Church celebrates German heritage, faith with first-ever event

Gerry Tritz/News Tribune
The audience claps after a duet sang a song during Sunday's GraceFest at Grace Lutheran Church in Holts Summit.
Gerry Tritz/News Tribune The audience claps after a duet sang a song during Sunday's GraceFest at Grace Lutheran Church in Holts Summit.

A Holts Summit church Sunday started what it hopes to become an annual fall event - a festival celebrating the church's German heritage and faith.

Grace Lutheran Church held its first GraceFest, inviting church members and the public to enjoy authentic German food, music and singing as well as games. Also featured at the event was the movie "Martin Luther," which is about the 16th-century Catholic priest who tried to reform the Catholic Church and ended up starting the protestant reformation.

Sunday's event advertised: "We will be celebrating our Reformation heritage of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone!"

GraceFest stemmed from a family tradition held by church members Cole and Mary Oxley.

For the past decade, they've hosted an annual event with family members featuring old German family recipes. The group would wear lederhosen and play Octoberfest music and sing karaoke. Sometimes they would mix things up with different themes, ranging from whiskey night to Missouri night - an evening featuring all Missouri-made foods.

"We just said, 'Why not make this a church thing,'" Cole Oxley said, sporting his own lederhosen. "Not a lot of people realize what German food is or have an appreciation of the culture. There's a lot of rich history, especially in Lutheran culture, that comes from Germany, and it's not all bad. The Gutenberg press, the whole reason we can read the Bible in English and other languages, is thanks to Germany."

Sunday's food featured schnitzel, bratwurst, sptzle, sweet red cabbage, sauerkraut, pretzels, two German potato soups, apple strudel, black forest cake and lep cookies. They also had hot dogs and macaroni and cheese for the kids.

"I just want to keep the family traditions going," Cole Oxley said. "If you lose your culture, you kind of lose your identity and they just die away. Being proud of who you are and where your family comes from is part of our American heritage. And part of the reason we left Europe and came to the United States is for our religious freedom."

Oxley did much of the cooking. Siggi Ming, who was born and raised in Germany, made the sptzle and the pork schnitzel.

Ming moved to the United States in 1989 and just moved to Holts Summit from North Carolina. They've been attending Grace Lutheran.

"I think it's great," she said of the event. "I'm proud to be an American. But it's a nice (event). It brings people together."

Next year, Cole Oxley said he hopes to expand the event. Among other things, he'd like to present a skit based on Luther.