It serves the communities of Venice, Mar Vista, and Marina del Rey, and is in the Pacific Southwest District of the LCMS.

Venice is home to a thriving artistic community, and First Lutheran is described as "an 'art friendly' church" that hosts programs "looking at the divine through visual arts, readings and music.

The series began in the wake of the church's restoration efforts following a 1998 electrical fire which gutted the sanctuary, and concerts took advantage of the church's new "acoustically reverberant hall in which everything sounds entrancing.

The church also features an exterior mural, Jesus Roller Skating with Friends in Venice Beach, created in 1997 by Ft. Maur Van Doorslaer, a Benedictine monk from St. Andrew's Abbey in the Antelope Valley.

[5][6] In an episode of Safe At Home, Orson Bean writes in a light vein about the decision of his wife Alley Mills to be baptized as an adult by the pastor of First Lutheran, where the couple had been attending services regularly for several years, and of walking down to the beach together with "Pastor Ken," to fulfill Ally's wish to be baptized within the waters of the Pacific Ocean.