Beautiful Stained glass windows, very old, with German writing…read more
Unfortunately the historic part of the church is not well maintained and has been turned into a rec room. One old window is in the church area though, and castes beautiful light.
Interior modern, but not too modern. 60s slimline traditional church design, a little worn around the corners today, but nice. First thing you notice though, the church is pink and purple and mauve. Interesting choice. Eventually you get used to it, and your retina stop burning. Not a huge detraction.
The organ was nice. Older electric analogue type. The oranist was talented, seemed to take himself a little to seriously though.
The service was confusing, unappealing. The same basic format as a catholic mass, which was not the problem. That the way lutheran services are, I understand. It is just it was not quite a Catholic mass, and somehow worse. Lots of standing up and sitting down in succession. Lots of seniors stuggling, or not able to do all this at all. This either confused everybody else, or they were already confused themselves to start with.
Nice children's church. It was the highlight of the service. Children's hymn was the only hymn anybody sang. Half of the members seemed to leave when the kids went to Sunday school (in another building). Church was kind of empty. I would have been good with leaving the service at that point. It was very long. Standing for prayers, readings and hymns. Sitting for a few minutes in between, then up again.
This church prints almost everything out. Except the bible passages, which are in a separte folder... and the hymns, which come from the red book - or another sheet of paper (or perhaps someplace else other times). I don't know, but it seemd like I was fumbling through four things at all times. One source would have worked.
Another sort of issue, was the minister was _CONSTANTLY_ saying "our service continues on page...." or on the blue isert or whatever and waiting for everybody to get there. The whole thing could have been about a half hour shorter with out all these directions. Do the people who attend church there not get it either? Maybe they could stream line it a little.
Nice hymn selection. Traditonal, easy to sing hymns for the most part. Unfortunately, the singing didn't go to well. Organ was a little loud. Everybody looked a little shell shocked. I get the impression, they minister and the organist have high flown cathedral style ideas. Nobody else is into it, but they come anyway out of sheer dogedness or forece of habit. Nobody sang. Now, keep in mind, this is not a pentecostal mega church, joel osteen type thing. That is not the way these kind of protestants are. There is such a thing as gentle, meditative, traditional relaxed church singing. Some lutheran and UCC churches nail it. This church seemed like they never heard of it, or at least never heard of the hyms that had been picked. Sad.
The minister looks exactly like what you imagine a minister should look like. Tall, silver hair, blue eyes. Decent voice, projects well, speaks without notes, comes away from the pulpit -everything good except he has a very strong New York accent mixed with something else I couldn't figure out. He is definitely older though, and his emotional balance seems fragile. At one point he started bawling in the middle of his speech. Very uncomfortable. At another he seemed angry, and at another blissful, beatific and not quiet there. It was like a roller coster, although he seemed lucid, and friendly at the end drinking cofee.
Sermon content: I know this is why a lot of people come to church. Sermon was short, 9 minutes or so. Concise, and relatively cohesive. Good. Preaching style. eh. Now, a Lutheran church is not where you are going to hear "solid biblical preaching" or anything like that. This is more or less liberal, cultural Christianty. This minister was not hippy dippy, or a radical feminist lesbian, or talking about his interest in Buddhism or something like that, like many mainline protestant ministers do. Obviously, he was not a fundamentalist nut either. He seemed though to preach from a position of very vague academic interest. Nothing very substantial. He seemed to guess, from his going on retelling a very common, simple bible story, without insightful comment - just giving the story, that the congregants had never heard it before (even though a women got up and read it 5 minutes before from the little pulpit.) His main point was that you shouldn't take the bible literally. (That wouldn't be classy, I glean from his tone.) Prayer and church services are for social benefit, and help people feel connected. Stick with them, even if everything is going to pot. He was nice enough, and seemed to have a balanced perspective. Left me wondering though what the point of coming and listening was though.
