New to this community?
We are glad you’re here. We want you to know that for whatever reason you chose to spend a little time here, it matters to us. And we want you to know you are welcome.
It’s important to us that everyone feels welcome, and we work to make that a reality. Whether you’re a life-long Lutheran or someone who is just curious, you are welcome here.
Just come as you are because we’re not perfect. We’re not even trying to be perfect, just real. We are folks who bring all our faults and flaws, all of our gifts and talents, all our brokenness and stories of healing and try to live the life we’re meant to live — the life God gave us. We have learned that’s easier when we do it together. And we’d love you to join us because we’d be more complete if you do.
We are church. But what does that mean?
For us, it means people who gather around the story of what God is doing …
— in the world and in us
It is a STORY … a really LONG story that started at the beginning (Genesis), and is still going on here and now.
We believe that story centers on how God is loving and healing the world through Jesus (John 3.16-17).
We believe Jesus came to RECONCILE the world … and RECONCILIATION is really important because …
We are meant to be connected. God created us to be in relationship with God and all creation (Genesis again).
But we are broken. Our relationships with God, one another, and creation are not what they are meant to be (Romans 3.23).
So God decided to change the nature of our relationship — to RECONCILE us from being at odds with each other to being friends with each other again. RECONCILIATION is restoring broken relationships. Jesus is our reconciler, and through him we have a new kind of life that we are meant to share (2 Corinthians 5.17-19).
That’s the story we gather to hear. That’s the story we are called to tell. That’s the story we try to live as best we can, with God’s help.
Living the life we are meant to live is real life. Life. Here. Now. Let’s live it together.
Our Name
The word “reconciliaton” means repairing brokenness. But how did it become our church’s name?
In 1983, the year before he was called to start a new congregation in Wilmington, Pastor Frank Perry and his wife Martha visited Berlin to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth. A friend showed them the site where a church called the Church of Reconciliation once sat in the middle of the Berlin Wall.
The church had been founded in 1894 as a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II. When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, the East German government as a concession to tearing it down, enclosed the church within the wall. Since the parishioners were no longer able to use the church, a new Church of Reconciliation was built a block away. The old church stood until 1985 when it was torn down because guards claimed it impeded their vision.
Pastor Perry was so impressed with the history of the Church of Reconciliation that he recommended that the new church in Wilmington include “reconciliation” in its new name.
From the ruins of the Reconciliation Church a new chapel rose. Volunteers from fourteen eastern and western European nations helped in the rebuilding.
“The chapel also has a replica of Coventry Cathedral’s Statue of Reconciliation, a gift of the Cathedral found in Hiroshima and Belfast too – also places emerging from the destructiveness of war.”
