Gloria Christi College Lutherans is a registered student organization with University of Northern Colorado and is a local
chapter of Christ on Campus of Higher Things (a confessional Lutheran youth and campus ministry organization).
GCCL is the college student outreach of Gloria Christi to students of UNC and Aims Community College as well as other
young adults of general college age.
Please scroll down below to our student referral form, if you a pastor or family member who is concerned for the spiritual
well-being of your student in Greeley and would like them to be involved with GCCL.
Contact our on-campus representative, Brandon Ross at concord.1580@yahoo.com for more information and our schedule
We encourage and invite students to join us for Sunday Divine Services and Midweek Services while attending college in Greeley.
We also offer Bible study and social activities to grow in faith and understanding and in friendships with fellow Christians.
We hope as well that as students graduate and as some find regular homes and jobs in the Greeley area that they will continue
on with Gloria Christi for their regular church home.
As a university student, you find yourself academically challenged every day. Learning is, after all, the main point of
going to college. It is also one of the main reasons for having a campus ministry.
+ Grow in your faith through indepth study of the Scriptures.
+ Learn more about what you believe as a Lutheran and why.
+ Find an anchor in the fast-moving stream of university life.
+ Have fun and cultivate friendships with other Christians.
+ Put your talents and skills to use serving God through involvement at the Gloria Christi.
+ Abide in the grace of Jesus Christ through regular worship and prayer.
+ Receive real pastoral care through conversation, instruction, private confession and absolution, and attending the Divine
Service.
JOIN OUR E-MAIL GROUP FOR CAMPUS MINISTRY NEWS AND DISCUSSIONS:
WHY STICK WITH THE CHURCH RATHER THAN PARACHURCH GROUPS?
God's plan for His people was not a para-church, something created alongside the Church, but the Church, the assembly
of believers among whom the Gospel is purely taught and the sacraments rightly administered. We are called to faithfulness
to God's Word and to the fellowship of our church. Our confirmation vows also emphasize this.
Christianity is not a solo project. There is a reason that Christ instituted the Church, and did not leave us as free
agents, seeking salvation outside of community. Yet paradoxically, the second is this: our faith is intensely personal, that
we carry within ourselves the seeds of our own destruction, which we must confront and struggle against.
We must watch for each other. We must be available in a multitude of ways; not only physically, but in prayer, in concern,
in love. In connection with the Word, the sacraments of Christ are given by Him within the gathered Church in the Divine
Service. Just as we carry each other, we also present ourselves to the Great Physician each Sunday, for the healing of every
wound, every illness, every sin and infirmity by the gospel mysteries. We do this through partaking of the Eucharist, through
prayer and through making confession, receiving Christ's absolution. Together, we make our way to the Cross, with transparent
heart and fervent souls, bearing each other's burdens and cares, there to meet our Lord. This is what Church is all about
and this is what attending Divine Service with the Church is all about. Christ instituted the Church. In the Large Catechism,
Martin Luther says about the Third Article on The Church:
51] But this is the meaning and substance of this addition: I believe that there is upon earth a little holy group and
congregation of pure saints, under one head, even Christ, called together by the Holy Ghost in one faith, one mind, and understanding,
with manifold gifts, yet agreeing in love, without sects or schisms. 52] I am also a part and member of the same, a sharer
and joint owner of all the goods it possesses, brought to it and incorporated into it by the Holy Ghost by having heard and
continuing to hear the Word of God, which is the beginning of entering it. For formerly, before we had attained to this, we
were altogether of the devil, knowing nothing of God and of Christ. 53] Thus, until the last day, the Holy Ghost abides with
the holy congregation or Christendom, by means of which He fetches us to Christ and which He employs to teach and preach to
us the Word, whereby He works and promotes sanctification, causing it [this community] daily to grow and become strong in
the faith and its fruits which He produces.
54] We further believe that in this Christian Church we have forgiveness of sin, which is wrought through the holy Sacraments
and Absolution, moreover, through all manner of consolatory promises of the entire Gospel. Therefore, whatever is to be preached
concerning the Sacraments belongs here, and, in short, the whole Gospel and all the offices of Christianity, which also must
be preached and taught without ceasing. For although the grace of God is secured through Christ, and sanctification is wrought
by the Holy Ghost through the Word of God in the unity of the Christian Church, yet on account of our flesh which we bear
about with us we are never without sin.
55] Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered to the end that we shall daily obtain there nothing but
the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here. Thus,
although we have sins, the [grace of the] Holy Ghost does not allow them to injure us, because we are in the Christian Church,
where there is nothing but [continuous, uninterrupted] forgiveness of sin, both in that God forgives us, and in that we forgive,
bear with, and help each other.
56] But outside of this Christian Church, where the Gospel is not, there is no forgiveness, as also there can be no holiness
[sanctification]. Therefore all who seek and wish to merit holiness [sanctification], not through the Gospel and forgiveness
of sin, but by their works, have expelled and severed themselves [from this Church].
