This church, which served as the founding organization of the Amana Colonies, was the direct heir to the Community of True Inspiration, a religious group founded in Germany in 1714. The Amana Church Society originally settled in upstate New York in 1843 and established seven villages in rural Iowa in the 1850s after development pushed it west. Community life centered on the church, with people living communally and sharing ownership of land and buildings. Members of this communal society used local materials to construct the meeting house in 1864. This vernacular building is the largest place of worship built by an American communal society and is representative of meeting houses built by other plain groups, including the Quakers, Shakers, and Moravians. A vote ended the communal society in 1932, but the church continues to operate as the spiritual foundation of the community.

The congregation is committed to intersectionality with the wider community and proudly accepts all people regardless of race, color, sexual orientation, ability, or gender identity. Today, the four buildings operated by the Amana Church Society serve as a Sunday school, meal site, food pantry, and program and performance space.

A $70,000 National Fund grant with $347,742 in matching funds raised by the congregation allowed Amana Church to complete several projects, including the removal of asbestos shingle siding on the Amana Meeting House, and its replacement with historically accurate unpainted wood clapboard siding. Numerous storm windows were restored and reinstalled. The ramp on the east side of the building was replaced, as were the four entrance porches. At the Kinderschule, electrical and HVAC systems were installed, and the wooden windows were restored and replaced. The decayed wood siding was removed, insulation and building wrap were installed, and the building was re-sided using historically accurate unpainted wood clapboard siding. The interior plaster was repaired and repainted. The restored Kinderschule is the home of the critically important food pantry, that serves several families each month. The new location of the pantry adds to the efficiency and capacity of the pantry.

A church member praised the final results, “This church is our ancestors’ expression of how they chose to worship. There is nothing like it anywhere. The worship space, or Versammlungsaal (meeting house), is open fully from one end to the other. There are no dark corners. To have the building restored; to have it accessible to everyone, is important to all those who love the church, and for those who come back to visit.”

Amana Church Society by Peter Hoehnle