As we are wont to do, we spent some time driving around Charleston and environs. We knocked on the door of St. John's Lutheran Church and asked if we could see the sanctuary. The church secretary was a bit frazzled, but she graciously took us over to the church and gave us a brief tour. A son and son-in-law of a member had gone missing yesterday when they were out kayaking around outer islands around Charleston and she was taking a lot of phone calls while they were arranging food for the family.
The St. John's congregation dates its origins to the 1742 arrival of Dr. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the father of the Lutheran Church in America. He stopped for two days in Charleston on his way to visit the Salzburger colony at Ebenezer, Georgia. He returned a month later and spent three weeks waiting for a ship to Philadelphia during which time he held services, taught catechism to the children of the German residents, and held services with communion on Sundays. Two Georgia Salzberger preachers visited for a few days in 1753 and conducted services and gave the sacraments. Rev. John George Friederichs came in 1755 and organized the congregation. While it appears there were several educated and trained men conducting Lutheran services in South Carolina prior to this time, the organization of the congregation into a formal body and the hiring of a pastor seems to mark the beginning of Lutheranism in South Carolina (HSC). Services were held in the French Huguenot Church until the first Lutheran church was completed in 1763. (copied from the church's website.)
Small world story: a woman who had been a vicar here is now the pastor at St. James by the Sea in Ocean Beach (San Diego). Her husband served as an interim pastor at our congregation (First Lutheran) during the vacancy in 2005. We were gone during this period, but join in the prayers for him as he battles cancer today.
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