The Atlantic Mission Region (AMR) of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) is a regional subdivision of NALC congregations in the Mid-Atlantic area. Currently this Mission Region includes four mission districts:  the Northeast Mission District (New Jersey, northeastern Pennsylvania, eastern New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine); the Central Mission District (southeastern Pennsylvania east of the Susquehanna River); the Western Mission District (south-central Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna River to the Maryland border); and the Maryland/Virginia Mission District (Delaware, eastern Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC). The AMR and its congregations work to effectively uphold the ministry and mission of the NALC.

The NALC is served by a bishop, and by regional (district) pastors who are called deans. The body of the AMR elects a dean who serves in an oversight position in the region, is accountable to and supports the work of the NALC Bishop, is a pastor to the district’s pastors, their families and congregations, and will conduct a ministry of teaching and visitation with pastors and congregations. Additionally, the Dean reports to the AMD Council whose members are also elected by the AMD. The Dean is an ordained minister of the NALC. While in the position of Dean he/she may continue to serve under the call of a congregation.

As member congregations of the NALC, we are committed to living out together these four values:

  • We are Christ-centered, meaning that Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father, incarnate of the Virgin Mary, crucified and raised from the dead for the forgiveness of our sin and our salvation is at the heart of our lives as individual disciples and as a congregation.
  • We are mission-driven, in that we take seriously our Lord’s command to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and to care for the “least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46).
  • We are traditionally-grounded, meaning our worship, our beliefs, and our practice flow out of the long tradition of the one, holy, catholic (meaning universal), and apostolic church. We are grounded in God’s Word and his sacraments. We believe the Lutheran Confessional documents, the Small and Large Catechisms of Martin Luther, the unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Smalkald Articles witness to God’s truth as revealed in the Bible. And, finally, we affirm those practices of the whole Church that are in accord with Scripture and that nurture and strengthen faith.
  • We are congregationally-focused, meaning that we believe that wider church organizations exist to strengthen the ministries of the local church, the congregation, not to prop up large churchly bureaucracies and budgets. Ministry in this Lutheran communion is bottom up, not top down.

If you would like to get a sense of the NALC please worship with us, and browse the website at this link: www.thenalc.org