ORANGE : 1915 Church to Be Rededicated Sunday

Wooden pews rested in an outdoor courtyard and tools lay in the aisles of historic St. John’s Lutheran Church this week as workers rushed to finish a $750,000 face-lift of the church in time for a rededication ceremony on Sunday.

The 75-year-old, Gothic-style building has been closed for six months during renovation, part of a $2-million improvement of the church campus. The reopening will be a homecoming for the 3,500-member congregation, said Dr. Victor A. Constien, one of St. John’s pastors, “especially for older members of our community because many of them have never worshiped anywhere else.”

In recent weeks, parishioners have begun to drop by to preview the sanctuary’s transformation. Outside, the building’s brickwork has been reinforced and its two steeples made seismically safe.

Inside, the original, hand-painted stained-glass windows glow on the fresh cream-colored walls and the newly gold-trimmed ribs of the vaulted ceiling.

Each pew was removed from the building to be stripped and stained. While they appear brand new, upon closer inspection parishioners will easily recognize them, said Richard Brumfield, co-chairman of the building committee.

“We left some nicks, blemishes and age lines in the pews to allow the children who made them--and who are now grandparents--to be able to have those memories,” he explained.

One of the most important improvements is more than cosmetic, Constien said. Ill-named “acoustical tiles,” which had made it difficult to hear in the sanctuary, have been mostly removed.

The German Lutheran congregation was founded in 1882, six years before the incorporation of the city of Orange. In 1915, parishioners built the church in the style of their native northern Europe.

“I’ve always said that if the church burned down, the members would insist that we build something exactly the same,” said retired pastor Dr. John Geisler.

The rededication of the church sanctuary will begin at 2:30 on the steps of Walker Hall.