F. C. D. WynekenThunder on the Indiana Frontier

The life of pioneer Lutheran pastor F. C. D. Wyneken has an important place in the settlement and religious history of Indiana. However, his story is not widely known. Wyneken's exemplary dedication and service to the spiritual well-being of nineteenth-century German immigrants was remembered on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by the Indiana German Heritage Society, Indianapolis, and the "Friends of Wyneken," a nonprofit heritage organization, currently restoring Wyneken's house in Decatur, Indiana. If C. F. W. Walther was the mind of first generation Missouri Synod Lutheranism, F. C.D. Wyneken was its heart and soul. Wyneken gathered scattered German Protestants into confessional Lutheran congregations and forged them into a family of churches. He is aptly called the "thunder after the lightning."