I recently posted a page on MonroeCoWI about St John's at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~wimonroe/church/stjohn.html I am forwarding a really nice email from Danielle NAUMAN about the day... She will be sending more information about St John's in the future. R/S MAK Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 02:21:29 From: "Danielle Nauman" <[email protected]> Subject: St. John's Ev. Lutheran Church, Ridgeville, Monroe County, WI Hello, I just wanted to share a little about our day today. My church celebrated the 100th anniversary of the current building. It was very exciting to see our church packed full for two services today. Normally, 40 is a good crowd. Today, we had to set up extra chairs! The first service was our regular service, but included our Vacation Bible School children singing. We have a sister church in Norwalk, and share a pastor. Today, the only morning service was at our church. Communion was really neat today. It went on forever. They just kept coming! Plus, our last pastor was there today. He is the one I grew up with, as he was there from 1975-1993. I was born in 1974. Anyway, he helped with communion, and passed out the wafers, while the current pastor passed out the wine. Then, the old pastor gave the current pastor communion, then vice versa. Then the current pastor took communion to one lady there, who was on an oxygen tank. It was just very neat, and touching. I don't think the lady expected the pastor to do that. After the morning service, there was a lunch that was really nice. My great aunt and uncle from Janesville and their daughter came up. Plus another great aunt and uncle who live in Sparta came out. It was really nice to be able to sit and visit, and talk about family and stories of old times. I had also helped with the history display, and learned so much from working with that. I found out so much information, it is just unbelievable. I also made "dates" with each one of them to go and visit and go through photos. The actual anniversary service was something else. We had two former pastors, one as the liturgist and the other (the one I mentioned earlier) as the preacher. It was neat for me, because the other former pastor had confirmed my dad. We used a service that was translated out of the 1911 "The Lutheran Agenda". This book had been a gift to the congregation from the confirmation class of 1911 (my great-grandpa's older brother was a member of this class, and each confirmand gave about 50 cents to buy the book. There were eleven of them.) During the service, there was a soloist who sang the Lord's Prayer in German, and the choir accompanied him. The pastor I grew up with gave the sermon, and it was all based on was our church worthy of being God's house, because it wasn't glorious enough, or grand enough for God, but that it was worthy because God wanted it. He discussed how the area and the congregation were and lived back then, and how much the church cost (about $8000), in comparison to what it would be now. After the sermon, the current pastor went around and rededicated the baptismal font, the pulpit, the altar, the building and the people of the congregation, exactly as it was dedicated 100 years ago. I apologize for the long post, but today was just such a neat day! Danielle Nauman Norwalk, WI ===== =========================== MAK = "Mar sea ah Ann Keel" WI ACS http://www.rootsweb.com/~wigenweb/ MAKs Sites http://www.rootsweb.com/~wiwood/links/MAK.html =========================== __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/