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Cumming church that started with an ad marks anniversary Sunday
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CUMMING -- The March 7, 1984, issue of Forsyth County News featured coverage of a press conference from Jack Manton of Cumming, detailing his client Herschel Walker’s decision to enter the USFL, a TV Guide ad for the second season of “The A-Team” and a house near Lake Lanier listed for $49,900.

 

But near the back of the paper is a 2-inch-by-3-inch ad that reads “First Worship Service Lanierland Lutheran Mission Sunday-March 11, 1984” at the Chapel of Ingram Funeral Home.

 

Six years later — almost to the day — the same group ran another ad in the FCN, inviting all to come to the new Christ the King Lutheran Church.

 

This Sunday, that church will celebrate its 25th anniversary.

 

“The church started with an ad in the paper,” said the Rev. J. Erik Allen. “We’ll have it in the display cabinet. I think right now we have a picture of those that were gathered at Ingram Funeral Home for the first services, here.”

 

Along with the ads, the church will also feature several items from its history Sunday, including a chest that was more or less the only physical structure in the early years.

 

“It’s a real bunch of pictures and things. We have crosses, banners, flags, T-shirts from some of the sporting things they’ve been part of with softball and basketball,” Allen said. “We’ll have some of the old church records on display, some hymnals.

 

“We’ll also have a box that when we were worshiping in the funeral home and various places we had to take everything with us and pack it up so we have a trunk, a chest so to speak, that we’ll have on display.”

 

Also Sunday, the church will welcome the Rev. H. Julian Gordy.

 

“We have the privilege of welcoming the Bishop of our Synod,” Allen said. “Our Synod is kind of the regional grouping of Lutheran congregations. It actually covers four states. It’s called the Southeastern Synod, and it has about 160 congregations in it representing just under 50,000 baptized Christians. ”

 

Allen has been head of the churches in Tennessee and Pennsylvania, but has served at Christ the King  for less than a year. Still, he applauds those who took the first “step of faith” in establishing the church all those years ago.

 

“Lutherans are certainly not as prevalent down South as they are in the upper Midwest and places like Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota or even the Eastern seaboard,” he said.

 

“There’s a lot of Lutherans up there. But down South, there not as many. So it was a step of faith to think that we could start a Lutheran Church in Forsyth County.”