The Concordia Story: A Fifty-Year History of Concordia Lutheran Church 1951-2001

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✦ Pastor Merkens and Rhoda Canion, music director, (both in white) pose with the Concordia choir in the mid-1960’s. Several LWML members, including Phyllis Bickerstaff, Margaret Roszell, Pat Brown, Dora Wenk, and Mrs. Dirks are credited with providing, in addition to altar paraments, banners for the church, Chrismons for Concordia’s Christmas trees, and other church decorations. Members of Concordia during its earliest days were amazed at Merkens’ concern for even the smallest details at the church. According to Bill Knippa: “He knew exactly who was in church each Sunday. If you missed a week, he sent out a bulletin with a note saying ‘We missed you.’ If you missed three or four weeks you’d get a call from pastor. Later you could get an encouragement visit from two elders. It really let the people know that Concordia and Pastor Merkens cared about members being in God’s house for worship and remaining close to the Lord in word and sacrament.” By 1956 the momentum at Concordia was attracting the attention of the Synod’s leaders as Concordia confirmed 109 adults and became the first LCMS congregation to confirm over one hundred adults in a single year. This attention led to Concordia Publishing House printing Merkens’ first church growth book, Organized for Action. The Publisher printed a soft cover version of the book in 1958, which 18 ✦ THE CONCORDIA STORY
was sent gratis by CPH to every pastor in the Missouri Synod. Locally, Concordia was gaining attention, as well. To Concordia’s good fortune, one of its members was the managing editor of the San Antonio Express-News. Merkens credits Bill Wagner with “giving us publicity way out of proportion to our size” during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Additional buildings were added to the campus almost yearly through the second half of the 50’s decade. In 1956 a second educational building arrived in a most unusual way. “We were talking to a man at Kelly Field about buying surplus property,” Merkens recounted. “As we were looking at tables and chairs I noticed nearby an old World War II barracks building. So I asked, ‘Is that for sale?’ He said, ‘Sure.’ So I asked ‘How much?’ He looked it up in his papers and told us, ‘Eighty-seven dollars.’ We purchased it on the spot. “We had been using a school bus as a Sunday School classroom, so this was just what we needed to accommodate Sunday School and our Day School. We prepared the foundation for it and had it moved over on a Sunday morning. It came up the street just as we finished our second service. Everybody came out on the street and it was really an exciting day.” The church planned to use the barracks building for just a few years because it had been acquired so cheaply. But it served as a classroom and nursery for 28 years. It was finally moved off the campus in 1984 to make room for the Ministry Building. And it is still in use today as the home of the Palmer Drug Abuse Program on the campus of House of Prayer Lutheran Church on Wurzbach Road. In 1956 a new administration and classroom building was constructed. “I really liked that building,” Merkens noted. “It gave us some real office space, and it was airconditioned, the first air-conditioned classroom building at Concordia.” In 1959 the sanctuary was expanded, and ground was broken for the gymnasium. “That was really a big time breakthrough for us,” Merkens said. “This was the first air-conditioned gym south of Dallas—high school, college, or whatever. They would ask, ‘Why would you air-condition a gym?’ Well, we had a lot of uses for it beyond playing basketball. It was exactly what a lot of churches started building later: a multi-use building.” At the dedication of the gymnasium in 1960, the Synod president, Dr. John Behnken, honored Concordia by preaching the dedication message. At the tenth anniversary of Concordia some impressive statistics were published: • 935 adults and children had been confirmed; • 910 had been baptized; • Communicant membership stood at 1,100; • Baptized membership was 1,750; • Free will giving had grown from $3,500 in 1952 to $130,000 in 1961; • The school had 300 pupils and was the largest Lutheran school in Texas; • Average worship attendance was 1,100; • Property and grounds were valued at $650,000. As Concordia’s first decade of service drew to a close, it was obvious that something special, and quite rare in Lutheran circles, was happening in the booming parish. True to Merkens’ prediction to Dr. Rast, the congregation had become self-sufficient by the end of its first year. Its physical plant had grown and expanded almost yearly to meet the influx of new members. The school was growing and charged no tuition to Concordia members. The church was easily the fastest-growing LCMS congregation and Merkens’ prayer of becoming one of the largest congregations in Synod was a distinct possibility. But the congregation’s impact was soon to spread far beyond San Antonio. ✦ Rhoda Canion, Dr. Merkens’ sister, served as Concordia’s music director from 1956 until her retirement in 1997. Chapter I ✦ 19
Page 1 and 2: THE CONCORDIA STORY A Fifty-Year Hi
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Page 5 and 6: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I first came to Co
Page 7 and 8: gregations across the U.S. and in m
Page 9 and 10: ✦ Left: The original chapel serve
Page 11 and 12: Rast that this aggressive, young pa
Page 13 and 14: that would express God’s love thr
Page 15 and 16: Address Record, which gave us the n
Page 17 and 18: School led to action. A companion b
Page 19: they kept in mind Merkens’ commen
Page 23 and 24: We tried to get everything done in
Page 25 and 26: Perhaps the innovation in which Mer
Page 27 and 28: format was to be a series of semina
Page 29 and 30: other congregations, all of which h
Page 31 and 32: ✦ Left: “They come to play and
Page 33 and 34: prospective members, and over one h
Page 35 and 36: ✦ Above: At Easter Sunday service
Page 37 and 38: ice.’ So they came that week and
Page 39 and 40: The year 1982 marked the publicatio
Page 41 and 42: ✦ Left: Concordia operated a bus
Page 43 and 44: The day was planned so the dedicati
Page 45 and 46: springs forward to daylight-savings
Page 47 and 48: eally selling short the good people
Page 49 and 50: Still the period beginning in Janua
Page 51 and 52: ✦ Left: The sanctuary as it looke
Page 53 and 54: has up here on 281,” Thompson sai
Page 55 and 56: experience as a lay pastor had dram
Page 57 and 58: tract for the purchase, but also au
Page 59 and 60: ✦ Left: Carl Steiger, right, serv
Page 61 and 62: gage. And it was not the kind of pr
Page 63 and 64: ✦ Left: San Antonio Mayor Howard
Page 65 and 66: two full-time pastors and two part-
Page 67 and 68: ✦ Left: Concordia’s Men’s Min
Page 69 and 70: Seminar speakers, like Paul Maier,
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Concordia who live in the area and
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Prior to the arrival of the Prieto
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✦ Far left: Concordians Mike Manu
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✦ Above: Concordia’s administra
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P ASTORS W HO H AVE S ERVED C ONCOR
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✦ Above: Adult Bible Class is hel
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Sunday School, 1952. Vacation Bible
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The Concordia Story: A Fifty-Year History of Concordia Lutheran Church 1951-2001

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