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June wedding
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG -- Two once-flourishing Lutheran congregations, each with its own treasured traditions, have decided to pool resources and strive as one. Trinity Lutheran Church, at 401 Fifth St. N, in St. Petersburg's resurging downtown, and Redeemer Lutheran, at 4355 Central Ave., will become one body early this summer. The combined congregation will worship in Trinity's gothic revival sanctuary with its stained glass windows from Munich and continue the Trinity name. Trinity and Redeemer's final decision to unite -- the congregations prefer not to use the corporate-sounding term "merge" -- was made in January, more than a year after they had begun to share a pastor. The Rev. R.M. "Buz" Van Horne, who originally was called by Trinity in 1997, currently conducts separate as well as joint services for the two churches. The "cooperating" agreement gives Redeemer partial responsibility for paying for Van Horne's services. It also has given both congregations time to build a consensus for the upcoming unification. Declining attendance is one of the moving forces behind the marriage. At its peak, Trinity had more than 2,000 members. These days, only about 90 to 110 people attend the Sunday service. The story is much the same at Redeemer, where Sunday attendance is down to about 70 during the winter and 40 in the summer. Van Horne, 59, who will lead the new congregation, said the union is being planned for June 1. Redeemer's property, meanwhile, has been put on the market. The asking price is $1.2-million. Two nearby churches with burgeoning congregations are expected to bid on the property this week. "It will be comforting to members of Redeemer that their building will still be used as a church," Van Horne said. "The bishop's office has recommended that we consider developing a multicultural ministry using some of the funds from the sale. I'm really excited. We verge on neighborhoods that are Asian, black, the wealthy neighborhoods." The newly blended congregation will have some internal work to do as well. The Redeemer and Trinity congregations each will bring its own customs to the new community. Worship at Trinity typically has been traditional. At Redeemer, it has been a blend of both traditional and contemporary styles. Additionally, Redeemer, which has its roots in Swedish-American Lutheranism, still has several members who are of Swedish heritage. An old Swedish hymn, Children of the Heavenly Father, is a tradition at baptisms. Selma Bengtsson, 82, has been a member of Redeemer since 1952, two years after the church was founded. "We had a wonderful pastor who was the mission pastor. His name was Harry Benson and he went around knocking on doors and he brought people to the church. There were about 75 charter members," Mrs. Bengtsson said. "A friend of mine told Pastor Benson about us and he came to visit us, and then other people came to visit us. And we went there and they rolled out the velvet carpet for us and we felt so good there. It has always been such a friendly church. It was originally more Swedes than anything." Mrs. Bengtsson also remembers when the church had four choirs as well as 200 children in its Sunday school. Things began to change in the 1960s, said Mrs. Bengtsson, who joined Redeemer with her husband, Jack, who died in January, and their two children. "People became more affluent and they got boats and then the Vietnam War came and people had a more different attitude and it was not only Redeemer, it was other churches. There was a core of us at Redeemer that never left," she said. Despite their perseverance, church members realized that the time had come to move on. In January, they voted to solicit bids for the Redeemer property and to go ahead with the process of uniting with Trinity. "We have a very huge church plant. It's a whole block long and we have a very small congregation and we cannot support it financially," said Mrs. Bengtsson, who serves as Redeemer's treasurer. "There are a couple of men at our church who do everything and no matter what it is, they fix it. The ladies, we do everything we can, keep the altar beautiful. "I'm going to cry. I'm absolutely going to cry. I've spent 50 years of my life there," she said, adding that her daughter was married at the church and three of her grandchildren were baptized there. Redeemer members will be given a formal opportunity to grieve, Van Horne said, "because people have a great attachment to their place of worship, their church family." A dinner is being planned so that members can reminisce, he said. Trinity also can look back to more prosperous times. The church, which was founded in 1911, had helped nurture other congregations, including St. Andrew on 62nd Avenue S and Trinity in Bradenton. Declining membership has hit other Lutheran congregations. Last year, the former St. Stephen's Lutheran Church in Pinellas Park and the former Bethel Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg united to form Hope Lutheran Church. St. Stephen's property was sold to First United Methodist Church of Pinellas Park. Bethel's property, at 1801 62nd Ave. N, became home to the newly formed Hope Lutheran Church. Van Horne, who serves as dean of the Florida-Bahamas Synod's Suncoast Conference, which covers St. Petersburg to Dunedin, blames the decline in local membership on changing migration patterns. These days, he said, fewer Lutherans are settling in St. Petersburg and surrounding cities, instead choosing towns such as Ocala and Leesburg. Other Lutheran officials also point to the 1988 merger of several Lutheran branches, which created the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The creation of the ELCA, they say, meant that, in some cases, affiliated churches were just short distances from each other. The actual joining of the Redeemer and Trinity congregations will be marked by a service attended by representatives from the office of Bishop Edward R. Benoway, head of the Florida-Bahamas Synod, and members of other churches. There also might be a ribbon cutting ceremony, Van Horne said, "because Trinity will change too." Mrs. Bengtsson, in mourning for her recently deceased husband and also for her church, is relying on her faith to pull her through. "The fact that we are going to unite with Trinity is okay," she said. "We didn't start out to do that. It just happened. We shared the pastor and then we shared some activities and we got to like them. ... We know that there are a lot of things that each will have to do differently. We just love Redeemer and we are all going to miss it, but we are wise enough to know that God is leading us here and it's not our will, but how it is going to be."
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