I’m hanging out in Spartanburg, South Carolina for the next week. It’s downright chilly here (the high was only 76)! A month or so back, Curtis Caffey suggested we visit the church and cemetery in Salty, and a few weeks back we did just that. It was a lovely day, and we saw a pair …
Jackrabbit at Salty Community Church and Cemetery Read More »
Morning in Warda, Texas, y’all! In some ways, I’d rather be there than where I am (waiting for my connecting flight to Spartanburg, South Carolina at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Can We Add More Words to Make the Official Name Longer Please International Airport). This morning while I was waiting for my flight out of Austin, …
There’s been no small amount of discussion of baptismal sponsors in our home over the last few days, partly because, God willing, our soon-to-be-born child will be baptized at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Thorndale in early October, but also because of my post from a few days back about Pr. Kilian baptizing the firstborn …
After Pastor Stiemke accepted the call to Trinity Lutheran Church in Houston in 1879, Holy Cross had no pastor for about two years. During this time, the congregation was served by the Rev. Carl Ludwig Geyer of St. Peter’s in Serbin until the vacancy was filled by the Rev. Gottfried Buchschacher. Buchschacher was born in …
“Rejoice with me; for I have found the [that] which I had lost.” Read More »
Pastor Stiemke of Holy Cross was certainly aware of the interpersonal conflicts that had resulted in the separation of Holy Cross as well as St. Peter’s in Serbin from Kilian’s congregation in Serbin. That’s why I find this tidbit from a letter from Pr. Kilian wrote to the Rev. F. J. Biltz in Concordia, Missouri …
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Read More »
The Rev. Timotheus Stiemke was in a difficult situation. He’d been assigned to a new Lutheran congregation in the little town of New Start (a few miles south of Serbin), where he was installed on the fourth Sunday in Advent in 1874. Stiemke was the second pastor to serve the congregation, which had only been …
“And unto the Wends I became as a Wend, that I might gain the Wends…” Read More »
In the last few weeks, I’ve started to get to the point where I’m finding connections everywhere between congregations that I’ve photographed and researched… connections I would have missed six or twelve months ago. Or at least supposed connections. Sometimes those turn into actual connections, though. Somewhere along the way, I ran into a reference …
The Texas Synod (attempts to) expand into Coupland, Texas Read More »
This afternoon I stumbled across an 1880 photograph of Texas Synod pastors on the ELCA Southwestern Synod Archives’ site. https://swtsynod.pastperfectonline.com/…/C961483D-E2A3-4D36… Some of the folks I’ve written about in the past months are pictured here, including the Rev. Frederick Jesse (who joined the Missouri Synod in 1890), the Rev. George Lieb of Round Top (who came …
The last few days have been busy, so here’s another photo of New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church! I’ve written a bit about the Texas Synod over the last few weeks. New Sweden was not part of the Texas Synod; they (along with two other nearby Swedish Lutheran churches– Palm Valley near Round Rock and Gethsemane …
A few weeks ago I wrote about how the Rev. Frederick Jesse, who briefly served at Holy Cross at Rabb’s Creek (now located in Warda) during its short Texas Synod phase, eventually joined the Missouri Synod in 1890. To understand why, let’s go back to the nineteenth century. Over the years, quite a few folks …