Missions – What Does This Mean?

Friedrich Wyneken in Indiana

Friedrich Wyneken arrived at the settlement of Friedheim, near Decatur, Indiana on September 20th, 1838. The first German he met in Indiana received the missionary with suspicion. “If you are an honest pastor, then go to that house over there. A very sick man lies
in it,” the woodman challenged. “If you are something else, like most pastors coming from Germany, then go over there to the rich wagonmaker!” “Nevertheless, I’d love to see the sick man first,” Wyneken quipped and then carried through. At this sick man’s home, he learned of Karl Friedrich Buuck, the leader of Jesse Hoover’s Adams County congregation and the pastor’s future father-in-law.

Wyneken ministered in the area for six days before riding north along the Decatur Road to visit Fort Wayne and New Haven. In 1838, Fort Wayne was a small but growing town on the Wabash-Erie Canal. This community of fifteen hundred sat at the portage between the Wabash and Maumee rivers, the only passage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. At the summit, overlooking the merger of the Maumee’s two sources, Fort Wayne was the focal point of the effort to create a continent-wide water transportation system. By 1837, the Wabash-Erie Canal was complete to Logansport, a growing community on the Michigan Road. This road stretched north to South Bend and Michigan City and south to Indianapolis, Madison and the Ohio River. Due to this geography, Fort Wayne grew in spite of the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1837. The Northeast corner of Indiana quickly became a destination of choice for German emigrants in search of a new home. Fort Wayne was an ideal location fora circuit rider charged to “gather scattered Protestants.”

Shortly after Wyneken reached Fort Wayne, St. Paul’s of Fort Wayne and Zion in Friedheim called him to serve as their resident pastor. The young pastor explained that he could not accept such a call without the permission of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. Since the missionary needed to continue his survey of Indiana, he suggested that the church council of Fort Wayne’s St. Paul Congregation write to the Mission Society for his release. Wyneken promised to return in four weeks to receive the Mission Society’s instructions. On October 2nd, Friedrich Wyneken once more mounted his horse and headed north into the forest.

A Shepherd for Christ’s Sheep

Sermon on Matthew 9:35-38
The Ordination of Michael Brent Keller
July 29, 2018
Peace Lutheran Church
Alcester, South Dakota

Introduction: Last fall you said goodbye to Pastor Pay. You began pray to the Lord that he send to you a faithful shepherd. Today he has answered your prayers. Pastor Keller begins his Ministry here today. Brent, you have been praying for a chance to help people—really help them. And God has given you that opportunity. Here is is the harvest, ready to be brought in. At your side are a wonderful gathering of God’s people. It would be good to see them as Jesus does… he has compassion for them because:

I. We are harassed and helpless

A. The world sends conflicting messages that lure us away from God.
B. Our sinful desires cause us to seek the things we think will please us.
C. The devil uses both to extinguish our trust in God.
D. Tragedies big and small wound us, crush us and wear us down.

II. He came to seek and to save.
A. Jesus became a man to seek and save the lost
B. As the Good Shepherd, he laid down his life for his sheep.
C. Through his word and the Sacraments, he still gathers his sheep, binds up the wounds and leads them home.

III. He sends pastors – and you
A. He does this by sending you pastor Keller to lead you, feed you and make you clean.
B. He sends you, Brent, to tend this flock.
C. Together he sends you all to gather the souls now ready to harvest.

Wyneken Wanders in Baltimore

In early July 1838, Friedrich Wyneken and Christoph Wolf wandered around Baltimore, looking for Lutherans. After mistaking an Otterbein Methodist prayer meeting for a Lutheran worship service, they found their way to Second German Evangelical Lutheran st. Paul’s Congregation and her Pastor Johann Häsbärt. Häsbärt was also an “awakened” pastor, who had led a group of Lutheran and Reformed Germans to secede from a congregation served by a Rationalist minister. He was very suspicious of Wyneken and Wolf, since in America laymen, con-men and “every expelled student or banished demagogue” regularly preyed on unsuspecting congregations to make some quick cash. It did not help at all that the two young men brought no written credentials or letters of introduction withthem. Yet Wyneken’s warmth and sincerity inclined Häsbärt to put aside his misgivings. Häsbärt’s fears were finally set to rest, when, Captain Stuerje testified to their character.

To seal their newly formed friendship, Wolf preached the following Sunday. Soon after that, Häsbärt fell sick and was confined to his bed. Wyneken served his congregation as substitute pastor for several weeks. Sometime during this period, Wolf went West ahead of his companion, settling in Marietta, Ohio. When Häsbärt had recovered, he tried to convince his new Hanoverian friend to stay in the east. Failing to talk Wyneken into remaining, the Baltimore pastor advised, “You must not travel on to the West under your own authority. I will write the Missions Committee of the Pennsylvania Synod, advising that they should send you out as their missionary.”

The timing was providential. At the 1839 Convention of the German-Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Pennsylvania, its Missionary Society met. The executive committee reported that in the latter part of 1838, Missionary Kohler had decided to accept a call in Eastern Pennsylvania, and thus was unavailable for continued service in the West. During the Summer of 1838, Adam Wesel’s letter from Fort Wayne likely reached their hands.

Now that we have caught up with events 180 years ago, we will leave the saga of Friedrich Wyneken until another anniversary comes to pass.

Friedrich Wyneken Comes to America

What Friedrich Wyneken learned about German Lutherans in America touched off a struggle in the heart of the young man. Friedrich would later describe that moment to Candidate A. Biewend, himself on the verge of a decision to volunteer to serve in America:

Sadly, I have to confess that, as far as I know, neither love of the Lord, nor love of orphaned brothers drove me to America. I wasn’t even driven by a natural desire to go. I went there against my will and fighting the decision. I went because it was my duty. My conscience compelled me. It grieved me so much then and still grieves me now that I didn’t — still don’t–love the Lord more than that and that He had to drive me out to work like a slave. Even today, dreadful challenges and temptations, doubts and griefs come over my soul when I’m serving in my once over there. It comforts me, that I can say: “I have to be over there. You know, Lord, how I’d like to stay here at home. But if I stayed, I wouldn’t be able to look up to you and pray to you. So, then, I surely must go of my free will.

At peace with God and sure of his decision, Friedrich Wyneken obtained release from his duties as a tutor. After a memorable candidate’s examination, he was ordained with fellow candidate, Christoph W. Wolf. Eighty-year-old General Superintendent Ruperti conducted the rite at St. Wilhadi Church of Stade on May 8th, 1837. With the help of Gottfried Treviranus, the Reformed pastor of St. Martin Church in Bremen, Wyneken and Wolf made the acquaintance of Captain Stuerje, who provided the pair of missionaries free passage to America on his ship, the Brig Apollo. Wyneken and Wolf arrived in Baltimore on June 28, 1838.

Send us a Faithful Shepherd

180 years ago in late May, Pastor Jesse Hoover died. In the frontier town of Fort Wayne, Indiana, his congregations mourned. Along with them, the whole community missed him, too. Lutheran pastors were rare in the dark forest. Elder Adam Wesel of St. Paul’s congregation wrote to the Mission Committee of the Pennsylvania Ministerium for help. Among other things he pleaded:

“Have pity, honored fathers and brothers and send us a Pastor… If you canvas the northern part of Indiana you will soon see how important it is that you send us a faithful Shepherd. The harvest is great but unfortunately there are no workers. If it is not possible to send us a Pastor, dear brothers, then send us a circuit rider. We hunger and thirst for the Word of God.”
Adam Wesel
St. Paul Lutheran Church
Fort Wayne, Indiana
4 June 1838

The letter arrived in Pennsylvania at a perfect time. The committee had planned to send a survey missionary West in September. But their candidate could not go. They we’re without a man to send.

Yet as they pondered, a young pastor had just arrived in Baltimore. His name was Friedrich Wyneken. In late August they dispatched him to Indiana, to gather scattered Protestants into congregations. This he did — and more!

More about this story in later posts. For now, thank God for the prayer the people of Ft. Wayne prayed and add your prayer to theirs that God might send faithful shepherds to gather his people into the fold of their great Shepherd.