Rev. Paul A. Rydecki, Pastor
Greetings! Emmanuel Lutheran Church has been gathering around God’s Word and Sacraments in Las Cruces since the late 1970’s. We officially organized as a mission of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) in 1987. For awhile we met together in homes, at bridge clubs and at the local VFW, but since 1992 we have been gathering at our present facility on Highway 70. We became an independent Lutheran congregation in 2012, no longer affiliated with the WELS.
Rev. Paul A. Rydecki has been serving as our pastor since April, 2007. Pastor Rydecki graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2000 after completing eight years of pastoral training and was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry in July, 2000. He served as a WELS missionary in Puerto Rico and in Mexico from 2000 – 2007 and was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA) from 2013 until 2022, when he chose to become an independent Lutheran pastor. He is fluent in Spanish, and also has a love for German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
Pastor and his wife, Amy, have been married since 1998. They have four boys, two of whom were born in Puerto Rico, one in Mexico, and one right here in Las Cruces.
We are a catholic (but not Roman Catholic), liturgical, traditional, historical, confessional Lutheran congregation. We observe the calendar of the traditional Church Year and follow the Historic Lectionary. We celebrate the Divine Service/Mass (which always includes the Lord’s Supper) every Sunday, and we welcome visitors.
At the same time, we want our visitors to understand that we follow the historic practice of closed Communion, which means that only communicant members of our congregation or of other congregations that have declared their oneness of faith with us are invited to commune at the Lord’s Table. Classes are offered throughout the year by the pastor so that those who are interested in joining our Communion fellowship have the opportunity to learn about the Christian faith and our confession of it.
We support mission congregations in Colombia and Peru.
