Welcome to the About St. John's Web Site!  At this site you will find information about St. John's heritage, Lutheranism, and our Ministries today.  This site is also a repository of St. John's historical records and information. 

About St. John's events are listed on St. John's Main Web Site Events Calendar .

Links to web sites of interest are located at St. John's Main Web Site Links & Resources .

Lutheran immigrants, from various parts of Sweden and some from Norway, had settled near Annandale in the year 1886 or before. Pastors Gustaf Petetson of Stockholm and J.A. Levine of Cokato had made home missionary journeys preaching the word of God to them. It was in order to provide for spiritual needs for these pioneer men and women that the ministry of St John's Lutheran Church was established.  There are descendants of the charter members, who are members of the present church.

The name of the original church was “The Swedish Evangelical Lutheran St. John's Church of South Side”.  In 1887 a building committee of five persons was given the task of preparing plans for the building of a church. This building was on the northeast corner of Harrison and 3rd. On May 10, 1959 ground was broken to build a new church building at the present site; In 1972 a new educational wing was added to complete the building.

The Church Register of the original church records 38 communicants and 30 children (68 baptized members).  The services were held in the Swedish language (except for funerals) until 1918.  In the early 20th century the growth of the congregation remained fairly constant as the 1914 annual report showed that. the congregation had grown to 170 baptized members and the 1945 annual report shows 191 baptized members.   In the  1997 pictorial directory, baptized members were 950.  At the end of the year 2000 St. John's had a baptized membership of 1,225.  On December 16, 2001, the current sanctuary building was dedicated.  Today, St. John's has a baptized membership of 1,449.

Martin Luther (b. November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Germany, d. February 18, 1546 in Eisleben) is known as the Father of Protestantism.  He had studied to become a lawyer before becoming an Augustinian monk in 1505, and was ordained a priest in 1507.   While continuing his studies in pursuit of a Doctor of Theology degree, he discovered significant differences between what he read in the Bible and the theology and practices of the church.  On October 31, 1517, he posted a challenge on the church door at Wittenberg University to debate 95 theological issues.   Luther's hope was that the church would reform its practice and preaching to be more consistent with the Word of God as contained in the Bible.

What started as an academic debate escalated to a religious war, fueled by fiery temperaments and violent language on both sides.  As a result, there was not a reformation of the church but a separation.  "Lutheran" was a name applied to Luther and his followers as an insult but adopted as a badge of honor by them instead.

Lutherans still celebrate the Reformation on October 31 and still hold to the basic principles of theology and practice espoused by Luther, such as Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura :

We are saved by the grace of God alone -- not by anything we do;

Our salvation is through faith alone -- we only need to believe that our sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, who died to redeem us;

The Bible is the only norm of doctrine and life -- the only true standard by which teachings and doctrines are to be judged.

Another of Luther's principles was that Scriptures and worship need to be in the language of the people.

Luther's Small Catechism, which contains teachings on the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, Holy Communion and Morning and Evening Prayers, is still used to introduce people to the Lutheran faith, as is the Augsburg Confession.  These and other Lutheran confessional documents included in the Book of Concord may be ordered from the ELCA Publishing House at 800-328-4648 or from the Augsburg Fortress Web Site.

More information on Martin Luther and the history of Lutheranism is available at the ELCA Web Site .

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), along with other Lutheran churches, can trace its roots directly to the Protestant Reformation that took place in Europe in the 16th century. By the late 1500s the Reformation had spread throughout Europe. Followers of Martin Luther's teachings were labeled "Lutherans" by their enemies and adopted the name themselves. Lutheran beliefs became widespread, especially in Germany and the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland), later spreading throughout the world as early explorers took their faith with them on their voyages. Lutheranism came to the Americas that way; some of the earliest settlers in the Americas were Scandinavians, Dutch and German Lutherans. The first permanent colony of them was in the West Indies, and by the 1620s there were settlements of Lutherans along the Hudson River in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey.

By the late 1800s the 20 or so Lutheran church bodies that would eventually merge to become The American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America had been established. Massive immigration from traditionally Lutheran countries had started, and between 1840 and 1875 alone 58 Lutheran synods were formed in the U.S.!

In 1960 the American Lutheran Church (German), United Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Norwegian) merged to form The American Lutheran Church (ALC). The Lutheran Free Church (Norwegian), which had dropped out of merger negotiations, came into the ALC in 1963.  In 1962 the ULCA (German, Slovak and Icelandic) joined with the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church (Swedish), Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church and American Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish) to form the Lutheran Church in America (LCA).

The 1978 ALC and LCA conventions adopted resolutions aimed at the creation of a single church body. The AELC joined them, and the ALC-LCA Committee on Church Cooperation became the Committee on Lutheran Unity (CLU) in January of 1979.  The CLU formed the Commission for a New Lutheran Church (CNLC), and by August 1986 the CNLC had completed its work.  Again the three church bodies met in simultaneous conventions and voted overwhelmingly to accept the constitution and bylaws of the new church as well as the proposed agreement and plan of merger, thus creating the fourth largest Protestant body in the United States.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was finally born at its constituting convention in Columbus, Ohio, April 30-May 3, 1987.  On January 1, 1988, the ELCA became the legal successor to its predecessors, a mosaic reflecting not only the ethnic heritages of traditional Lutherans through its original churches, but also the full spectrum of American culture in which it serves, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

More information on the history of Lutheranism and the ELCA is available at the ELCA Web Site .

If you want to learn more about St. John's, or for a list of specific individual contact people for ABC ministries, visit the Contact Us & Directions Web Site.

You can also learn more about the ministries of St. John's at the Ministries & Council Web Site .