"Your Home Church ... Away From Home"

Yesterday was my grandmother's 94th birthday.  I sang "Happy Birthday" to her over a Skype video chat, and as I marveled at how amazingly well she's doing, both mentally and physically, she marveled at the fact that she could see and hear me, in real time, despite being 5000 miles apart.  Pretty amazing for a woman who was a teenager during the Prohibition Era.

When my grandmother married my grandfather, around 1940, my grandmother converted from being a Presbyterian to being a Lutheran.  My grandfather, Reverend George Edward Bowersox, Jr., had graduated from, or was about to graduate from, the Gettysburg Theological Seminary to become a Lutheran pastor like his father.  I think it's pretty safe to say that Lutheranism is in my blood. 

I grew up attending Trinity Lutheran Church with my grandparents and parents in Somerset, Pennsylvania.  My brother and I were baptized there.  My grandfather's funeral service was held there.  It was, and always will be, my church home.  Although I knew the Lutheran service and many of the traditional Lutheran hymns by heart, I was open to attending other churches after I left Somerset to go to college, and I did attend other services from time to time.  But somehow, for some reason (and I'm still working on figuring out what that reason might be), I keep coming back to Lutheran churches.     

Trinity Lutheran Church- Somerset, PA

For example, St. Peter's Lutheran Church was one block from the Lehigh University campus, and more importantly, offered 11:00 Sunday services, allowing me to set my alarm for 10:50 and roll directly out of bed and into a church pew.  This church also provided us college kids with care packages for Finals' Weeks, which was a really kind, and much appreciated, gesture.

St. Peter's Lutheran Church- Bethlehem, PA

A few years later, I found myself thoroughly enjoying a sermon given by Reverend Michael Church one Spring Sunday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Astoria, Queens.  I had walked past this impressive stone building almost every day that Fall and Winter on my way from the Broadway N & W Subway stop to my apartment on 30th Avenue, and decided it was time to stop in and see what a New York City Lutheran church was all about.  Once again, I found myself feeling at home, satisfied both by the intellectual approach Pastor Church took to preaching and the delicious coffee hour treats that followed the service each Sunday- shamelessly wooed by food yet again.

Trinity Lutheran Church- Astoria, NY

In Kigali, we tried out a couple of different services before discovering the Lutheran Church of Rwanda, which was started by Rwandan refugees returning from Tanzania after the 1994 genocide.  Attracted by a small wooden sign that said, "English Service: 9:30 a.m.," we wandered up the red dirt road until we saw the sturdy steel roof that signified an important building.  We quietly took a seat as the pastor finished the opening prayer, his back turned to the small congregation as he faced the cross at the front of the alter.  When he turned around to face us, his eyes lit up and he literally stopped mid-sentence to welcome Rob & me, enthusiastically announcing that Rob Thomson, the basketball player whom he'd watched on television many times, was worshiping here with us today!  After a greeting like that one, how could we not feel welcome and want to return?  We'd found our church in Rwanda, or rather, it had found us. 

Lutheran Church of Rwanda- Kigali, Rwanda

And there was no way to miss this church: Christ Church Lutheran, one of the most prominent structures in Windhoek, located on a hill in the middle of Namibia's capital city.  It's an odd emblem of colonial Germany's presence in Africa, built exactly 100 years ago with construction materials and even the church bells shipped from Europe down the Atlantic to the port city of Swakopmund and then by rail across Namibia to Windhoek.  Although I only worshiped there a few times, the building's presence, and the fact that the church organist happened to be the Head of my University's English Department, drew me in.  Singing hymns in German at an Easter sunrise service in southern Africa is a distinctive memory that will stay with me until I'm 94 (that is, of course, if we could all be so lucky.)

Christ Church Lutheran- Windhoek, Namibia

But perhaps the most remarkable occurrence of a Lutheran church finding me, rather than me finding a Lutheran church, happened last March when I arrived in Cluj.  I started my search for a church community the way I start most searches these days: on Google.  The phrase, "English speaking churches in Cluj, Romania" brought up a couple of search results, the first one being "The English Ministry of the Lutheran Church in Romania" (http://englishministryromania.org/.)  The website was clear, up to date, and most importantly for me, written in English.  I started to read phrases like, "An International Church" and "Community and Purpose in the heart of Transylvania."  It looked promising. I read a bit under the tabs "Worship" and "What We Believe," and then proceeded to click on the "Who We Are -- Pastors" tab.  And here's what I found:

The Rev. Michael Church was raised in Woodstock, New York. He has degrees from Vassar College, Princeton Seminary and the Lutheran seminary at Philadelphia. He was an exchange student at the Mar Thoma seminary in Kerala, India. He has served parishes in New York City and the surrounding area. 

The Rev. Terri Luper Church was born in New Orleans and raised in Waco, Texas. She has a bachelor's degree in Sociology and Business from Baylor University, and an M.Div. from Princeton Seminary. She is also a talented singer with a taste for line-dancing.  Before coming to Romania, she served congregations throughout the New York area.

And then it dawned on me.  There might be a lot of Michael's and a lot of Reverend Church's and a lot of pastors who have served parishes in New York City, but the picture of the pastors right there on the website confirmed it: This was exactly the same Reverend Michael Church whose sermon I had thoroughly enjoyed at Trinity Lutheran Church in Astoria, Queens four Springs ago.  I had found my new church home, yet another Lutheran Church:  the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cluj, Romania.  It's been everything I'd hoped for: community, purpose, and yes, even a weekly coffee hour following the service.

I think my grandfather would be pleased.

Evangelical Lutheran Church- Cluj, Romania