GERMAN SERVICE HOLDS CHURCH TO TRADITION

"Im Namen des Vaters, und des Sohnes und des Heiligen Geistes."

It was a liturgy well known to the congregation at Hanover Lutheran Church, something they hear their pastor say at each worship service.

But they usually hear it in English.

Sunday night was different. In its historic building on Perryville Road, the church held a German Christmas service. The songs were sung in German, the sermon was given in German and the program was printed in German -- with English translations, of course.

Bonnie Kelpe serves on the committee that has coordinated the service for the past six years. She said several who attend speak and understand German. Many more do not.

"The service is unusual," Kelpe said. "It is neat to come because of our German history. It is a link to the past."

Hanover's pastor, the Rev. Jeffrey Sippy, turned over the pulpit to a former classmate at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. The Rev. Greg Jans now pastors a Lutheran church in Mascoutah, Ill. He speaks near perfect German, having studied in its native land.

All the services at Hanover were in German 150 years ago.

Immigrants from Hannover, Germany, started moving to the area in the 1820s. Elroy Kinder, church archivist, said the immigrants were looking for fertile farmland and a better life in America.

In 1835, Daniel Bertling arrived in Missouri. He and his new wife settled northwest of Cape Girardeau and started inviting neighbors to come over for Bible reading and hymn singing.

Eleven years later, the Hannover Lutherans organized the Evangelisch-Lutherischen Gemeinde, later changed to the Hanover Lutheran Church, a member of the Missouri Synod.

Hanover is the mother church for several other congregations in the area, Kinder said. There were missions in Egypt Mills, Scott City and Tilsit that later became individual churches. Trinity Lutheran Church in downtown Cape Girardeau was a Hanover mission at one time.

The Old Hanover Lutheran Church on Perryville Road was built in 1887. It is on the National Historic Register. In 1969, the congregation moved across the street to its current home.

Pastor Sippy said 12 family groups started Hanover Lutheran Church, and descendants of all 12 remain as members. There are few interesting anecdotes in church history, Sippy said, but that is part of what makes the church unique.

"The most significant thing about the congregation is that it doesn't have major events or persons on which its history is based," he said. "The church remains the same even though the personality and complexion of the congregation changes."

Today, Bertling Street in Cape Girardeau is named after the family that started the church.