St. James Lutheran Church
                         Columbus, Ohio
 
 
 In 1846 the Johann Koerner and Heinrich Plinker families 
 sought confirmation instruction for their children and found the 
 services of the Rev. Johann Adam Ernst, who was serving St. 
 John Lutheran Church out side of Marysville, in Union County, 
 Ohio. Through these families Pastor Ernst learned of other 
 German families living west of Columbus, Ohio in an area that for 
 a time came to be known as Wittenburg, indicating the number of 
 German families settling the area. With a passion for reaching out 
 to his fellow German immigrants he traveled the twenty-five 
 miles on horse-back as time and weather conditions permitted to 
 serve the spiritual needs of this group. Minutes of a March 1847 
 meeting show that several of these families had already organized 
 a cemetery at that time.
 
 Pastor Ernst went to Chicago in April of 1847, where he 
 and his congregation, St John's Lutheran Church, Marysville, 
 became charter members of the German Evangelical Lutheran 
 Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States. Apparently inspired by 
 this meeting he came back and encouraged the Germans of 
 Wittenburg to immediately organize a congregation, which they 
 did on Trinity Sunday, May 30, 1847. Minutes of any meetings 
 are lost, but history tells us that nine families organized the 
 congregation. A constitution was written for "der deutschen 
 evangelischen lutherischen Sanct Jacobs Gemeinde" and signed 
 on August 4, 1847. Of historical note, the Second Article of this 
 constitution is entitled "Sprache," "Language," and reads, "In 
 userer Kirche soll nur allein deutsch gepredigt werden," "In our 
 church only German shall be preached." The word German in 
 underlined! English services were first offered once a month 
 beginning in 1894. By the 1940s German services continued to be 
 offered once a month and were discontinued in 1943.
 
 The fledgling congregation first worshiped in the home of 
 Johann Koerner on the northwest corner of Hilliard-Rome/Renner 
 Roads. Pastor Ernst was succeeded by PastorJacob Seidel under 
 whose leadership St. James built its first church a 20 by 24 foot 
 hand hewn log structure on the south east corner of Hillliard-
 Rome/Renner Roads in 1848. In 1851 the congregation called its 
 first resident Pastor, The Rev. Friedrich Nuetzel. Under his 
 leadership the congregation added a school room to the church 
 and a parsonage. Pastor Nuetzel became the founding pastor of St. 
 John Lutheran Church, Amlin, Ohio, which shared pastors with 
 St. James for the next fifty years.
 
 In 1872 St. James dedicated its current church building 
 under the leadership of the Rev. Henry Horst. St. James 
 celebrated 125 years of its continued use September 21, 1997, as 
 part of the 150th Anniversary celebration as a congregation.
 The congregation, which began among German immigrant 
 farmers in 1847 in rural Franklin County, west of Columbus, has 
 now been overtaken by the Columbus city limits, and finds itself 
 in the middle of a bustling growing suburban population 
 explosion. The church has occupied its same location for 150 
 years and now finds itself on a highly visible intersection on 
 interstate 70 and meets an average of five families a Sunday it has 
 never seen before. Those founding immigrants could not have 
 possibly known the strategic location the establishment of their 
 congregation would mean to its ministry today. 
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     This text was converted to ascii format for Project Wittenberg
     by Debbie Harris and is in the public domain by permission 
     of Rev. Manfred K. Rembold. You may freely distribute, copy or
     print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: 
                      Rev. Robert E. Smith of the 
           Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary.
                                       
                       E-mail: bob_smith@ctsfw.edu
                                       
       Surface Mail: 6600 N. Clinton St., Ft. Wayne, IN 46825 USA
          Phone: (219) 452-2148             Fax: (219) 452-2126
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