Gary Swartzlander
4th November 2006, 02:43 PM (14:43)
You may want to give this a try if you're near Toledo, OH.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061104/NEWS10/61103062/-1/NEWS
Minister takes a step back in time
Wolcott House chapel is setting for services in the style of early 1900s
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
As more churches are easing their way onto the high-tech highway — enhancing sermons with PowerPoint notes, communicating via e-mail, using video to make announcements, and podcasting the sermons, one Toledo minister is heading in the opposite direction.
The Rev. Roger Druckemiller is not only unplugging from 21st-century technology but is turning back the clock to re-create worship services just as Protestants had them a century ago — before the invention of microphones, the Model T Ford, telephones (plain phones, not cell phones), and airplanes.
“It’s going to be like a Little House on the Prairie church,” said Father Roger. “We’re going to keep it on the 1900 level, like the days of the circuit riders.”
The American Historic Church is holding its first service tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the chapel at the Wolcott House Museum in Maumee, and will meet weekly at the same time and place.
Father Roger will be wearing a plain black cleric’s cassock with white prayer tabs, and is expecting a number of re-enactors to attend — history buffs who enjoy wearing clothing from bygone eras — although people are invited to “come as you are,” he said.
The American Historic Church’s worship music will consist of hymns from the late 1800s and early 1900s, accompanied by a pedal-powered pipe organ.
“We’re Anglican, but I’m making the service nondenominational, just old Christian American,” Father Roger said. “It’s like I’ve got a pot and put a little bit of Lutheranism, a little bit of Methodism, and a little bit of Presbyterianism and mixed it up.”
Circuit riders were ministers who traveled a set route to preach at different churches on a regular basis.
The Wolcott House chapel was built in 1901 by the United Brethren Church and in recent history has been used mostly for weddings. Father Roger said he has always been interested in history, and when he saw the facility he decided to ask the Maumee Valley Historical Society about using it for regular church services.
“It was a win-win situation and I am grateful to the historical society for letting us use their building,” he said.
Why would a church forsake the high-energy, computerized inventions of the 21st century for the low-tech, simple atmosphere of a previous century?
“I’m a historian buff anyway,” Father Roger said. “I worked with the history department of the Army for a time and I’m also a military chaplain. I saw the church out there and I thought, why not do a church service?”
The 52-year-old minister, ordained in the Apostles Anglican Church, has been serving at Pilgrim Church in West Toledo and received the blessing of the senior pastor, the Rev. Lawrence Cameron, to start the American Historic Church.
“The church and the building represent a part of Americana around the turn of the last century,” Mr. Cameron said, “when church services in the Protestant tradition were fairly simple, and people gathered and there were no frills involved.”
He called it “a church such as the pioneers and our great-great-grandparents might have experienced.”
Mr. Cameron said re-creating the church services of an earlier era will meet the spiritual needs of people who are not feeling fulfilled elsewhere.
“People respond to the holy differently,” he said. “If they respond to this, great. The medium may change, but the message remains the same.”
The American Historic Church will meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Wolcott House Museum Complex, 1031 River Rd., Maumee. Doors open at 9:30 a.m. Information: 419-478-6012.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061104/NEWS10/61103062/-1/NEWS
Minister takes a step back in time
Wolcott House chapel is setting for services in the style of early 1900s
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
As more churches are easing their way onto the high-tech highway — enhancing sermons with PowerPoint notes, communicating via e-mail, using video to make announcements, and podcasting the sermons, one Toledo minister is heading in the opposite direction.
The Rev. Roger Druckemiller is not only unplugging from 21st-century technology but is turning back the clock to re-create worship services just as Protestants had them a century ago — before the invention of microphones, the Model T Ford, telephones (plain phones, not cell phones), and airplanes.
“It’s going to be like a Little House on the Prairie church,” said Father Roger. “We’re going to keep it on the 1900 level, like the days of the circuit riders.”
The American Historic Church is holding its first service tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the chapel at the Wolcott House Museum in Maumee, and will meet weekly at the same time and place.
Father Roger will be wearing a plain black cleric’s cassock with white prayer tabs, and is expecting a number of re-enactors to attend — history buffs who enjoy wearing clothing from bygone eras — although people are invited to “come as you are,” he said.
The American Historic Church’s worship music will consist of hymns from the late 1800s and early 1900s, accompanied by a pedal-powered pipe organ.
“We’re Anglican, but I’m making the service nondenominational, just old Christian American,” Father Roger said. “It’s like I’ve got a pot and put a little bit of Lutheranism, a little bit of Methodism, and a little bit of Presbyterianism and mixed it up.”
Circuit riders were ministers who traveled a set route to preach at different churches on a regular basis.
The Wolcott House chapel was built in 1901 by the United Brethren Church and in recent history has been used mostly for weddings. Father Roger said he has always been interested in history, and when he saw the facility he decided to ask the Maumee Valley Historical Society about using it for regular church services.
“It was a win-win situation and I am grateful to the historical society for letting us use their building,” he said.
Why would a church forsake the high-energy, computerized inventions of the 21st century for the low-tech, simple atmosphere of a previous century?
“I’m a historian buff anyway,” Father Roger said. “I worked with the history department of the Army for a time and I’m also a military chaplain. I saw the church out there and I thought, why not do a church service?”
The 52-year-old minister, ordained in the Apostles Anglican Church, has been serving at Pilgrim Church in West Toledo and received the blessing of the senior pastor, the Rev. Lawrence Cameron, to start the American Historic Church.
“The church and the building represent a part of Americana around the turn of the last century,” Mr. Cameron said, “when church services in the Protestant tradition were fairly simple, and people gathered and there were no frills involved.”
He called it “a church such as the pioneers and our great-great-grandparents might have experienced.”
Mr. Cameron said re-creating the church services of an earlier era will meet the spiritual needs of people who are not feeling fulfilled elsewhere.
“People respond to the holy differently,” he said. “If they respond to this, great. The medium may change, but the message remains the same.”
The American Historic Church will meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Wolcott House Museum Complex, 1031 River Rd., Maumee. Doors open at 9:30 a.m. Information: 419-478-6012.
Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154