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St. Michael Anniversaries
The Big Move - June 22, 1997
On that very special Sunday in June, the congregation of St. Michael gathered for worship as usual in what we now call the Fellowship Hall. It had served a dual purpose as our worship space on Sundays and as a gathering place for fellowship ever since the congregation moved to Unionville from Kennett Square in 1985. The altar table was along the wall to the left and the chairs for the congregants were arranged facing the altar.
Leona Souser, a founding member of St. Michael, carries the altar Bible into the new sancuarty at the opening of the first worship service there June 22, 1997.
The overflowing room was filled with excitement because this was the day for the BIG MOVE—the move to our current sanctuary. Following a brief opening and then led by Pastor Rick and the choir, everyone picked up a hymnal and processed from the Fellowship Hall to the sanctuary to continue the worship service. Joe Buches, our organist then as now, was at the new Rodgers organ playing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” What a glorious day!
Our new sanctuary
The First Worship Service - September 29, 1957
Masonic Lodge in Kennett Square at 121 Main - home of St. Michael's first worship service
On Sunday, September 30, 2007, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first worship service in what we know as St. Michael Lutheran Church, meeting then at the Kennett Square New Century Club at Cypress and Center Streets, (now the Masonic Lodge). The exact date of the service was September 29, 1957, the feast day of St. Michael and All Angels.
How it all began: a group of local Lutherans, tired of driving to Wilmington or West Chester to worship, wanted to have a Lutheran congregation in the Kennett area. Unable to get mission status and unwilling to take “no” for an answer, they began with an announcement of their intention to start a Sunday school so their children could have religious education where they lived. Our Leona Souser and her husband, along with other Lutheran friends, spearheaded the drive. They were mostly young and enthusiastic and willing to knock on doors and invite friends and neighbors to the proposed Sunday school.
Some pertinent background information: in 1956 the Board of American Missions had done a survey of the Kennett area and concluded that there were not enough Lutherans to justify establishing a mission. Churches were more provincial in the 50s and 60s, and few people crossed denominational lines. Help from the larger church in the form of advice and encouragement did come from the Reverend Orval Hartman, Director of Home Missions of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, and especially from the Reverend Gustavus Bechtold, a retired Executive Secretary of the Ministerium and also the father of Leona Souser.
The result of the group’s effort was the convening of the Sunday school on March 31, 1957, less than six weeks after the first planning meeting in February. The 38 attendees met at the Mary D. Lang Recreation Center (since demolished and now the site of the school of the same name).
By May the Sunday school had moved to the New Century Club, and the local Lutherans had captured the attention of the Board of American Missions of the national church, the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA). The group’s request for a mission developer was then granted, and the Reverend John N. Holman, assistant pastor of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wilmington, was called by the Board of American Missions in September to serve as developer.
The altar used for the first worship services.
Pastor Holman was not due to arrive until mid-October, but the determined Lutherans didn’t want to wait until then to hold their first worship service. They followed their wishes and held their first service, with Pastor Bechtold officiating, on September 29, 1957.
Our official name, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Michael the Archangel, recognizes the importance of that early worship service on the Feast Day of St. Michael. Grand as the name was (and is), early church bulletins, we have seen were titled with a shorter version: St. Michael Evangelical Lutheran Church, or more simply, St. Michael Lutheran Church, as it stands today.
As we acknowledge and celebrate the birthing and naming of our church, we give thanks to God for the dedicated people who held to their dream and made it possible for us to call St. Michael our church home. To God be the glory.
Kennett Square Lutheran Mission: The First Year
What we know as St. Michael Lutheran Church began as the dream of a group of visionary Lutherans who gathered in Leona Souser’s living room in February 1957 to plan the realization of that dream. They were aided by Leona’s father, the Reverend Dr. Gustavus Bechtold, retired Executive Secretary of the Board of Inner Missions of the local ministerium (synod).
The result was the establishment of a Sunday school on March 31, 1957, in the Mary D. Lang Recreation Center, now the site of the school of the same name. The month of May brought a move to the New Century Club at Cypress and Center Streets in Kennett Square. You have already heard about the worship service held there on St. Michael and All Saints Day, giving a rationale for the naming of our church. Pastor Bechtold conducted the service that day.
In October 1957 the Rev. John Holman arrived to serve as mission director, and the mission was on its way.
The Fifties was a time of church growth, and our congregation was a beneficiary of that growth period. The Episcopal Church of the Advent had recently moved from South Broad Street to a location on Route 82 (its present location), leaving a lovely stone church available for rent.
The mission moved quickly, rented the facilities on South Broad Street and held their first worship service there on February 9, 1958. The church activities program by then included confirmation class, choir, Luther League and monthly Family Night suppers.
Think about it: Just a year before, a visionary group sat in a living room talking and dreaming of a Lutheran presence in the Kennett area. The story you have just read is a very condensed telling of the fruition of that dream—in one year. WOW!