Our Savior Lutheran Church (St. Petersburg, Florida)
Our Savior Lutheran Church is a congregation of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod located in St. Petersburg, Florida. The church also operates an elementary school and a middle school. With 1272 members as of 2006, it is the seventh largest church in the LCMS' Florida-Georgia District; along with St. Petersburg's Grace Lutheran Church (1294 members) and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Nassau Bay, Texas (3268 members), it is one of the three largest Missouri Synod congregations along the Gulf Coast.
History
Our Savior Lutheran Church was founded in 1954. Even though for a while the services were held in Gulfport Elementary School, good things were to come from Our Savior. Reverend Bruce Bartholomew became the first pastor of the congregation in March 1954; he led the first regular service in the morning on Easter of that year, with all 18 members of Our Savior. Later that year the services were held in a bigger place in the Community Hall in Gulfport, Florida. In June the first Sunday school was held with attendance of 6 children; that was just the beginning, because later that summer the congregation purchased 5 acres (20,000 m2) of land on 58th avenue for about $12,000. Our Savior Lutheran Church is located in the middle of two cemeteries, in central St. Petersburg. At first it occupied just a little plot of land next to a graveyard; then the congregation built Parish Hall, where all the services where held. It was a small wooden building, all they needed at the time for a place to worship God. They used this building for their church services until 1966, when the sanctuary that is still used today was built. Parish Hall was later turned into a small gym and office building. Later, two members of the church, the Wegners, graciously remembered Our Savior in their will. In the 1970s there was a high school of portables on the grounds before Wegner Hall. It was vandalized and burned down. After Wegner Hall was built, there was a preschool and then an elementary school. The sanctuary was redone in 2001, building a new narthex and giving the whole church a makeover. The old gym was soon turned into a middle school building, three years after the OSLS middle school was formed. Around the beginning of 2005, Wegner Hall hosted the contemporary services at Our Savior, complete with PowerPoint and a more contemporary array of songs and services. Currently there is work being done on the roof, and other ideas are still in planning.
OSLS
Our Savior Lutheran School (OSLS) is still around, funded by the church; it has a preschool through 8th grade now. The students have high expectations, and are all at a higher level of the public schools in that area. The children are taught in a Christian environment; they are taken to chapel once a week for a small church service to sing and praise God. Some of the classes available to all of the children from 1-8 grade are Physical Education, Spanish, Computers and Art. All available for a well-rounded education, there are one set for each grade. No class is over 25 students, and with less than 250 children in the school it provides a more intimate setting with more time for the teachers to spend with each child. Special things that OSLS offers include music and mandatory band classes in 4 and 5th grade. Daycare is from 7 A.M. until 8:30 (when OSLS starts), then from dismissal (at 3:00) until 6:00. Sports and other extracurricular activities are available to everyone starting in their 4th grade year. Our Savior's annual track meet offers chances for all grades (1-8) to participate in track events. Starting in 5th grade the students go on a trip every year, to different places. The 5th grade class goes to Camp Woodlands for 3 days for a camping and leadership experience. The 6th grade goes to St. Augustine, Florida and the Kennedy Space Center for a history and physical science type of education experience. They spend 2 days touring St. Augustine, which is Florida's oldest city, and then they go to the Kennedy Space Center to learn about space shuttles and space. In 7th grade the class goes to the Florida Keys, for snorkelling on the reefs, to learn about marine biology from the facility in the Florida Keys called MarineLab. In 8th grade the classes go to Washington, D.C. to learn more about American history. Confirmation classes are given to children at the school that are in the congregation.