On October 15, 1725, German settlers gathered at Falkner Swamp Reformed Church in Gilbertsville, PA for the first communion service. John Philip Boehm, a school teacher and church lay leader who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1720, became the first pastor of Falkner Swamp and was considered the founder of the German Reformed Church.

As the German immigrants settled throughout this region, Boehm was serving multiple congregations as a lay itinerant pastor. They relied heavily on lay leaders. In 1729, Boehm was ordained and continued to serve many congregations since there weren’t many ordained ministers to offer the sacraments. Rev. Boehm died in 1749 at the age of sixty-five. He had just finished celebrating communion at a church and died on his way home.

Almost a hundred years later, a small group of men gathered in East Petersburg on October 26, 1848 to be installed as deacons and elders. There were also nineteen men and twenty-eight women who gathered for the first communion service. This led to the birth of Trinity Reformed Church.

We will gather on October 26 to celebrate the 177th anniversary of Trinity Church. We will recognize members who have been a part of Trinity & St. Luke’s for fifty years or more. As we gather for Holy Communion, I encourage us to think about those German settlers who gathered for the first communion service in 1725. I also encourage us to think about those men and women who gathered in 1848 for the first communion service at Trinity Church. We are connected to our ancestors in the faith!

As we celebrate these significant anniversaries, I share this prayer of thanksgiving from the Reformed Church Book of Worship:
O God, Giver of all good and Fountain of all mercies, in whom are the springs of our life: all glory, thanks and praise be unto Thee for thine ever-flowing goodness; for thy faithfulness which is from one generation to another; for thy mercies which are new every morning, fresh every moment, and more than we can number; for seed-time and harvest, and summer and winter, and nights and days throughout the year; for food and raiment and shelter; for health and reason; for childhood and age, and youth and manhood; for thy fatherly hand ever upon us in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, in life and in death; for friends and kindred and kind benefactors; for home and country; for thy Church and for thy gospel; yea, Lord, for that there is nothing in which we may not bless and thank Thee. And therefore do we take the cup of salvation, and call upon thy name, pay our vows now in the presence of all thy people; humbly beseeching Thee to accept this our becoming service and bounden duty, even as we offer it, in the name and through the infinite merits of Thy Son Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 

 

 

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