Meet Our Staff
Joseph Tallent
Interim Pastor
After spending 10 years working in drug and alcohol abuse prevention, went to seminary and was ordained in 1985. Served at Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Garner, NC until 2002 and Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church in China Grove until 2018. Currently serving as the interim pastor for Wittenberg Lutheran.
Melanie Hatfield
Church Administrator
Melanie Hatfield joined our staff December 2024. She comes to us with many years of experience as a church administrative assistant in the Charlotte NC area. She served 8 years at Caramel Baptist Church working in the Sports Ministry and Adult/Membership Ministry. Her love for Jesus is her driving factor in all she does for the church.
Linda Cutting
Church Sexton
Linda Cutting has had the pleasure of working for Wittenberg as sexton since 2014. She is married to Gene Cutting and have 3 daughters and 2 sons and are grandparents to 10 amazing young people - an honor to have that role in their lives! Although Wittenberg is not her home church, she feels at home here among her fellow Christian friends who have always treated her as part of this church family.
What We Believe
GOD
We believe in the Triune God - Father, Son, Holy Spirit - mysteriously three in one. God created and loves all creation. We believe that God's Son, Jesus Christ, transforms lives through his death on the cross and his new life through resurrection, and we trust that God's Spirit is active in our lives and in the world.
Salvation
Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation. We teach that all people are sinners. A person is saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We live in the true freedom of Christian love and responsibility.
The Church
We believe that participating in a church community is an important part of the Christian faith. We believe that the church is a fellowship of those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We are called to worship God and reveal God's love and grace in the world. We believe, as members of Christ’s body, that all Christians are called and gifted by the Holy Spirit to serve the world. This church accepts the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds and accepts the teaching of the Augsburg Confession as a faithful witness to the scriptures.
Scripture
We believe that the canonical Scriptures of the Old & New Testaments are the written Word of God. Inspired by God’s Spirit speaking through their authors, they record and announce God’s revelation, centering in Jesus Christ. Through them, God’s Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world. The Holy Scriptures are the inspired Word of God and the source and norm for proclamation, faith, and life.
Sacrament
We are nourished in our faith through the sacraments of baptism and communion. Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, by the power of the Spirit, comes to us through the reading of the Scriptures, the proclamation through preaching, the announcement of the forgiveness of sins, through Holy Communion, and in the gathered community. By the power of the Spirit active in Holy Baptism, this Word—Jesus Christ—washes a people to be Christ’s own Body in the world.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
