St. Paul Lutheran celebrating its 150th anniversary

AMHERST — The community is invited to a free concert Thursday to celebrate the 150th anniversary of St. Paul Lutheran Church. The Kapelle Choir of Concordia University in Chicago will perform at 7 p.m., said Pat Echko, a member of the congregation who helped organize the event. Echko said the 31-member choral group led by conductor Charles P. Brown is on its spring tour, and St. Paul is its only stop in Ohio. "It's a real mix. They do a a little bit of everything, they perform with piano and the organ, they move around the stage. Some of it is highbrow, and some is familiar," she said. The event is just the start of a slate of activities to celebrate St. Paul's century and a half of existence. Echko said congregation members have been bringing personal mementos and artifacts of the church's history, like christening and marriage certificates, photos and church bulletins, to display. The current building was built in 1953, said the Rev. Paul Werner, who came to the church seven years ago as its 17th pastor. The congregation was initially founded in 1875 by German settlers who bought land in downtown Amherst a block away from the historic 1907 school building for $400 and built two churches there. The first one burned down and, in 1876, they erected another one, Werner said. The church recognizes Feb. 7, 1875, as its official anniversary and invited the district president to come and preach and attend a celebratory brunch at the church, he said. In the early days of the church, services were taught in German, the native tongue of the farmers that founded it, Werner said. Its first pastor taught St. Paul Lutheran School, meeting in City Hall offices, until St. Paul adding a school building onto their church. For 41 years, St. Paul had its own school, but since it was just a block away from a city school, church leaders eventually decided to do away with it, he said. It wasn't until shortly before World War I before worship services were performed in English on Sunday night. By the end of the 1930s all services had become English-only, Werner said, to show they were "citizens of the United States." In the 1980s, with the Ford Motor Co. in Lorain and shipyards, steel plants, and manufacturing and manufacturing yards still running in Elyria and Lorain, Werner said St. Paul's attendance peaked. Back then, two Sunday morning services were scheduled, with 225 to 250 people attending both. "They'd have chairs down aisles and the fire marshals would say 'no no no,' " he said, laughing. Nowadays, about 80 attend Sundays, and there are still ancestors of founding members in the congregation. There is a preschool that has been around for 45 years. "Safe, Christian, loving. Good education. Lots of new folks moving in," Werner said. Other events are planned this year to mark the anniversary, Echko said. An orchestra from Oberlin College will perform a piece from Schubert on Palm Sunday. This summer, a contemporary band concert is in the works, and on Sept. 14 the entire congregation will attend a banquet at Germans Villa in Vermilion. "We have to celebrate this. Organized religion is changing, the fact that we have been in existence this long and we are still going, is something," she said. "We are looking forward to celebrating that 175th and 200th anniversary. I won't be there, but they will." Werner said a comment from a former pastor, whose tenure spanned from 1933 through 1952, stood out to him as he sifted through some of the mementos. "He wrote that the real history is not in the building, and not in the date. It's written in the hearts of the people. We'll only know the history of St. Paul when we get to heaven. It's in the people, the families, the people that are yet to be reached in the future" St. Paul Lutheran Church is at 115 Central Drive. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.