Concordia College

Our Lutheran Heritage

Concordia College is one of 28 U.S. colleges and universities associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), an ethnically and racially diverse protestant church of nearly 5 million members in 11,000 congregations.

The College serves the life of the church by studying, transmitting and contributing to Christian conviction and practice.  Students engage and examine this tradition for personal growth and for strengthening the Christian community.  The College helps students find authentic religious lives in conversation with a multiplicity of world views and faiths.

In the Lutheran view, students glorify God and love the world by pursuing their studies with wisdom and commitment.  For its part, the vocation of the College is to call and prepare students to influence the affairs of the world in thoughtful, informed and responsible ways — in service to the life that God engenders, redeems and sustains.

At Concordia, our mission is to give our students a college education where faith and intellect are active partners. We’ve created a safe and open learning environment in which personal religious beliefs are examined and nurtured, religious differences are embraced and explored, and the highest priority is placed on engagement with the world and service to others.

More than half of Concordia undergraduates are Lutherans, which speaks to the importance of Concordia as a center for Lutheran education—more Concordia graduates become ordained Lutheran clergy than from any other U.S. college. Our Lutheran character is also a natural result of the ethno-religious heritage of Minnesota and North Dakota, where many Lutheran immigrants from Scandinavia and Northern Europe settled in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Concordia students now represent 52 different religious denominations and come from 39 different states and 37 different countries. We owe much of our vibrant academic culture to a rich diversity of experiences and perspectives from both students and faculty.

While Concordia graduates are professionally successful—they go on to be doctors, lawyers, research scientists, journalists and musicians—we also give them the tools to “make a life, not just a living.” Concordia students understand that no matter what their profession, their true calling is to make the world a better place.