About Us

What Is a Lutheran?

If you’re like most people, what you know of Lutherans is probably from Garrison Keillor’s radio show Prairie Home Companion. That’s because his show comes from Minnesota, where you can swing a cat and pretty much be sure of hitting a Lutheran. But, really, we’re everywhere.  A long time ago, we were all divided up among various immigrant groups — Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Finns, and Germans. (The original Lutheran, Martin Luther, was a German monk born in 1483. Once his ideas caught on, they spread northward into Scandinavia.)

In the early 1980s, most of us agreed to get along and merged into one big Lutheran group called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and that’s the group that Advent Lutheran Church in Rindge, New Hampshire belongs to. Rumor has it that there are about 70 million Christians who call themselves Lutherans throughout the world today. At Advent Lutheran, we’re often confused, locally, with the Apostolic Lutherans in nearby New Ipswich and the Missouri-Synod Lutherans, who have congregations nearby in Peterborough, Troy, and Keene.

In reality, many of our members do not come from Lutheran backgrounds.  They come to us from all kinds of Christian backgrounds, or no prior church experience at all. What we share are the basic principles of faith.

This is Christ's church.

There is a place for you here.

We are the church that shares a living, daring confidence in God's grace. Liberated by our faith, we embrace you as a whole person — questions, complexities and all. Join us as we do God's work in Christ's name for the life of the world. 

New Members Classes

We offer new members classes to learn about the history of the Lutheran Church, the life of the Church and many other things about Advent. If you are interested, please contact the church office or any of the Council members.