About The Church

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Vision and values
 

Who we are
 

Leadership:
The Church Council and the Staff

Vision and values

Our vision as a church is:

Together with Jesus out to people.

Our core values are: Inclusive – genuine – generous

Inclusive:   

We aim to be a fellowship that embraces all generations and nationalities, and where individuals are seen and valued. We seek to be outward focused and meet our fellow man where we are.

Genuine:

We aim to be honest, trustworthy and true in our behaviour and we want to add to each others value! We practice openness, dialogue and involvement.  We seek to live after God’s word and to follow Jesus every day.

Generous

We want to show kindness and love by serving one another. We let people into our lives and our homes and share the word of God.

Who are we?

There are many different churches in Norway and it may at times be hard to grasp the difference between the ones that exist, especially outside The Norwegian Church.

Therefore we wish to give you a brief explanation of who we are.

Frikirkens official name is  The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church. What does this mean?

We are a Lutheran church.

We belong to the Lutheran branch and are therefore on the same branch as The Norwegian Church. In other words, we are Lutheran.

We are an evangelical church.

Therefore, we belong to the same tradition as most churches except for the catholic and the orthodox church. Furthermore, one of our most important heritage from the reformist of the 1500 hundreds is e.g. the following edicts from Luther:

The word alone – not tradition.
We believe that the Bible is the word of God and that it is a crucial foundation for what we believe and teach, and for how we live.

While the Catholics build their theology on the bible and tradition, Martin Luther claimed that only the scripture could give us the answer to theological questions. He, therefore, dismissed the authority of tradition, represented in the pope’s word and the church councils.

Faith alone – not deeds.
Martin Luther criticized the church of his time for laying to much weight on deeds. He said that salvation is given by faith alone, not deeds. This was, by Luther, founded in Paul’s letter to the Romans, in the New Testament. See Romans 3,20-22: «20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it–»

By grace alone – not human power.
What did Luther believe could give salvation, when good deeds weren’t enough? Luther believed only by God’s grace could man be saved. We as humans can only receive mercy, not gain it through our strength. In other words, God’s goodness is freely given through grace.

We are a Free church

When the Free Church was born in 1877 it was mainly a reaction to the state church order of the time. One of the main slogans was:” The church should be led and managed by their own, believing members.”

In other words, we are a church that is free and independent from the Norwegian state. We choose who we want to hire, we take responsibility for our economy and activity.

We also have more freedom than the Norwegian Church to decide over our services and how they are organized.

If you wish to know more please contact our pastor or our elders.

Church council

The church council consist of the staff, the elders and the deacons.

Contact information Elder’s Council: eldseradet@trondheim.frikirke.no

Leader: Sveinung Sørhaug

 

Contact information Deacon’s Council: Steinar.Myhr@trondheim.kommune.no 

Leader: Steinar Myhr -  

 

Contact information Staff

Senior pastor: Helge Standal, helge@trondheim.frikirke.no, phone:91 75 71 51

Pastor: Ingebrikt Kvam, ingebrikt@trondheim.frikirke.no

International Leader: Hans Christian Sugustad Kvåle, hans@trondheim.frikirke.no

Children- and family leader: Daniel Vedvik, daniel@trondheim.frikirke.no

Volunteer: Bendik Hermansen, bendik@trondheim.frikirke.no