St. James                  Lutheran Church

Vision Statement

Sharing the Word of God - welcoming all to experience God’s love and to live, serve, rejoice, and grow together as God’s people.

Value Statements

We live in the love of God.

We grow in His word.

We serve others and share our gifts.

We rejoice, give thanks, and praise Him.

Living our lives under the cross

Loving God

Growing in faith

Serving our neighbors

Rejoicing and giving Him praise

Belief and Practice 
With the universal Christian Church, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod teaches and responds to the love of the Triune God: the Father, creator of all that exists; Jesus Christ, the Son, who became human to suffer and die for the sins of all human beings and to rise to life again in the ultimate victory over death and Satan; and the Holy Spirit, who creates faith through God's Word and Sacraments. The three persons of the Trinity are coequal and coeternal, one God.

Being "Lutheran"
Our congregations accept and preach the Bible-based teachings of Martin Luther that inspired the reformation of the Christian Church in the 16th century. The teaching of Luther and the reformers can be summarized in three phrases: Grace alone, Faith alone, Scripture alone.

Who is Jesus?
For more than 2,000 years people have asked this question. We were not present when Jesus lived on this earth, but in the Bible, we have the record of His birth, life, death on the cross, and resurrection. Through the study of the Bible, you can seek the answer to this age-old question.

What does "Synod" mean?
The word "Synod" in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod comes from Greek words that mean "walking together." The term has rich meaning in our church body because congregations voluntarily choose to belong to the Synod. Though diverse in their service, our congregations hold to a shared confession of Jesus Christ as taught in Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.

What are the Lutheran Confessions?
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod accepts the Scriptures as the inspired and inerrant Word of God and subscribes unconditionally to all the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a true and unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word of God.  

We accept the Lutheran Confessions as articulated in the Book of Concord of 1580 because they are drawn from the Word of God and on that account regard their doctrinal content as a true and binding exposition of Holy Scripture and as authoritative for all pastors, congregations and other rostered church workers of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Church History

St. James Lutheran Church was organized on Trinity Sunday in 1847 by nine German immigrant families who chose the name, “St. Jakobi Geminde”, (St. James Congregation).  The Second Article of the congregation’s first constitution, entitled “Sprache” (Language), reads “In unsere Kirche soll nur allein duetsch gepredict werden” (In our congregation, only German alone shall be preached).

For its first fifty years, the congregation did hold services only in German and served German-speaking immigrants and their German-speaking descendants, but by the 1890's the need for English services was already realized.  The congregation began to offer monthly English services for the grandchildren of the founding families who were no longer so conversant in the German language.  The last regular German service was held in 1943. 

The congregation’s first church was a log structure built by the members and dedicated on the Tenth Sunday of Trinity in 1848.  The foundation stones can still be seen in the garden surrounding our church sign on the northwest corner of our cemetery.  Our current church building was dedicated in 1872.

St. James has grown over the years and today finds its ministry serving the growing suburbs that now surround this formerly rural congregation.  The Brats and Crafts Festival has been an annual tradition for over 30 years, celebrating the congregation’s German heritage.  The German worship service has become a desired part of this celebration that is attended by many German-speaking people in the Columbus area, as well as a few others who enjoy honoring our founding families by singing a few German hymns.