We are excited to share that there is a new effort to start a confessionally Reformed congregation in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Reading through a directory of churches in this self-described “city of churches,” you will quickly see only one confessionally Reformed church. There will be an informational meeting this Sunday, May 5th at 6:00 PM. Austin Reifel, pastor of Indy Reformed—a URCNA church plant in Indianapolis—will be present to share information about the URCNA, explain the church planting process, and answer your questions. Please email brian.woolman@woolman.
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I applaud the effort to do a confessional church plant anywhere. May you have God’s blessings and guidance during this effort. Having said that, however, I grew up in the Fort Wayne area beginning in the early 1950’s when I was baptized in an LCMS church as an infant. Eleven years later my father’s jobs took us to a town of about 45,000 in East Central Indiana along the IN/OH border. We found Lutheran congregations there, but they were all of the Swedish/Norwegian, etc. persuasion, of ALC, ULC, LCA ilk eventually to all be merged into the one ELCA synod, some of the Seven Sisters of mainline protestants. My dad couldn’t stand their liberal theology and made a serious effort to start an LCMS church plant in the early 70’s. I was only organized around a few “lutheran” families who didn’t like what was going on in the pre-ELCA congregations. It didn’t last very long, partly because that area of the state was rife with Quakers, Pentecostals, and other fundamentalist denominations. The only reason the 3 or so Lutheran congregations of aforementioned synods survived was because of their increasingly liberal view of scripture.
My wife and I moved back to the Ft. Wayne area in the mid-70’s only to discover a mixed palette of Lutheran congregations. It may well have been the “holy city” or Jerusalem (or Zion as I prefer to call it) at one point, but no more. It had morphed into a city of progressive Lutheran congregations along with a few aging, curmudgeonly ones. It was take your pick. Moreover, unlike many small towns around the state, Ft. Wayne never had any college or university, the reason being that as Lutheran and RC immigrants, you were expected to work…never mind that frivolous higher education business.
Oh, and that town is home to two RC high schools and one LCMS school. Also, it has an LCMS “Senior College” at one point that was supposed to garner pre-ministerial students rom junior colleges to finish their undergrad education before heading to seminary at St. Louis or Springfield. Eventually, that mode collapsed and that “senior college” became and alternate seminary for LCMS students. So, there you have it…certainly a major challenge for any Reformed church plant. I hope everything goes well.
Thankfully there has been a faithful P&R church in Fort Wayne for about 30 years now, which continues to thrive and grow!
Thanks for the heads up. I’m the pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Fort Wayne, the only NAPARC, confessional/Reformed church in an approximately two hundred mile radius. If you’re in the area, please join us! ppcfw.org