Exploring the Neighborhood: First Lutheran Church

I was raised a Lutheran and have always attended the church I was raised in: St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Highspire, PA.  In fact, my parents were married in that church (as was my brother), I was baptized in that church, and Aaron and I were married in that church!  Unfortunately, St. Peter's is a good 45-minute drive from our new home, so I want to find a church in Carlisle.

I found that there are two ELCA Lutheran churches in Carlisle: First Lutheran Church and St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church.  First Lutheran Church is a bit closer to our house so we decided to try that one first.  First Lutheran has two Sunday services: 8:00am and 10:15am.  We went to the 10:15am service.  

Note: I don't intend this post as a "review" of a church because that seems a little inappropriate and a bit like blasphemy to me, but I just wanted to record my reactions.

The photo array above was taken from the churchs website.  From left to right: aerial view of the church, the altar area, and Pastor Brophy.

First of all, I loved the fact that I could walk to church!  It was about a 2 1/2 block walk...  The exterior is quite nice-looking but it was the interior is really quite impressive. 

 

 

Inside, there were marble columns, tons of stained-glass, and a really high vaulted ceiling; the interior was full of architectual features that gave it a lot of charm.  There were covered areas on the sides as well as a balcony area (which was unused so I'm not certain you can access it).  There was also a gorgeous chandelier hanging from the dome in the ceiling.

 

I was also a bit excited to see that they use the LBW (Lutheran Book of Worship) which is what I was raised with (even though St. Peter's has since switched books).  Moreover, the service was a traditional service which meant I was comfortable with the flow of the service and knew a lot of the service by heart.

The negative side is that the congregation isn't very large; I also notice that the bulletin stated that the weekly givings are not enough to meet the budget.  St. Peter's congregation has been dwindling and they are having trouble reaching their budget; I'm not loving the idea of joining a church that is having major financial issues and whose future may be uncertain.  Also, the congregation is mainly older - I would have guessed that the average age was around 55-60.  Finally, the pastor (Pastor Brophy) was about average, but his sermon didn't fully engage me.  I know that different topics can make sermons more or less captivating, so I'm not ready to write him off as an "average" pastor.

Anyway, I would still like to get to St. Paul's so that I can compare the churches and decide which one I prefer.  I can already say that St. Paul's has a few negatives in that it is a bit further away and not really in walking distance, it's service is a bit later (10:45am), and that service is contemporary rather than traditional.  However, St. Paul's seems to have a larger and younger congregation.  Hopefully we can make it to St. Paul's soon but all the work on the house makes it difficult to get to church every Sunday.

Note: I apologize that none of the photos were actually taken by me - I didn't think it was proper to take photos of the interior during church and I couldn't get a good photo of the exterior because its so large and not easy to capture in one shot!