St. Paul Lutheran Church has been an integral part of the Clyde, OH community for over 150 years. In 1868, Mr. George Ackermann, a stalwart Christian, sensed the need for a Lutheran church in town. He gathered other likeminded people and together they contacted representatives of the Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States (predecessor to The American Lutheran church), asking for help in forming a new congregation.

Mr. Ackermann was directed to several Lutheran pastors in the area and finally Pastor Samuel Hunziker helped serve and formally organize the congregation in 1870. From then on, the congregation grew and developed through the careful, loving shepherding of several pastors.

In 1901 St. Paul Lutheran purchased a wood-frame building from a disbanded Unitarian-Universalist congregation and worshiped in this building for 27 years until the present building was erected in 1928. In 1958 the congregation built the Parish Hall and educational wing of the building that are still busy hubs of activity for members and non-members.

Throughout the years St. Paul congregation has been served by 21 ordained pastors, numerous interim pastors, and hundreds of faithful Christian laywomen and laymen who love the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ and have dedicated untold hours and sacrificial giving to the building-up of this congregation and the spread of God’s Kingdom worldwide.

The pastor and members of St. Paul Lutheran Church strongly believe in…

THE TRIUNE GOD — FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT.

Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.

• Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation.
• The proclamation of God’s message to us as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
• The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the written Word of God. Inspired by the Holy Spirit speaking through their authors, they record and announce God’s revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them the Holy Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world.
• The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith and life, “according to which all doctrines should and must be judged.” (Formula of Concord, Epitome, Part I)

The Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as true declarations of the faith of the Church.

The Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a true witness to the Gospel, acknowledging as one with it in faith and doctrine all churches that likewise accept the teachings of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.

The other confessional writings in the Book of Concord, namely, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles and the Treatise, the Small Catechism, the Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord, as further valid interpretations of the faith of the Church.

The Gospel, recorded in the Holy Scriptures and confessed in the ecumenical creeds and Lutheran confessional writings, as the power of God to create and sustain the Church for God’s mission in the world.

St. Paul Lutheran honors and accepts The Common Confession (2005) as a summary of teachings otherwise affirmed in the Lutheran Confessions.

The Lutheran Church began as a reform movement within the Roman Catholic Church during the sixteenth century under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther, a theology professor in Wittenberg, Germany. Sadly, the Reformation led to an seismic split resulting in the Protestant and Roman Catholic wings of western Christianity.

The main emphasis of the Reformation was a return to the Bible as the sole source of authority in the Church rather than human reason, tradition, and church councils. The phrase that has helped summarize the beliefs of the Lutheran church throughout the last 500 years is Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Scripture Alone, Christ Alone. We can only find God through the ways He has laid out for us. Human approaches to God always lead to dead ends.

There are approximately 9-million Lutherans in the United States, and about 80-million Lutherans worldwide.

St. Paul Lutheran Church is a congregation situated in the center of the broad spectrum of Lutheran beliefs and practices in the United States. Presently we are affiliated with the LCMC (Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ) and with the NALC (the North American Lutheran Church).

St. Paul Lutheran Church feels very comfortable with the beliefs, values, and emphases of these two centrist Lutheran church bodies and is dedicated to participating in their work on the local and national levels.