Collection › The Lutheran Pioneer (St. Louis) › Vol. 50 (1928) › Page 98

The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 98

Concordia Seminary Library, St. Louis (scholar.csl.edu/lutheran_pioneer/50)

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

98. THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

The Golden Jubilee Celebration
of Our Oldest Colored Congregation.

On May 20 Mount Zion Evangelical Lutheran
Church at New Orleans, La., under God’s bless-
ing celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with three
services.

At the jubilee service, 10 a. m., the four sister
congregations — Bethlehem, Concordia, St. Paul’s,
and Trinity — joined Mount Zion in praising God
for His goodness and loving-kindness shown during
the past fifty years. With rapt attention all lis-

Pastor F. J. Lankenau.

tened to the festival speaker Pastor F. J. Lankenau,
of Napoleon, O., a former pastor of Mount Zion,
and sang joyful hymns of praise to God. ‘Two
hundred sixty schoolchildren from the various con-
gregations rendered the hymn “Who Is on the
Lord’s Side?” The service was further beautified
by Prof. Wm. Seeberry at the organ and Mrs.
Emma Falcon, soloist. Pastor 1. H. Wildgrube, of
St. Paul’s, performed the altar service. There was
an attendance of 436. Toward the middle of the
service a rainstorm broke upon the city and con-
tinued steadily throughout the day, so that further
celebrating seemed out of the question.

At the Reunion Service, 3 p. x1., however, there
were 7%0 people present. This service had been
‘arranged for the express purpose of getting together

many ex-catechumens of Mount Zion who had
drifted by the wayside — backsliders. But on a
stormy day backsliders will not go to church, no
matter how great the occasion, and so the reunion

Pastor J. F. Doescher,
Founder of Mount Zion Mission,

sermon of Pastor IE. W. Kuss, ex-pastor of Mount
Zion, had to be directed to the faithful few; and
Pastor G. M. Kramer, of Bethlehem, who has been
a benevolent supply pastor to Mount Zion for
twenty years, had to convert his welcome address
into an admonition to constancy, whereupon he
administered the renewal of the confirmation vow.
The roll-call of all living confirmed of Mount Zion
for the past fifty years was omitted, and at the

Pastor N. J. Bakke.

close of the service Pastor Lankenau exhorted the
brethren to continue as faithful witness-bearers for
the Gospel of Christ that Christ may richly bless
Mount Zion, even more richly in the future than
in the past.