Holy Cross Lutheran Church

OK, I won’t lie and tell you the place is without fault… I have an immediate family member who had a problem with a staff member and quit attending, yet I have other immediate family members who still attend regularly, and are active within the congregation, other than simply attending.
As for myself, I was a member here for 23 years – from the time I was baptized at 1 month old until I began attending a sister congregation closer to my home. I should add here that Holy Cross has run a Lutheran day school with varying grade levels since 1950: at one time, there was an infant care center, and for a few years, the junior high was complete through the 9^th grade. I was in the first 9^th grade class… I attended school there for ten years: kindergarten through grade 9. I mention this even though one could appear to bias the other, but when one’s whole life six days a week for ten years is at the one location, much of the experience overlaps.
As a member of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, Holy Cross Lutheran Church has always been rather conservative in its doctrine. But because of its location on a U.S. coast, its own local policies are a lot looser than in many Midwestern congregations. (This is just a fact I’ve learned living on both coasts and in the Midwest, active in the church wherever I have lived.) I have always found the people to be friendly here, still many around who remember me, but even those whom I had never met before have been very welcoming to me on the rare occasions that I have gone back to visit.
This will always be my «home» congregation: no matter where I visit or where I move, Holy Cross is the ruler by which I measure all other churches. And consciously or not, every church I’ve been part of since leaving Holy Cross has been like a twin of Holy Cross because, as it is said, «There’s no place like home» and Holy Cross feels like home because, for me, Holy Cross IS home.