OUR STORY

Redeemer did not begin with the invention of a new kind of Christianity. We belong to the one holy Christian and apostolic Church that stretches back to Christ and His apostles.

We confess the historic Christian faith expressed in the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. We believe in the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We confess that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, crucified for our sins and raised bodily from the dead for our justification.

The central practices of our congregation are also ancient. We baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We hear the Holy Scriptures read and preached. We confess our sins and receive Christ’s absolution. We pray the Lord’s Prayer, sing the Church’s hymns, and receive Christ’s true body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.

We are not attempting to reinvent the Christian faith for each new generation. We seek faithfully to receive, confess, teach, and hand down the faith once delivered to the saints.

In the sixteenth century, the Lutheran Reformation called the Church back to the clear proclamation of the Gospel. Martin Luther and the Lutheran reformers did not intend to create a new religion. They sought to preserve the historic Christian faith while correcting teachings and practices that obscured the saving work of Jesus Christ.

At the heart of the Reformation was the biblical confession that sinners are justified by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Christ alone. Our salvation rests entirely upon what Jesus has accomplished through His perfect life, atoning death, and victorious resurrection.

The Lutheran Confessions, collected in the Book of Concord of 1580, continue to express what we believe, teach, and confess because they faithfully explain the teaching of Holy Scripture. They keep the Gospel of Christ crucified for sinners at the center of the Church’s preaching and life.

This is why Redeemer is unapologetically Lutheran. Being Lutheran is not primarily a matter of ethnicity, geography, or personal preference. It means confessing the biblical Gospel clearly and receiving Christ’s gifts faithfully.

Redeemer is a congregation of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, commonly known as the LCMS. The LCMS was founded in 1847 by Lutheran congregations committed to practicing and preserving confessional Lutheran Christianity in America.

The word “synod” means walking together. As an LCMS congregation, Redeemer walks together with other congregations in a shared confession of Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. We support the training of pastors and church workers, Christian education, mercy work, missionaries, and the proclamation of the Gospel throughout the world.

Our identity as an LCMS congregation connects our local life in Fairhope to a larger fellowship of Christians united around Christ, His Word, and His Sacraments.

The Lutheran presence on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay began long before Redeemer was formally organized. As early as 1884, Lutheran pastors traveled across Mobile Bay by boat from Mobile to serve scattered Lutheran families in the area. Occasional services were held as pastors brought God’s Word to Christians who did not yet have a local Lutheran congregation.

Pastor W. H. Hafner of Mobile later began serving Lutherans in Point Clear with monthly worship services. Those early gatherings helped establish a lasting Lutheran presence along the Eastern Shore.

On February 18, 1945, the first Lutheran service in Fairhope was held at St. James Episcopal Church. A small group of Christians gathered to hear the Word of God and worship according to the Lutheran confession.

In June 1948, final arrangements were completed for the purchase of a Methodist chapel and parsonage. On September 4, 1949, the Rev. Lyle Mueller was ordained and installed as Redeemer’s first resident pastor.

That began Redeemer Lutheran Church’s enduring presence in Fairhope.

For more than three quarters of a century, Redeemer has been woven into the life of Fairhope and the Eastern Shore.

Generations have been brought to the baptismal font, instructed in the Christian faith, confirmed, married, comforted in grief, and laid to rest in the hope of the resurrection. Families have gathered Sunday after Sunday to confess their sins, hear Christ’s forgiveness, listen to His Word, sing the faith, and receive His Supper.

As the congregation grew, a new parish hall was dedicated in October 1967. The present sanctuary was dedicated on July 9, 1972. These buildings have served as places where Christ continues to gather and care for His people.

Yet our story is not ultimately about bricks and mortar. A church building matters because of what happens within it. Here the Gospel is proclaimed. Here sinners are forgiven. Here children and adults are taught the faith. Here Christ gives His body and blood. Here the grieving are comforted, the burdened are strengthened, and God’s people are sent back into their homes, workplaces, and community to serve their neighbors.

Fairhope has changed considerably since Redeemer’s earliest services. The Eastern Shore has grown, new families have arrived, and many aspects of daily life look different. The needs of people, however, remain remarkably familiar.

People still carry guilt, grief, fear, loneliness, uncertainty, and the knowledge of their mortality. Every generation needs the same Savior. Every sinner needs the same forgiveness. Every troubled conscience needs the same promises of Christ.

For that reason, Redeemer’s central purpose has not changed. We continue to gather around the Word of God and the Sacraments because these are the means through which Christ has promised to come to His people.

We do not build our life together around religious entertainment, passing trends, or constant novelty. Our worship remains liturgical and hymnal based. We do not use projection screens during the Divine Service. This allows us to worship together without unnecessary distraction, focused upon Christ, His Word, His cross, and His gifts.

Our practices are rooted in the historic life of the Christian Church, but they are not preserved merely because they are old. We treasure them because they faithfully direct our eyes and ears to Jesus.

Today, Redeemer remains a confessional, liturgical, Gospel-centered Lutheran congregation.

We are a congregation where the Scriptures are taught as God’s inspired and authoritative Word. We distinguish carefully between God’s Law, which reveals our sin, and God’s Gospel, which announces the forgiveness Christ has won for us. We baptize, teach the faith, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, care for the suffering, and prepare Christians to serve their neighbors through their daily vocations.

We welcome sincere questions and do not expect visitors to understand everything immediately. Lutheran worship and teaching can feel unfamiliar to someone encountering them for the first time. We are glad to explain what we believe, why we worship as we do, and how the Gospel shapes our life together.

We want to be the best and most faithful version of who we are, not a copy of the latest church trend. We believe our neighbors need more than religious marketing or motivational advice. They need the truth about sin and grace. They need forgiveness. They need Christ crucified and risen for them.

We remember our history with gratitude, but we do not live only in the past. Each generation is called to receive the faith, confess it clearly, teach it faithfully, and pass it on to those who follow.

By God’s grace, Redeemer will continue teaching children and adults, strengthening families, caring for the suffering, serving our community, and proclaiming Jesus Christ. We pray that future generations will continue gathering here around the same Word, the same Baptism, the same Supper, and the same saving Gospel.

Our mission remains clear:

Receive Christ’s gifts. Confess His truth. Teach the faith. Serve the neighbor.

Our story began long before us, and it will continue after us because the Church belongs to Christ.

Christ crucified and risen, for you.