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Dunedin LCMS Church Marking 50th Anniversary

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

The Rev. Peter Kolb, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church, Dunedin, prepares to lead his congregation in its 50th anniversary celebration on Feb. 2 and 3.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: February 2, 2008

Howard Jones can remember listening to his boyhood pastor in Groton, S. D.

"He would preach so hard he would break out in sweat. We sometimes caught some of that sweat." That was because his grandmother insisted the Jones children sit in the front row.

"She was a strong Lutheran," recalled the 83-year-old Jones, who was baptized in the South Dakota church when he was 8 days old.

Having been active in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, all of his life, Jones is preparing for the 50th anniversary celebration today and tomorrow of Faith Lutheran Church, an LCMS congregation in Dunedin. Jones is now a member of that church.

Program expanded

Although the emphasis on faith is still the same as when he was a youngster, Jones has seen the program of the LCMS expand over the years.

For example, to illustrate his congregation's increased child friendliness, he points to the mini-sermons for children the Rev. Peter Kolb, the church's pastor, delivers.

As for adults, church activities now range from picnics to PowerPoint presentations. It also welcomes the community, allowing non-Lutheran groups to meet there.

As it embarks on its second half-century, the Dunedin church is preparing to take the next step by participating in "Ablaze! Connection!" This Internet-based program of the LCMS, a form of interactive learning community, will touch on home, work, community and church issues.

According to the "Ablaze!" Web site, it offers podcasts and on-demand learning opportunities. Its creators envision an eventual distance learning system on the site.

Topics now covered include peacemaking, authentic living, grandparenting and "tweenagers," the age before the teen years.

Jones is director of communications in a small group at the Dunedin church that has been piloting the program since November.

Setting Ablaze!

When fully working, Ablaze! will allow Lutherans to watch lessons as a group or log on individually at home.

At this point, the national body is still working out technological kinks but Jones has no doubt the Synod will eventually conquer technology.

"They'll just keep at it," Jones chuckled. "That's one of the characteristics of German Lutherans. They never give up."

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod was founded in April 1847 by a number of Lutheran congregations comprised primarily of German immigrants.

Today, the LCMS, which has about 2.5 million members, tends to be more conservative in matters of doctrine than the roughly 5 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in American, the nation's largest Lutheran group.

The LCMS will use "Ablaze!" as a tool in its goal to share Christianity worldwide with 100 million unreached and uncommitted people by 2017, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's movement to change the Roman Catholic Church.

What has come to be known as the Reformation began in October 1517, when Luther, a German Augustinian monk and professor of theology, published a 95-item attack on Catholic doctrine and practices of the time.

Through "Abalze!" individual LCMS churches have been challenged to use their creativity in coming up with their own plans to reach target groups. Members of Faith have already passed out packets of flower seeds with the church's name and address on one side and a blessing on the other. This is just one of the church's local approaches to the effort.

The start

According to "Fifty Years of Faith," a history compiled by Jones in honor of the anniversary, the Dunedin church officially began in 1958, with a gathering of 35 people.

It had previously met for a couple of years in people's homes and in the local Lion's Club before receiving its charter from the Synod's Florida-Georgia District.

Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, an LCMS congregation in New Port Richey, also began meeting at about the same time. At the time both churches were under a mother LCMS congregation, First Lutheran Church in Clearwater.

The New Port Richey congregation celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006, using the date of the church's first gathering as its anniversary date.

But the Dunedin group is employing the date of its chartering as its anniversary. Even though that was June 2, 1958, the celebration is being held early to accommodate the church's large number of snowbirds, according to Rev. Kolb.

Anniversary activities today will include a retrospective by long-time members, including Bob Ossian, who has attended the church since 1962. Tomorrow, the Missouri Synod's Florida-Georgia District president, the Rev. Dr. Gerhard C. Michael Jr., will speak.

For more information go to the Ablaze! Connection at www.ablazeconnection.org. For pictures of the anniversary event, go to suncoastnews.com, keyword: lutheran.

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