Fred Schumacher, Jr., the founding pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church, located at the corner of Portland and Northwest Expressway in Oklahoma City, passed into the hands of his Lord on Wednesday, December 7, 2011. He followed his beloved wife, Dorothy, who passed away two years ago this month. Known as Pastor to his friends and congregation, Fred worked with energy, dedication, love, and compassion in a way that made people comfortable. He ministered for almost 50 years, with 40 of those years at Messiah. Age and health may have diminished his activities in these last years, but his family, friends and caregivers know how he was so kind and humble, without ever losing his twinkle and sense of humor. Born in Louisville, Kentucky to a large family of modest means, Fred grew up poor during the depression years, the son of a Lutheran preacher, who was, himself, the son of a Lutheran preacher. After Freds mother died when he was 12 years old, he was sent to boarding school to continue his academic and spiritual education. His father died several years later. Fred attended Concordia Pre-Theological High School for his 4 high school years and the first 2 years of college in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He met his future wife, Dorothy, who had grown up in Fort Wayne and attended the co-located Concordia High School. Left alone to make his way, Fred studied hard and played basketball in high school and college, achieving academic and athletic honors. Despite being shy and reserved to the point of being called the bashful boy from Louisville, Dorothy used her magic energy to bring him out of his shell and they became a lifelong couple. Asked late in life when were his happiest moments, he said dating Dorothy in Fort Wayne. Fred continued his theological training at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis for the final 2 years of college followed by 1 year of vicarage and finishing his 4th year at the seminary with graduation and his first call into the ministry. He was ordained a Lutheran Pastor of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. After his graduation, he and Dorothy married and both taught school in Ft. Wayne for a year. In 1949, they moved to Wood River, Nebraska, where Fred served two congregations in a rural farming community. Their first child, Becky, was born there. After a few years, Fred and Dorothy accepted a call in 1952 to a Lutheran Church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. They moved to Oklahoma City in 1955 to begin Messiah Lutheran Church. Their three remaining children, Mike, Tim, and Mary, were born in Oklahoma. Messiah Lutheran Church began with fewer than 100 members, a mission church which borrowed Zion Lutherans building downtown while Messiahs building was being constructed. Starting as a small, no-frills, rectangular cinderblock building near the corner of Portland and Northwest Expressway, increasing congregation membership forced adding a second floor. A special moment in Pastor and Dorothys lives was when Messiah dedicated an entirely new sanctuary building in 1967 still the main sanctuary today, around which the congregation has added classrooms, a school and a family life center. But the building was a result, not a cause, of a congregation growing to more than 600 members. Some of the growth of the church was attributable to Pastors kind, caring ways because many people told him he was why they came to Messiah. As a third generation pastor, Pastor Schumacher commented that a house-going preacher makes a church-going people. Throughout his life, with Dorothy at his side, Pastor made thousands of personal visits to church members, joining them in their homes, dropping by their work places, visiting them when they or their family members were in the hospital, even calling on the most troubled, at the jail or in downtown missions. He and Dorothy continued these calls even after his retirement. He so enjoyed making these calls. Pastor Schumacher went far beyond the duties usually associated with ministers. Early in his ministry, not satisfied with dim movies in the sanctuary, he led Messiah to buy a theater-grade arc lamp movie projector to show Moody science films in midweek bible school, films on life values, or the Easter story during Lent. He bought a used offset printing press from a local printing company and moved the printing of bulletins in-house. With this technology, he and Dorothy produced multi-color church bulletins and designed church and synod stationery, using folding and stapling machines, light boxes for graphic design, and any tools needed to print the churchs stationery and documents. Messiah produced a living Christmas story where church members built a stable to house live animals. Church members played out the Christmas Nativity, dressed in appropriate biblical costume, on freezing, wind-swept Oklahoma nights, to folks in cars left running on the parking lot to keep warm. With a professionally mixed voice narration and a sound track of Montavani Christmas music, the annual event had a professional flair, and was more fun for the participants than the spectators. The many and varied activities of the church were on-going and fun including youth groups, singles gatherings, Callers for Christ, and potlucks to name a few. Pastor Schumacher believed that, above all else, love is what matters--both rejoicing in the love of God and showing love to others. No matter what hour, if the phone would ring and a member fell ill at the hospital, Pastor would go. If a man or woman lost a family member to accident or illness, Pastor would be there to do what he could to comfort them. And his children will attest that the most stressful routine of his life was his conscientious and time-consuming weekly sermon preparation. In Pastors mind, that 20 minute opportunity on Sunday morning to teach and show the power of Gods love and grace was precious enough to justify the hours and hours that he invested each week in reading theological treatises, gathering real-life material and stories, and organizing a sermon that might comfort a person in need, offer forgiveness and hope, change an outlook on life, or even change a life. Perhaps more than anything else, his congregation members loved Pastor for his sermons with stories of love and forgiveness. Many members have said Pastor Schumacher lived what he preached. After hearing a friend tell him that, he said but thats preaching also. When Freds wife, Dorothy, died two years ago, Fred, who studied Latin and Greek at the seminary, wrote the following notation on his calendar on the date of her deathDoro Thea, which he explained, means gift (Doro) of God (theos)the same words he had spoken to her while holding her hand in her last few hours. Freds last two years without her were difficult, but even in this phase, his caregivers learned to know his sweet nature and wry sense of humoreveryone grew to love him. His children visited him frequently and he always looked forward to their visits. Pastors passing is our loss, and saddens those who knew him, but we take comfort with the thought of Fred rejoining Dorothy in heaven. He is home for Christmas. Viewing for Pastor Schumacher will be Sunday, 11am-8pm, with the family present after church until 4:00pm at Mercer-Adams Funeral Service. There will be a celebration of Pastor Schumachers life at Messiah Lutheran Church, 3600 NW Expressway, on Saturday, December 17, at 2:00pm, and a reception immediately after in Schumacher Hall, the activities center that was named after him. The family suggests any memorials be addressed to Messiah Lutheran Church with a notation for the Lutheran Church Extension Fund. This fund is used to support mission (newly formed) churches. Pastor Schumacher started Messiah Lutheran Church as a mission church.