Redeemer Lutheran Church & School

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We must remain steadfast in our faith, worship only the one true God, and constantly seek to do His will. God has blessed us mightily. We pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, that we remain constant in the Word of God. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Oakmont, Pennsylvania, was organized in the year 1900 under the guidance of the Reverend Theodore Walz. Though pastor of a German-speaking congregation in New Kensington, Pastor Walz helped shepherd a small group of German Lutherans speaking English and meeting in a log cabin in Penn Township (now Penn Hills) near the intersection of Hamil, Poketa and Shannon Roads. With a nucleus of eight families, the newly formed congregation decided to establish a meeting place in Verona, where many more prospective members could be served. The first meeting place was in a second floor hall in the Crookston Building, above a furniture store. The following year, St. Thomas Episcopal Church vacated a small white frame church building located at Second and C Streets (now Delaware Avenue) in Oakmont. The small Lutheran congregation purchased the building from Jacob Paul, owner, for a reasonable sum of $2,000. On July 21, 1901, the congregation dedicated its first permanent home. The Reverend Theodore J. A. Huegli, who was later to serve as the first full-time pastor of the congregation, preached the dedicatory sermon. Charter members were W. H. Hegmann, M. B. Irwin, J. P. Knell, George Kemmler, John Schwarz, Henry Schmidt, George Heid, August Overbeck, Henry Renz, Charles Juch, James A. Hope, Theodore Walz, Jacob Ostein, Chris C. Kemper, and Ernest Reinhold. (Available records do not list the names of women and children. After only eleven years, the congregation outgrew the building on Second Street. On October 1, 1912, they purchased the church building erected by the Methodists in 1892 on Fourth Street (now High Spire Apartments) for $8,500 from the Methodist Episcopal Congregation. The two congregations shared the buil