, Jesus Christ, who alone is righteous and who alone is able to save from sin, death, and the old evil one.

By way of accountability and to set the record straight due to persistent misrepresentation, since 1988, St. Matthew’s has given more than $1.65 million in benevolence alone to the ELCA. We gave even more to world hunger and special appeals for camps and nursing homes (including gifts of $50,000 to Trinity Grove, $35,000 to Camp Agape, and a since deceased member made a $750,000 lead gift to Trinity Grove). From 1983 through 1987, we gave $194,922 to LCA benevolence plus other special gifts and appeals. None of those numbers have been adjusted for inflation. Our annual parochial reports to the ELCA and to the former LCA are the source of benevolence and other giving reported here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pastor Sam Zumwalt+

szumwalt@stmatthewsch.org