St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, along with all Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregations, subscribes to The Book of Concord, which is a collection of documents that Christians from the 4th to the 16th century (and since) have used to explain what they believe and teach on the basis of Holy Scripture.  This book is not the rule, judge, and norm for our life (Scripture is), but is a collection of confessions of the one true faith and correct expositions of what the Old and New Testaments teach. Because there are so many different interpretations of what the Bible teaches, the Book of Concord is a necessary collection of confessions that acknowledge and differentiate between true and false doctrines, thereby allowing the Bible to be that which rules and directs our lives.