Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church, the oldest, continuous Lutheran church west of the Missouri River, is the birthplace of Lutheranism in Nebraska and the Nebraska Synod (1871), and has been worshiping, growing, and serving in downtown Omaha for over 160 years. Kountze Memorial (originally known as Emanuel’s Evangelical Lutheran Church) was founded in 1858, by Rev. Henry W. Kuhns, as a mission church of the Allegheny Synod of Pennsylvania. At the time, there were no other Lutheran congregations in the area. In 1862, after renting meeting facilities for a time, the congregation built a modest church at 13th and Douglas, the current site of the Holland Performing Arts Center. The church bell, cast in 1867, is the oldest church bell in Nebraska and was recently refurbished and remains in use in the current church building at 26th and Farnam. A second church building was built in 1885 at 16th and Harney at a cost of $50,000 with a gift from charter member Augustus Kountze. This ...
By Bishop Brian Maas We have now formally kicked off the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Nebraska Synod. We’ll spend the next year reflecting on our shared history and inviting each congregation to reflect on its own history as well. We do this not to rediscover some glorious past to which we might return (we won’t—we can’t); rather, we study our histories because they remind us of our stories. Our story reaches back not only 150 years, but millennia, to the very origins of God’s people. The Bible is our story, every bit as much as our local histories. We reflect on that story so that we might continue to live that story; to see what chapters are yet to be written. This is the why behind the reflection and the history-telling; to remind ourselves of all of those times when God was present in spite of what seemed to be happening in the world—to see God at work in the joys and celebrations we’ve known, and to recognize God’s presence with us in the sorrow...
First Lutheran Church of Lincoln began its life in 1870 as Swedish settlers founded a church in the newly established capital of Nebraska. Though we often assume early founders were heroic pastors, First was mostly a lay movement in its first 30 years, served by a shifting array of preachers who travelled among congregations struggling to establish themselves on the prairie. First Lutheran Swedish Church consisted mostly of new immigrants, many of them young Swedish women brought over as domestics to serve in the houses of the growing town. This early open outreach and service remained a mark of First's ministry, situated as it was in a small structure at 13th and K Street near the heart of the growing town. However, the development of First Lutheran didn't really accelerate until the turn to a new century, when a larger building with a pipe organ was established; the focus on the pipe organ in the expense of building a new structure reveals another long term orientation of t...
Comments
Post a Comment