Reverend Paul Winterstein

The Reverend Paul Winterstein has a particularly appropriate way of describing Calvary Lutheran Church’s relationship with The Kenney. “It’s been a godsend,” he says. When the nearly 75-year-old church found its membership declining in 2006, the pastor and his congregation faced some difficult decisions. They could no longer afford the upkeep on their church building, but parishioners were determined to keep worshipping together.“A church is more than a building. It’s people,” explains Rev. Winterstein, who became Calvary Lutheran’s pastor in 1986.

Sharing Sunday mornings with another church proved problematic because the ideal late morning worship times preferred by Calvary Lutheran’s older members were already spoken for. That’s when Rev. Winterstein turned to The Kenney.

As a visiting pastor here for some two decades, he already was familiar with the people who lived here and the lovely little chapel in the Sunrise wing. Not only could Calvary Lutheran’s congregation have a new place to worship, but so could residents of The Kenney who did not already have their own church home.

Each Sunday at 10:30 a.m., the chapel is filled with 30 or so Calvary Lutheran members joined by a few residents of The Kenney. Rev. Winterstein says the relationship benefits the church, The Kenney and the entire community.

“It says a lot about The Kenney’s willingness to live their not-for-profit mission,” he says.

To show their appreciation, the congregation sponsors an annual reception for Kenney residents, contributes to The Kenney Foundation and even bought a sound system for Sunday services that The Kenney can use any other time of the week.

The relationship between The Kenney and Calvary Lutheran Church? It is, as they say, a marriage made in heaven.