Messiah Lutheran Church,
Charles City, IA

Contract signing: This church building
started out as a mission church with a worship area that doubled as a fellowship hall.

Originally windows were donated to the front of the church but after some time there was a desire
for a window design that would be somewhat more expressive. An idea was developed to design
a window plan that could begin next to where the old design ended and then transition
into a window with a flowing design that ended in a sunburst.

The first panels were very much like the older panels where they met near a
support beam at the center of the nave. The window design is repeated on each
side of the church until the design meets and culminates in the sunburst which
means Easter and resurrection to them.

While the appeal of this window design is best presented with the panels lined up
consecutively, end to end, one can get the general idea from these pictures. While
the altar area begins with a relatively formal and somewhat traditional approach,
the middle of the window is highly abstract and open to various interptretations.
The back window ending in the sunburst is at once symbolic, abstract, traditional, and
contemporary. One goal of the design was to represent various styles so that there
would be appeal spanning the generations. They were very pleased with the end result.