The Lutheran churches in Baltimore, MD offer a traditional Christian service every Sunday at 10am. The building is in the French Gothic style, and Baltimore Lutherans legally belonged to the Anglican church. Around 1750, they celebrated their worship in the Church of St. Paul with their reformed brothers.
The small square tower that marked the end of the sturdy brick structure of Gay Street contained a simple bell that called the flock of Zion to serve on happy and sad occasions. There were two entrances, one on Gay Street and the other on the south side of the building, both with semicircular Roman arches and windows pointed in the Gothic style. Zion clings to a traditional worship service that makes use of the rich sacramental and liturgical heritage of Lutheranism. Learn about the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States and its history on our What is the ELCA page. Less than a decade after Pastor Scheib arrived in Baltimore, the Church of Zion had undergone such a complete change that it can rightly be considered a successor to Old Zion and not a continuation.
In 1755, all Germans whose faith was based on the Augsburg Confession formed the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation in Baltimore Town. Without taking into account or understanding the position that the Ecclesiastical Council of Zion had traditionally taken, Pastor Scheib tried to incline the church towards orthodoxy. The Messiah Church on Fayette and Gay Streets was completely destroyed, as were many other buildings in the neighborhood. Under Pastor Scheib's leadership, the Church of Zion had been viewed by other German Protestant churches in Baltimore with indifference, suspicion, and even hostility. The liberal Germans who settled in Baltimore in large numbers in the early 1950s were attracted to the clear and intellectual preaching of the spirit that occupied the Zion pulpit. Evers, on behalf of the Church of Zion, delivered The Pioneer ambulance to the United States Red Cross as a gift from the Church of Zion for work of mercy and in honor of Dr.
Since then, the Kirchenblatt (later Gemindeblatt, now Monatsblatt) has proven to be a valuable instrument through which the pastor, Church Council and various church organizations have maintained close contact with all members of the church. At night, the roof of the church itself caught fire and burned at two points, but precautions taken prevented significant damage. The Lutheran authorities had rejected Pastor Scheib because of his liberalism and he found himself in full accordance with his views. For Pastor Scheib and many of his parishioners, this expression of maximum simplicity fully coincided with their private lives outside church and was in complete harmony with their effort to approach religion with an open and critical mind, devoid of frills and mysteries. Among German immigrants who arrived in Baltimore between 1840 and 1870, there were many who did not adhere to creed of any church as moral orientation. The pastor and a group of members contacted many families who had left Church of Zion or simply lost interest in being members of evangelization program.
They even promised to continue financially supporting German religious services after finding an English Lutheran co-pastor, whom they would pay out-of-pocket to avoid final division of congregation. However, after brief stay in capital he discovered German Lutherans there were not responding to his persuasions and he went to Midwest.
