An Overview of Our Church
Welcome to Prince of Peace! We hope that your curiosity and our website will help you learn about our community, and more importantly, stir in you a hunger to know God and serve others.
If you’re reading this, you’re most likely someone who just stumbled onto our website in the wilderness of the internet, someone interested in joining a church community, or a member of Prince of Peace just catching up on the website. Whichever the case, here we offer a bit about Prince of Peace.
Some History
- First, the numbers. Approximately 200 people worship together here on a given weekend, but we have closer to 600 people who are actively a part of our life together.
- We’ve been a force for good in Gaithersburg since 1982. We’ve seen suburban Maryland grow up around us and we’ve grown up too.
- Prince of Peace is made up of some life-long Lutherans and others who come from different Christian traditions or no tradition at all.
- We’re part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We prioritize grace and helping our neighbors.
Our Activities
- We worship weekly following a pattern of gathering, reading scripture, hearing a sermon, prayers, communion, and a blessing. The Bible grounds our life together. Lutherans are sometimes accused of not being “bible-based.” I think that’s funny because we’re the people who coined the phrase “sola scriptura” (only scripture). We love the Bible, but we’re generally not fundamentalists. We read the written word and wrestle with it faithfully, trying to figure out what God is saying to us for our time. This sometimes results in disagreements. We welcome diverse views because we know that none of us has everything figured out. We also believe that through our weaknesses, we are made whole.
- We gather asking for God’s wisdom and forgiveness. We receive God’s grace in weekly communion and the gathering of our church. We focus on serving others as the God-given pathway to a deeper life. Once again, service is important to our church. We have monthly service projects and we’re always looking for new ways to get outside ourselves and see Christ in our neighbor.
- We are a friendly church! It’s our aim to make all people feel welcome here, because we think that Jesus welcomed all people.
- Music and playfulness are important to us. In worship you’ll hear and sing all kinds of music, from Handel’s Messiah to Tim McGraw.
- You’ll also see lots of kids. We love kids (and their often overworked parents.) Our youth think that we’re teaching them about Jesus, but really they’re teaching us. We are blessed by their easy access to grace, their delight in faith, and their joy.
Our Ministries
- What else? We love our creation care ministries, especially our garden; our connection to Gaithersburg Help, a local food shelf; our annual high school youth workcamp, where youth spend a week serving others; our prayer ministry; and the small groups that gather to support one another. There’s too much to talk about here – but get to know us through this website and please email us if you have questions. Whoever you are, God is with you on your journey of faith!