The old St. Paul Lutheran Church in Columbus, built in 1887, is seen on Feb. 10. Warren Scheidt and Jim Brock have started a campaign to raise $600,000 to preserve the old church.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Warren Scheidt will tell you that the fierce faithfulness among so many families through the decades at St. Paul Lutheran Church is planted as deeply as the roots of the sugar maple trees on the ministry’s rural grounds, a place where many a member has remained true from baptism to burial.
He mentions that such reality is simply one way to explain how a still-growing congregation, for decades consisting of stay-put farm families, overwhelmingly decided to preserve its 1887 chapel as part of a recently launched $600,000 campaign dovetailing with the church’s 175th anniversary next year ($189,000 already has been raised).
The theme of the project and anniversary is “Preserving the Past, Embracing the Future, Centered in Christ.”
The chapel became a secondary structure of sorts when the new sanctuary was built in 2009. The church was formed in 1848.
Even the young St. Paul families raised amid today’s church-hopping and spiritual consumerism affirmed the decision to save and rehabilitate the chapel.
“That kind of surprised me — that it wasn’t primarily the older members,” Scheidt said.
A lifelong member of St. Paul Lutheran, the 68-year-old Scheidt is chairman of the church planning committee that is mapping these plans. It probably helped the cause that the steepled structure is highly visible, no pun intended, atop a hill overlooking Indiana 7.
“I do think the congregation feels some (public) responsibility to preserve history — even though older buildings can be hard to restore and expensive to maintain,” Scheidt said.
As part of the preservation effort, the chapel’s bell in its 48-foot bell tower was just removed. Eventually, after being refurbished and put on temporary display, it will be placed in the current church built in 2009 — and encased in a new bell tower to be constructed for it so it can be easily seen as it rings before services.
“It’s amazing to see how many people are emotionally attached to that bell,” Scheidt said.
Part of the reason is because church leaders for years have allowed youngsters to pull an old-fashioned rope to ring the bell — an exciting task for many a youngster.
The chapel’s challenges in recent years have included front roof leaks, water damage in the bell tower, and moisture in the basement.
The goals of the 175-seat chapel project are three-fold: Preserving it for its historic significance (as the second-oldest Lutheran church in Bartholomew County), making the chapel as maintenance-free as possible, and stewarding the space inside the chapel to support the congregation’s mission and ministry. To achieve these goals, the 1954 coat-storage narthex addition will be removed from the chapel, restoring the structure to its original appearance.
“The congregation decided that they didn’t want to see a landmark lost to time,” said the Rev. Doug Bauman, pastor since 2003. “We definitely believe that it’s an investment worth making to honor our past and to preserve all the history that’s there.”
Bauman acknowledged that the chapel offers its share of old-style church charm similar to what is frequently seen in movies.
“It’s kind of what a lot of people envision an old, country church to look like,” the pastor said.
The chapel has seen little use since the church’s Spanish-speaking group moved its worship services to the new sanctuary in February 2020.
Though many area churches have seen financial giving dip during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, St. Paul’s leadership is confident about reaching its monetary goal.
Jim Brock, chairman of the Friends of Clifty Church Leadership Team, is among those.
“I am pretty confident that our congregation will step up,” Brock said. “It’s exciting to be able to save the chapel not only for the church’s sake, but for the community as well.”
