At some point in my thinking about this trip, I came across some architectural reading that reminded me of the movie Columbus, and that led me to noticing that Eliel (father) and Eero (son) Saarinen designed a Lutheran church in Minneapolis. The church is a designated National Historic Place. They give architectural tours on the second Sunday of the Month. I hadn’t been to a game at Target Field, the Twins were home, and they were playing the (Cleveland Indians) Guardians to boot. A pretty good birthday for baseball (although both Chicago home games on Sep. 11, 2021 was a nice get too!).

I enjoyed the service and tour. There was an interesting parishioner who had been at the church since 1942 (it was Missouri Synod prior to switching to a different branch in the 70s and ultimately joining the ELCA in the late 80s). He remembered the opening in the late 40s and pointed out how they needed to add sound reinforcement for a later pastor who didn’t take advantage of the acoustics with his own projection.

The service had good music - the organist was Martin Seitz, who was an editor for the hymnal. It explained some of the deep cuts that they played!

The church was in a really nice neighborhood—lots of pretty city blocks. Surprisingly, there was no parking lot—it was designed as a neighborhood church, and I guess zoning rules must have been different then!

The church had a school attached, built before the membership ran into trouble (partly the contentious split from the Missouri Synod and presumably also due to white flight of the 1960s). It had nice space, including a fellowship hall / gym / stage, which they even use for pickleball leagues!

The ball game was enjoyable — the stadium was cool/modern. I was surprised by how sausage-heavy it smelled. It shouldn’t have been a surprise with all the German heritage (Lutheran churches) around, but it seemed even more prominent than in Milwaukee.

I had a really enjoyable time in Minneapolis. I did think that it was interesting how it was laid out — I spent a lot of time driving… there were lots of suburbs and it felt like lots of time on the interstate going through the city, even though some of my stops were assumedly in the city proper.