The History of Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church

On June 8,1995, fourteen people from eight families met to organize a new congregation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) in Chesapeake. The group met on a weekly basis to discuss the goals and accomplish the tasks necessary to start a new congregation. The name "Faith" was chosen for the new church because we were responding in faith to the great commission to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The city of Chesapeake was chosen as the mission field because it is a growing community and did not have a single LCMS congregation. The English District of the LCMS gave us its blessing to start this new mission. On August 6, 1995, with 28 in attendance, Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church held it's first worship service at Twiford Colonial Chapel in Great Bridge, lead by Rev. Dennis Lorenz, former mission director for the English district. On March 2, 1997, we celebrated Charter Sunday with former President and Bishop of the English District, Rev. Roger Pitelko, making Faith an official congregation of the LCMS. Faith continued to reach out to the community through evangelism calls and to hold weekly services at Twiford Colonial Chapel, which were lead by either military LCMS chaplains or members of the congregation. In the early Spring of 1998, Rev. Chris Morales accepted a call to our congregation. Pastor Morales has been in the ministry for over 25 years, and preached his first sermon at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church May 10, 1998.  Pastor Morales shares the same vision as the members of Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church; to reach out to the community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.