The Texas landscape may be dotted with LCEF funded contemporary
mega-churches, but in this "Church Growth" wilderness there is a revolution
taking place. From Dallas to Austin to San Antonio to Houston it is all the same story.
Then, after a journey of five days, we arrived at the new location of Our Savior Lutheran
Church and Pastor Laurence White. At first I thought I was in an under funded Concordia,
San Antonio. There are multiple new buildings on forty six acres connected by dirt roads
and asphalt. The roads have strange sounding names like Luther, Walther, Behnken, etc.
Instead of a multimillion dollar administration building, the pastoral offices are in a
double mobile home. It is plain to see there is no LCEF money here. We, Pastor Loeschman,
my wife, and I, arrived just in time to watch the two pastors serve dinner in the field
house to their volunteers for Volunteer Appreciation Day. Pastor White, dressed in his
apron, served us, along with some 80 other people, a three course lunch. With just a few
improvements needed on the pasta, it was excellent.
Pastor White invited us to his office to see the plans for the new church building
going up on his property. I thought, here comes another one. When he unrolled the plans in
his rather crowded quarters, I was speechless. Pastor White has spent a number of years
studying "Lutheran" architecture. He is now the foremost authority on the
subject in North America, perhaps the world. I didn't even know there was such a thing as
"Lutheran " architecture.
The American public and seminary libraries don’t have books worth looking at on
the subject. However, in the second and third generations after the Reformation, the
Lutherans stopped copying the Catholic/Reformed style of church architecture and invented
a new style. This new style was only copied in the most sparing manner in the first 50
years of the LCMS. So, what is it, you ask.
Our Savior Lutheran Church is spending well over $5,000,000.00 on erecting the first
Lutheran cathedral in the Americas. It looks like no other church structure you have seen
in this country. The entire church is in the shape of an octagon, taking much of its form
from the Lutheran Church in Dresden that was bombed in World War II. The octagon structure
copies the shape of the baptismal font. It will seat approximately 1,200 people. About 450
will sit on the main floor. There are two wrap around balconies, one on top of the other,
each seating about 350 people. The church will be about 100 feet high in the interior.
Why? Well, for of all things to move the people closer to the pulpit that comes out about
30 feet in the air over the altar. There is no lectern. The entire structure is designed
to be centered around the preaching of the Word. This is a stark contrast to the long
Catholic naves copied by most architects in this country, with no concern for what the
people heard. After touring, studying, photographing, and videotaping many Lutheran
churches in Germany, White contracted German and Italian artisans to complete the
paintings, carvings, and sculpture. Our Savior is spending hundreds of thousands of
dollars just to reproduce the angels, paintings, ornamentation, carvings, and stained
glass which White found in Germany
I was overwhelmed. Where is the stage, curtain, band pit, the roll away altar, the
theater seats, the large projection screens to replace hymnals, the auditorium look? Can
Americans worship without these things? While others rebuild Radio City Music Hall and
Willow, Creek Our Savior is building a Lutheran cathedral designed around the Word and
Sacraments instead of entertainment. My description here is too brief, inadequate, and
inaccurate. White promises that a narrated videotape of the building will be made
available after the building is completed at the end of 1999. I predict it will become the
foremost educational "Lutheran" attraction in North America. Just a study of the
building is a study of the Reformation. There is no LCEF money this building. If Our
Savior would keep it open during the week for daily chapel services, I’m quite sure
that visiting LCMS pastors would volunteer to conduct a morning or evening service for the
Lutheran tourists. Pastor White, can I be on your list? Please put me down for a Friday.
This leads to my next point. President A.L. Barry is going to retire. I know of no
other pastor and theologian more qualified to be Synodical President than Rev. Laurence
White. White has consistently demonstrated his clear understanding and defense of the
Reformation, Walther’s Church and Ministry, and desire for excellence in every aspect
of the ministry. He is not a creature of institutions, a captive of the Synodical
bureaucracy, or political solutions in place of God’s Word. White is our last chance
to dismantle the Synodical bureaucracy. We should all pray that he is elected.
Make no mistake, if Laurence White is not elected LCMS President, the center of
Lutheranism will shift from Minneapolis, Columbus, Chicago, and St. Louis to Houston. The
construction of Our Savior is more than a land mark of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the
Reformation, it is a line in the sand.
I was so sure of the Church Growth/Leadership Training decadence I would find in Texas.
I was going to catalogue and write about the collapse and decay, and expose the hypocrisy.
The last thing I thought I would be writing about was a spontaneous true Lutheran revival
in Texas. Our Savior is not a political solution but the layman’s witness of faith
and unity in God Word expressed in architecture. When you visit one mega-church you have
visited them all. But wait till you see Our Savior. Visitors from the mega-churches will
quickly see how shallow their public witness to the Gospel is in their new facilities.
The construction of Our Savior Lutheran Church signals the death knell for everything
the COP and their Pastoral Leadership Training Institute stands for. By the grace of God,
in one move, a single LCMS congregation has outflanked them all. As mundane cookie cutter
mega-church buildings struggle to help people discover themselves, Our Savior is about
discovering another world, the Kingdom God in the Gospel and Sacraments of Jesus Christ.
My advice, send a small donation just to say you had a hand in what the LCEF would never
fund.