Wednesday, December 10, 2003
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Wednesday, December 10, 2003 |
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Christ Our Shepherd to offer Moravian Love Feasts Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in Peachtree City will offer Love Feasts in Moravian Tradition Saturday, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 14, at 6 p.m. A tradition of the Moravian Church since 1727, Love Feasts include serving specially-baked buns and coffee or apple juice to worshipers. All adult worshipers will be given a lighted beeswax candle dressed in a red paper “ruff.” Love Feasts include traditional and Moravian carols sung by everyone. Featured also will be anthems by Adult Choir, Joyful Noise Ringers, Christ Our Shepherd Brass, and the new Moravian Trombone Choir at Christ Our Shepherd. To form this group, the church purchased soprano and alto trombones, to join with the more commonly used tenor and bass trombones. Karl Dietmeyer founded and conducts the brass and trombone Choirs, while music minister David Beecher leads the adult choir and handbells. Soloists include Norman Roobol, Delee Rehak, Laura Dietmeyer, Ken Olander and Ashley Young. Pamela Martin and Linda Switzer provide the piano duet accompaniment for one anthem. The Moravian Church in the United States and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America established a full-communion relationship in 1999. Although not a merger, the agreement fully partnered the two churches, making possible sharing pastors, worship and ministries. The Moravian Church, formally called Unitas Fratrum, was formed in 1457 by followers of Jan Hus, a reformed priest who was burned at the stake for his dissent. Over the next two centuries the church was nearly stamped out by wars and persecution in its homeland, Moravia, which is now part of Czechoslovakia. In 1722 a German Lutheran nobleman, Count Nicholas Zinzendorf, invited Moravian faithful to form a community on his estate. There they flourished. Five years later at a Love Feast the church was renewed in a powerful way, and Love Feasts have been a Moravian distinctive ever since. Moravian missionaries settled in Savannah in 1735, but later moved to Pennsylvania, where they founded the cities of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz. In 1753 missionaries came to North Carolina, where they settled Salem and other communities. The largest concentration of Moravians in this country is still in those two states. About 50,000 Moravian Christians live in the United States. The pastor of the only Moravian Church in Georgia, pastor Richard Spaugh of Stone Mountain, was a consultant on Christ Our Shepherd’s Love Feast. |
