Renovation – Reformation at Hermannsburg
Fifty years ago, Lutheran teacher Bob Arnold created a 4m diameter Luther’s Rose in the church garden at Hermannsburg. Overgrown with couch grass, nobody took much notice of it until the locals began celebrating 500 years since Luther stirred up the church in Wittenberg and Europe and the idea arose that it was time to have a ‘reformation’ of the garden rocks by digging up the ground, removing the couch grass and slowly exposing the old rock pattern.
On Sunday 29 October 2017, the congregation gathered around the revitalised rock formation to hear the gospel of God’s love that it represented. Pastor Rodney Malbunka echoed what most people probably thought, ‘I never knew what that meant!’
Uncovering the couch laden rocks are rather symbolic of Luther removing the ‘wild, rank’ teachings of the Roman Catholic church at the time in order to unearth the evangelical truths he had rediscovered while studying the Bible in its original languages.
After the Reformation thanksgiving service, everyone gathered to celebrate with a piece of Luther’s Rose cake so beautifully decorated by the pastor’s Frau, Heather.
