Posted: 6/21/05
Cross of Christ Churchís 150th birthday Sunday
Cross of Christ Lutheran Church in Houston will celebrate its 150th birthday this Sunday, June 26.
A festival worship service starts at 10 a.m. led by Bishop Harold Vsgaard from the Southeastern Minnesota Synod of the ELCA.
Everybody is welcome at worship, and they will have extra meals at the catered noon dinner if people want to stop in, Pastor Lane Zaffke said on June 16.
A program of remembrances and celebration which starts at 2 p.m. will feature greetings from former pastors. Coffee, cake, and fellowship is at 3 p.m.
Zaffke said that people have been working hard to prepare for the event, and they are excited. ìPeople are finding out things about the history that they werenít aware of,î he said. ìItís pretty exciting. We have a lot of willing volunteers that are going to try and make it the best day possible.î
There are momentos that represent 150 years, plus the program will focus on future ministry, Zaffke said. They want to avoid the attitude of, ìWell, weíve got to 150 years, itís all done now,î he said with a laugh.
People have been writing their memories connected to the church, and these will be given out too. ìItís more of a living type history book,î Zaffke said.
A timeline will be put on the wall so that people can follow the ministerial highlights. ìWe kind of view it as all of our members are ministers and do ministry in their daily lives, and our timeline will reflect that,î Zaffke said.
The church, which has about 1,200 members, has a rich Norwegian history. It was founded by Rev. U. V. Koran, who started Norwegian churches in several other local communities, including Spring Grove.
St. Peterís Lutheran Church and the Houston Stone Church came together to form Cross of Christ in 1960. They have became a stronger church from that union, Zaffke feels, ìwith good work and good people.î
He added that he and fellow pastor Louise Stromberg enjoy the privilege of serving at Cross of Christ. ìPeople are excited about ministry and living their faith,î he said. ìThatís kind of what weíre going to celebrate on Sunday.î
Later in the summer Cross of Christ will celebrate its Stone Church, which is located on Highway 76 a mile south of Houston. It was built in 1862, and is thought to be the second oldest active church in Minnesota.
Church cost $4,386
Here is a history of the church, taken from Houston Lutheran Church 100th Anniversary Booklet.
Many of the churches built in the sixties in the field organized by Rev. Koran were built of local limestone for foundations and walls. The day of concrete had not arrived.
Plans for the Houston church called for a main structure forty feet wide by sixty feet in length to be built from local stone taken from the nearby hill. A quarry opened in the year 1863 but a war stopped the early work, and it was not until 1864 the actual work of taking out the rock for the church was completed.
Mr. Ole Skree was the overseer and timekeeper. He traveled to La Crosse to purchase a time piece and came back with a large sized wall clock which was set up in the quarry. After a century of service the clock still hangs on the wall in the church parlors.
Gullick Halvorson, stone mason, together with the membership, laid and completed the stonework during the year 1865. There was a question about laying the gable ends of stone, but the final decision was to use stone all the way. The total cost of the stone work was $1,842.12 which sum was paid at the time. There was enough stone left over to build a stone fence in front of the church yard.
Contract for the frame and carpenter work and material was let to Aad Evanson Aarback. Timbers for the structure were hewn out of local timber. The other lumber was purchased from a saw mill at Black River Falls, Wisconsin, rafted down the Black River across the Mississippi to Target Lake from where it was loaded on wagons and hauled to the building site by oxen. The work involved was completed in 1866. The contract price was $2,500 paid in 1866 and 1867. There was an additional cost of $42.40 and this perhaps paid for the alter and pulpit work done by the contractor, which was outside of the original contract. The Baptismal Font with its beautiful inlaid work was done by John Homme.
Secretary Christof Evanson reported the total cost of the church building to be $4,385.58. The building represented a major effort, much of self-denial and heavy contributions in personal labor and money, that the congregation secure a place of worship to serve the needs of the day and of the future.
This was not all of the giving of the hardy, thrifty, church-minded membership of the day. In addition to paying for a church, they contributed nearly $1000.00 to the building of Luther College at Decorah, Iowa.
Rev. Jenson served the Houston congregation for ten years through the development and building projects, and he served Highland Prairie and Rushford during all that time too. In 1862 to 1864 he also served the large Big Canoe Congregation in Iowa. An ambitious task for any man but it wore him down and he resigned early in 1869.
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