Churchgoing: Trinity Lutheran Church in Freistatt, Missouri

Christian Century, Dec 1, 1993 by Randall Balmer

The situation that has confronted Trinity Lutheran Church over the past four decades is not unlike that faced by the Puritans of New England in the 17th century. The founding generation of Massachusetts Bay was exceptionally long-lived, especially relative to that of the Chesapeake, and as the younger generation matured it was forced to seek land farther and farther away from the village and the meetinghouse. With geographical distance came spiritual distance; members of the younger generation, for a variety of rather complex reasons, simply weren't able to appropriate the piety of their elders, especially as they moved beyond the ambit of the church.

In Freistatt some members of the younger generation have also moved beyond the church's influence, sometimes geographically, sometimes spiritually. The median age in the congregation is approximately 40, and the leading cause of attrition in membership is death--about a dozen parishioners a year. Although the number of baptized members remains fairly high, 695 today as compared with 800 in 1950, attendance has dropped from about 480 each Sunday in 1950 to about 315.

In the high school Sunday school class I encountered a range of sentiments among the students and their adult sponsors, but it was hard to miss an undercurrent of unrest. Most of the students expressed appreciation for Freistatt and the church, and for the role that both had played in shaping their lives. "It's a good place to live," Tim Broderick said, referring to Freistatt. "There's not much noise, traffic or crime problems." Joel Telschow agreed. "A lot of people are nicer here than in other places," he said.

The CENTURY article remarked in 1950 that "few sons and daughters of Freistatt leave to seek work or homes elsewhere." Today many of the young people fear they will not be able to remain in Freistatt, that economic needs will take them away. "I'm looking for a job that pays money," Broderick said. "i don't want to be a farmer." Julie Chapman said that high school students want to stay in the community, but they head off to college, eventually find a job and never make it back.

INDEED, THAT distancing from the church and the community may take place even sooner than college. Once students leave Trinity Lutheran School at the conclusion of eighth grade and attend public high schools they begin to drop away from the church. Some of the students in Sunday school talked, with at least a touch of resentment, about having been sheltered in the school. Once in high school many are distracted by the larger world, and the church, with no youth pastor or coherent youth program, can offer little to hold their interest. And once the students leave school, one of the adult sponsors explained, they "don't come to church regularly anymore."

Many of the younger people I talked with--high school students and young adults--expressed frustration that Trinity seems mired in tradition and resistant to change. Most of the traditions--the church picnic in June, the mission festival every September--have endured over the decades, said Bob Dieckhoff, an adult sponsor in the youth program. "And that bothers some people, doing the same thing over and over again every year." Furthermore, another tradition prevents women from voting in congregational meetings. "You come in and you hear |that's the way it's always been,'" JoNelle Moennig complained.