our mission

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The mission of Holy Trinity is to Share God’s Love. We share that love with those who struggle to find a place to belong in this world,  those who long for something to believe that gives life meaning and purpose, and those who desire to become what God created them to be.  We would like to share God's love with you!

Read our full Welcome & Inclusion Statement.

OUR Values

The values that guide our mission, our future and help us all live as God calls us to live are:
  • Authentic Worship - Worship that is focused on God, God's Word and sacraments, and invites genuine praise and meaningful encounter with God in Christ.
  • Radical Hospitality - Going the extra mile to welcome and include all people into our life as a congregation and individuals.
  • Intentional Compassion - Sharing God's love and care for family, friends, members, neighbors and the world on purpose.
  • Extravagant Generosity - Sharing what God has first given us in ways that show the abundance of God's grace.
  • Spiritual Transformation - Learning, growing, worshiping and living in a way that invites Christ, through the power of the Spirit, to transform and change us.
  • Fearless Witness - Making decisions and acting boldly in faith in ways that demonstrate our trust in God and each other.
These values are intended to guide us as a community and encourage us individuals to live our faith deeply. They should represent who we are already at our best, who we want to be as God calls us to grow.

Our Beliefs

While the scriptures, creeds and confessions of the Church across time and space profess the faith we hold, the essence of our congregation’s beliefs are summed up in God’s love.
  • God is love that binds together everyone and everything.
  • God's love is guaranteed for all through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
  • God's love is not earned, but is a free gift to broken people.
  • God's love is poured out when God's people gather around Word, water, wine and bread.
  • God's love is shared abundantly when God's people are the hands, feet and open arms of Jesus.
  • God's love transforms us to be the people God created us to be.
These statements of belief sum up, but do not replace or modify the ancient creeds or confessions of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. A complete statement of faith can be found in our constitution.

our vision

The Open Arms of Jesus
​The people of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church strive to emulate and incarnate the open arms of Jesus Christ as he revealed God's love by embracing the broken, welcoming the outcast, and giving his life on the cross.

Follow this link to read the complete vision statement and implementation plan for the first 3-5 years.
​Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours

- Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
We propose that what the Des Moines metro area, and specifically Ankeny, need is not another cookie cutter attempt to give people what they want.  Nor does Ankeny need another congregation committed to preserving its past; to institutional “survival” that ultimately leads to death. There are enough examples of both around us. We propose that Ankeny needs
  • A congregation that honors the ancient traditions of the church while it presents them in ever new ways, to an ever changing community;
  • A congregation where people can find not just the latest spiritual fads, but find a path to spiritual growth and maturity that touches their broken places, offers meaning and hope for every day, and roots people in a faith that is both ancient and future;
  • A congregation that proclaims a message of God’s love and grace revealed in Christ and his people in a way that seriously welcomes those who have been unwelcome for a host of reasons; loves those who are hard to love; embraces those who have been beat up by the church’s judgmental words; ministers to those who have been, for whatever reason, dismissed disenfranchised, disaffected by, and become disgusted with the church because they did not find good news;
  • A congregation that becomes known as THE place that doesn’t just care about the hungry, but makes a difference in their lives, locally, national and globally and offers those in need the opportunity to be welcomed and grow in faith and the ability to live each day;
  • A congregation that passes on the faith to a new generation in a way that makes a difference in the lives of the participants and the whole world;
  • A congregation that cares more about growing disciples than about growth in membership numbers;
  • A congregation that equips people to live and serve in the congregation and the world according to their gifts and skills instead of the congregation’s demands;
  • A congregation that embodies the open arms of Christ on the cross in all it says and does.