PDR, our heating system is actually a dual system. Heat Pumps are the primary Heating and Cooling system, but we do have gas furnace backups that kick in when the outside ambient temperature reaches a switch point. I am given to understand the switch point can be at different settings given the location of the system.
There are a couple of heat pumps in the cobbled up mess that heats the school building, but they have electric secondary heat sources, which makes them expensive in cold weather. I believe the Lutheran congregation was in the process of replacing the school heating/cooling system, which was hot air (dust roaster!)/conventional AC units, when they decided to build a new church, which is why we were left with an interesting variety of equipment. The church has the steam heat boiler, and convention A/C units, neither of which is terrible efficient, but they get the job done. The gas bill for November was $900, which was a bit eye watering, but then I remembered my last church, which was heated using a dust roaster could get up to $400 and it is only about a quarter of the volume of this place.
I have a love/hate relationship with the chancel arrangements in St Oddballs. It is a very nice example of a 1920 high church Lutheran chancel. The stone altar is long, raised up two steps, and has a low gradine. However, it effectively precludes north ending as the celebrant would be hidden from everyone on the gospel side of the church by the pulpit, and you would need to tack a wooden extension of in footpace to give him somewhere to stand. There isn't really room for a table in front, as the sanctuary is quite shallow, and it would look untidy anyway. I did briefly contemplate moving the communion rails forwards to run between the lectern and pulpit, and putting a Communion Table in the middle of the chancel, but that would be a major job given how the rails are secured into the step.
With Christmas baring down on us, I am getting a smile out of the slightly naughty story about the old congregation in the 1930 to 80s. They always had two large (18' or 20') Christmas trees either side of the altar. These had sufficient spread at the base that they made it difficult to administer communion, so for very many years they did not have communion on Christmas! I guess that is a case of being a bit too attached to a custom!
We (host congregation) have had Christmas tree spread problems, and, well, they just charge ahead. Kneeling in the midst of a sea of pine fronts is an experience.
We will probably keep the church free of Christmas trees, but have one in the bay window at the street end of the parish hall for passers by to enjoy. I'll see what the ladies and the girls have to say about it; men usually don't care.
When we were the guests we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, though it got to close to daggers drawn over the amount of stuff they would deposit on the middle part of the altar making it difficult for us to celebrate communion. I took to carefully moving their stuff out of the way and putting it back afterwards. I was thanking God for the remnants of a photographic memory because they either did not rumble that I was moving stuff, or were too kind to remark on it.
I got the final word on the historical origins of the AO Tables in German Reformed Churches from the historian among my ex-UCC acquaintances. My hunch that it had something to do with the Union Churches was correct. Basically, in the Shenandoah Valley and down into the Lexington/Charlotte area most of the Reformed and Lutheran congregations that started before 1800 were Union churches. Architecturally the compromise was that the Lutherans got to have their AO altars and could have organs and stained glass if they could afford them (which was probably very rare), and the Reformed influence made sure there were no statues, and a very prominent, often central, pulpit. When the era of Union churches came to an end - about 1825-30 - the German Reformed around here retained the more Union Church style of building, and this preference was reinforced by the Mercersburg influence on the theology of the pastors in the Valley and western NC, even though initially there had been a little push back. FWIW, the Lutheran Churches around here still show the influence of the Union Church period in that there is little figurative art beyond stained glass, and there is not over much of that. They did tend to revert to split chancels, though.
A little history behind the Union movement. At the time of the unionization, there were not enough pastors from both traditions to go around, so it made sense that the Reformed and Lutherans would work together.
However, in the 1850s, new groups of Lutherans were coming over to the new land. They were fleeing this very thing in Germany. They wanted to maintain the pure Lutheran doctrine. Thus, LCMS and WELS. With them coming on the scene, there was more of a retrenchment among the older Lutheran bodies.
150 years later, those older bodies had merged and joined the Norwegians to form the ELCA. Now the ELCA is entering once again into fellowship with the Reformed Churches.
It probably helped matters a good deal around here that many of the Germans who came were from the neighbouring states of Hesse, the Rhine Palatinate and Wuerttemberg. None of them were exactly known for the extremity (as opposed to the depth) of their Confessional conviction, and were fairly heavily influenced by the milder forms of Pietism. I also seem to recall that the Wuerttemberg Lutheran, and Palatine Reformed liturgies had some strong similarities, which certainly would not have served to make things more difficult.
Lutheran architecture can have some surprising examples. Seen recently in Louisville, KY : Concordia Lutheran (which whispers of LCMS origins) is an intimate structure (seating I would guess 150) designed by Ralph Adams Cram, I believe his only structure in KY. It is a gem, nicely sited on a major street. The interior, when last seen, resembled a motr Episcopal style of worship. A small pipe organ and choir betw altar (east wall when seen) and nave.
What would be the date on that @TwoRavens ? My shack is mid-1920s LCMS and is a very articulate piece of Gothic Revival, to the point where, thanks to Pfr. Weber, it looks like Percy Dearmer had been moonlighting for the LCMS!
My biggest complaint about Lutheran architecture is the extent to which parishes Anglicized chancels in the 1920s and 1930s. Historically German congregations often had wonderful carved altarpieces. But during the postwar era, these would be replaced by a plain altar and naked cross, rendering the effect very MOTR Episcopalian.
I think that was more of an issue in the Midwest than around here. Historically most of the Lutheran Churches in the Shenandoah Valley were originally Union Churches shared with the German Reformed, so they've always been pretty plain. The deal was that the Lutherans got their railed altar, but there was no statuary. By the time one side or the other moved out - usually around 1820-30 - that had just become the way it was done around here. Our place is 1925, but it 1883 predecessor was equally plain. The main upgrades with the 1920s building was a stone altar and more extensive use of stained glass.
I was definitely thinking of the Midwest, and specifically the parish church where my Mom's family worshiped. Entirely German-speaking until sometime around World War I. Definitely not a Union church -- the pastor who baptized my Mom served as one of the first Presidents of the ALC.
German immigration into the Valley was fairly early - 1720s up to the Revolutionary War depending on who was at war with who in Europe. Most of the German heritage families here are from Württemberg (Lutheran) or the Palatine (Reformed.) Württemberg did not use the usual Lutheran type of liturgy based on the Formula Missae or the German Mass, but one which had more in common with the Swiss Reformed tradition. The denomination distinctives that had to be negotiated were largely a matter of which catechism they used, and to what degree they used chorales as opposed to metrical psalms.
There are also Brethren (German Baptist) and Mennonite communities around here, but I haven't pinned down where they came from originally, but I would assume they were also in the way when the Austrians and the French were having a go at each other, hence the need to move on.
The Union congregations seem to be Valley/Waggon Road thing. There were a few in PA, but the bulk were in VA, and then down into the area between Greensboro NC and Charlotte. St Oddballs' bought its building from a LCMS congregation which had originally been the Lutheran side of a Union Church from about 1780 to 1830. The Reformed eventually left and joined with the Presbyterians which one of the folks at "First Pres" says initiated the 200 Years War over there. I am not sure how literally to take that, but for a Presbyterian Church they do have an awful of German names in their parish history!
Very interesting. Ohio, like most Midwestern states, saw a number of German immigrants in the mid-19th century. The Lutheran parish that I wrote about originally had a faction who wanted an English-speaking church. The German speakers objected and the other faction went off and formed a Presbyterian church. The Lutheran church maintained its German character into the 20th century, and my aunts and uncles were baptized with German names. My Dad's grandparents (from Hesse) attended a Union church in Pittsburgh. German-speaking in the 19th century, by the 1920s it joined the Congregationalists even before the E&R merger. By that time, my family had become Lutheran.
I think the usual rule is three generations for the language to change. Around here the process was largely complete by 1850, but further south the Germans had settled in such numbers that German held sway until the Great War.
I think the usual rule is three generations for the language to change. Around here the process was largely complete by 1850, but further south the Germans had settled in such numbers that German held sway until the Great War.
Or less. The Great War (and kids in English-speaking school) had a lot to do with changing the lingua franca in Mom's household.
Depends on the Lutheran. In my experience we use either cross or crucifix even-handedly, and the choice depends on what the Powers-That-Were-of-Yore decided to purchase. No theology. (How could you rank the crucifixion vs. the resurrection anyway?)
My observation as an outside is that generally parishes where 3x great grandmamas that started the parish came from Scandinavia are happier with a crucifix, but if the aforementioned ancestors came from Germany it will tend to be a cross. I don't see many crucifixes around here because most of the churches regardless of whether they are ELCA or LCMS were German in origin.
@PDR that's fascinating. I wonder what the history is behind that.
The Scandinavians were more conservative about outward things, and the determined attempt to get rid of albs, chasubles and crucifixes did not get very far in Denmark-Norway or Sweden. Indeed the monarchies in both states tended to veto any rapid change of traditional uses.
The North German states on the other hand suffered from bad cases of Rationalism in the 18th century; Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th, and Unionism thereafter, all of which tended to be destructive of traditional uses in one way or another. Prussia was slightly different in that it had a Calvinist monarchy, but a Lutheran majority, which led to some less than gentle pressure on the Lutheran State Church to accept Reformed uses, and Württemberg, etc., were close to Switzerland and had a more reformed-type liturgy and (lack of) ceremonial than the north anyway.
The early settler around here were mainly from Württemberg, so they built pretty simple churches anyway, even when they were not doing the Union Church thing with the local German Reformed. By the way, Prussian Unionism, and American Union Churches are not the same thing. The former was two confessions under one national structure and liturgy; the later was more a pooling of resources based on a common German heritage.
Afraid I have a counterexample: St Louis is lousy with German Lutherans, and we have crucifixes all over the place.
Saxons would tend towards crucifixes. I should have remembered that exception to the rule. They were late giving up the chasuble as well - 1780s. The emigration to St Louis was largely from Saxony and was triggered by the introduction of Prussian style Unionism in Saxony about 1830. The Evangelical Synod - which was Unionist - was also based in the St Louis area (Eden Seminary now UCC) and there used to be a certain amount of non-specific nastiness between to two.
Giving up the chasuble? We've a few in the closet this very moment. (Though Mr. Lamb avoids the yellow one after a confirmand said it made him look like a giant butterfly.)
Giving up the chasuble? We've a few in the closet this very moment. (Though Mr. Lamb avoids the yellow one after a confirmand said it made him look like a giant butterfly.)
I think the chasuble started reappearing in American Lutheranism in the 1950s, though there may have been a few in the Augustana Synod before that, and similarly Scandinavian corners of the universe.
AIUI the black gown was almost universal in the USA for Lutherans at one point, but thing began to improve about 1920 when there was a concerted push in some circles in favour of cassock, surplice and stole. That said, talking to the lady archivist of the Lutheran Church from whom we bought our building, they were still black gown in the 1960s, but then they were low church LCMS. We don't have any WELS parishes around here, but the one up the street from my last parish our West was still black gown on dry Sundays.
Regards, the Saxons that settled in St. Louis. It is said they came over on three ships, but the one carrying the high church vestments and that sank. It is my experience that the Saxons of St. Louis (now the LCMS) became low church largely because of the Baptist influence already in Missouri at the time. I can still remember the pastor who confirmed me wore a black robe. By the time I entered a Missouri Synod college the ministers were wearing a white surplice over a black cassock. By the time I graduated from seminary, ministers were all wearing albs.
What's a dry Sunday please - one when only grape juice is used?
No communion. Up until about 30 years ago the commonest practice around here was Communion once or twice a month, otherwise it was just the Liturgy of the Word, or Ante-Communion.
Here we alternate at both services. So we have HC 1, 3 and 5 in the morning, and MP 2 & 4; then the evening we have EP 1, 3, and 5; and HC 2 & 4. We do ante-communion on Good Friday.
What's a dry Sunday please - one when only grape juice is used?
No communion. Up until about 30 years ago the commonest practice around here was Communion once or twice a month, otherwise it was just the Liturgy of the Word, or Ante-Communion.
The idea of no communion Sunday is not in the Lutheran confessions, but it was a historical fact. The reason for it was when Lutherans began to immigrate to the Americas, there were not enough ordained ministers for every community. Consequently, communities would share ordained ministers. But, because of the distance ministers could not be at each of their churches every Sunday. Therefore, congregations would hold off celebrating communion until their ordained pastor would be available. In some cases, the communities may not have had their minister available but once every three months.
If there must be non-Eucharistic Sunday services (due to lack of clergy or an alternation between communion and no communion), the Lutheran tradition of ante-communion seems sensible. More disruptive is an Anglican pattern of switching the whole service to Morning Prayer if there's no cleric to lead--changing most aspects of the service. If my Episcopal parish found itself with no clergy on a Sunday (hard to imagine, but still), I think the BCP-described liturgy of the Word ending with intercessions and the Peace would let most of the same music be used that was planned for the Mass, and the liturgical pattern would be familiar; it would just end early. Perhaps a lay reader would read a good sermon from a file or approved source.
My lot are familiar enough with MP and EP that switching is not a problem. Indeed alternating MP/HC and HC/EP at the two services was something that was deliberately chosen early on so we did not become a liturgical one trick pony.
Precisely. One of the courses I teach for training course for NSMs is use of the liturgy. I we often have one or two clergy sit in and it is amazing how many of them know the Communion service, the baptism service, the burial office, and not a lot else. The ones who are sketchy on MP and EP really get the evil eye from me as that makes me suspect that they are not saying their offices.
However...
The local (now formerly local) Lutherans used Matins and Vespers a fair bit up until the advent of their present minister who is more your Lutheran-lite type when it comes to the liturgy. In fairness it was mainly the older folks who appreciated it, and that isn't the sort of ministry that interests their current pastor.
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I have a love/hate relationship with the chancel arrangements in St Oddballs. It is a very nice example of a 1920 high church Lutheran chancel. The stone altar is long, raised up two steps, and has a low gradine. However, it effectively precludes north ending as the celebrant would be hidden from everyone on the gospel side of the church by the pulpit, and you would need to tack a wooden extension of in footpace to give him somewhere to stand. There isn't really room for a table in front, as the sanctuary is quite shallow, and it would look untidy anyway. I did briefly contemplate moving the communion rails forwards to run between the lectern and pulpit, and putting a Communion Table in the middle of the chancel, but that would be a major job given how the rails are secured into the step.
With Christmas baring down on us, I am getting a smile out of the slightly naughty story about the old congregation in the 1930 to 80s. They always had two large (18' or 20') Christmas trees either side of the altar. These had sufficient spread at the base that they made it difficult to administer communion, so for very many years they did not have communion on Christmas! I guess that is a case of being a bit too attached to a custom!
When we were the guests we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, though it got to close to daggers drawn over the amount of stuff they would deposit on the middle part of the altar making it difficult for us to celebrate communion. I took to carefully moving their stuff out of the way and putting it back afterwards. I was thanking God for the remnants of a photographic memory because they either did not rumble that I was moving stuff, or were too kind to remark on it.
I got the final word on the historical origins of the AO Tables in German Reformed Churches from the historian among my ex-UCC acquaintances. My hunch that it had something to do with the Union Churches was correct. Basically, in the Shenandoah Valley and down into the Lexington/Charlotte area most of the Reformed and Lutheran congregations that started before 1800 were Union churches. Architecturally the compromise was that the Lutherans got to have their AO altars and could have organs and stained glass if they could afford them (which was probably very rare), and the Reformed influence made sure there were no statues, and a very prominent, often central, pulpit. When the era of Union churches came to an end - about 1825-30 - the German Reformed around here retained the more Union Church style of building, and this preference was reinforced by the Mercersburg influence on the theology of the pastors in the Valley and western NC, even though initially there had been a little push back. FWIW, the Lutheran Churches around here still show the influence of the Union Church period in that there is little figurative art beyond stained glass, and there is not over much of that. They did tend to revert to split chancels, though.
However, in the 1850s, new groups of Lutherans were coming over to the new land. They were fleeing this very thing in Germany. They wanted to maintain the pure Lutheran doctrine. Thus, LCMS and WELS. With them coming on the scene, there was more of a retrenchment among the older Lutheran bodies.
150 years later, those older bodies had merged and joined the Norwegians to form the ELCA. Now the ELCA is entering once again into fellowship with the Reformed Churches.
There are also Brethren (German Baptist) and Mennonite communities around here, but I haven't pinned down where they came from originally, but I would assume they were also in the way when the Austrians and the French were having a go at each other, hence the need to move on.
The Union congregations seem to be Valley/Waggon Road thing. There were a few in PA, but the bulk were in VA, and then down into the area between Greensboro NC and Charlotte. St Oddballs' bought its building from a LCMS congregation which had originally been the Lutheran side of a Union Church from about 1780 to 1830. The Reformed eventually left and joined with the Presbyterians which one of the folks at "First Pres" says initiated the 200 Years War over there. I am not sure how literally to take that, but for a Presbyterian Church they do have an awful of German names in their parish history!
Or less. The Great War (and kids in English-speaking school) had a lot to do with changing the lingua franca in Mom's household.
I think Lutheran will explain that they prefer an empty cross because the emphasis is not on the sacrifice of our Lord, but the resurrection.
The Scandinavians were more conservative about outward things, and the determined attempt to get rid of albs, chasubles and crucifixes did not get very far in Denmark-Norway or Sweden. Indeed the monarchies in both states tended to veto any rapid change of traditional uses.
The North German states on the other hand suffered from bad cases of Rationalism in the 18th century; Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th, and Unionism thereafter, all of which tended to be destructive of traditional uses in one way or another. Prussia was slightly different in that it had a Calvinist monarchy, but a Lutheran majority, which led to some less than gentle pressure on the Lutheran State Church to accept Reformed uses, and Württemberg, etc., were close to Switzerland and had a more reformed-type liturgy and (lack of) ceremonial than the north anyway.
The early settler around here were mainly from Württemberg, so they built pretty simple churches anyway, even when they were not doing the Union Church thing with the local German Reformed. By the way, Prussian Unionism, and American Union Churches are not the same thing. The former was two confessions under one national structure and liturgy; the later was more a pooling of resources based on a common German heritage.
Saxons would tend towards crucifixes. I should have remembered that exception to the rule. They were late giving up the chasuble as well - 1780s. The emigration to St Louis was largely from Saxony and was triggered by the introduction of Prussian style Unionism in Saxony about 1830. The Evangelical Synod - which was Unionist - was also based in the St Louis area (Eden Seminary now UCC) and there used to be a certain amount of non-specific nastiness between to two.
I think the chasuble started reappearing in American Lutheranism in the 1950s, though there may have been a few in the Augustana Synod before that, and similarly Scandinavian corners of the universe.
AIUI the black gown was almost universal in the USA for Lutherans at one point, but thing began to improve about 1920 when there was a concerted push in some circles in favour of cassock, surplice and stole. That said, talking to the lady archivist of the Lutheran Church from whom we bought our building, they were still black gown in the 1960s, but then they were low church LCMS. We don't have any WELS parishes around here, but the one up the street from my last parish our West was still black gown on dry Sundays.
No communion. Up until about 30 years ago the commonest practice around here was Communion once or twice a month, otherwise it was just the Liturgy of the Word, or Ante-Communion.
Here we alternate at both services. So we have HC 1, 3 and 5 in the morning, and MP 2 & 4; then the evening we have EP 1, 3, and 5; and HC 2 & 4. We do ante-communion on Good Friday.
The idea of no communion Sunday is not in the Lutheran confessions, but it was a historical fact. The reason for it was when Lutherans began to immigrate to the Americas, there were not enough ordained ministers for every community. Consequently, communities would share ordained ministers. But, because of the distance ministers could not be at each of their churches every Sunday. Therefore, congregations would hold off celebrating communion until their ordained pastor would be available. In some cases, the communities may not have had their minister available but once every three months.
However...
The local (now formerly local) Lutherans used Matins and Vespers a fair bit up until the advent of their present minister who is more your Lutheran-lite type when it comes to the liturgy. In fairness it was mainly the older folks who appreciated it, and that isn't the sort of ministry that interests their current pastor.