It was in 1917 that a small group of Minneapolis business and professional men began meeting to discuss a goal they shared – the creation of an English-language Lutheran church in the downtown part of the city.

Although almost all of them were of Norwegian descent, they were determined that the new church would be thoroughly American, not an ethnic parish. It would seek members from the large number of people moving into the area around downtown, welcoming all regardless of national background, race or economic status, and it would serve the needs of members and nonmembers alike.

By late 1918 the founding group numbered 12 and their efforts were gaining momentum. The founders picked up support from leaders of the newly formed Norwegian Lutheran Church in America, who also encouraged use of the English language in worship, and on Feb. 29, 1919, they incorporated as Central Lutheran Church.

The Rev. J.A.O. Stub, who had been engaged in military chaplaincy work during World War I, accepted the founders' call to be pastor of the new church, and the first service was held on Palm Sunday, April 13, 1919. The site was the old Central Baptist Church at Grant St. and 4th Ave. S. – a vacant building that the founders leased at first and the congregation later purchased for $33,000.

Soon after this beginning, the number of members grew rapidly beyond the original 12 founders and their families, reaching 581 persons in early 1920 and over 1500 in 1924. The sanctuary was filled to capacity for worship services every Sunday.

On Easter Sunday in 1923 the church rented the old Lyceum Theater in downtown Minneapolis for its worship service, but all 3000 seats were quickly taken and over 1200 people were left standing outside. In 1925 Easter worship moved to the largest available meeting place in the city, the old Kenwood Armory several miles west of Central, but after nearly 8000 persons crowded inside, there were still 2000 left outside.

The lack of adequate space at Old Central became obvious, and in 1923 a "Committee of 12" was appointed to study the problem in depth. The issue was whether to remodel and expand the old worship facility or plunge ahead on construction of a new, much larger sanctuary.

 

Photographer: Charles P. Gibson, c. 1924, photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society.

After two years of study and with considerable trepidation, the congregation chose the new-construction alternative. It subsequently approved plans for a neo-Gothic type cathedral, to be built on property west of the existing church on Grant Street at an eventual cost of $576,000.

Construction of the new sanctuary, with a seating capacity between 2700 and 3000, was completed and the building dedicated on Palm Sunday in 1928. It was believed to be the largest Lutheran cathedral-type structure in North America.

A year after the dedication, the crash of the stock market and the onset of the Great Depression left the Central congregation with a financial crisis as it attempted to pay off the bonds that had financed construction of the new sanctuary.

The whole matter ended up in federal district court, where a settlement was worked out under which the bondholders agreed to accept payment of the principal – without interest – over a 30-year period. A campaign led by Central member and businessman Lawrence Brings to buy back the bonds at a discounted price also contributed to the solution.

From the start in 1919, Central's pastors and leaders emphasized the importance of music as part of a quality worship experience. By the time of the dedication of the new sanctuary in 1928, Choir Director and Organist J. Victor Bergquist had a senior choir of 85 singers plus a waiting list, and a junior choir of 79.

In 1929, a prominent figure in the church's history, organist Marion Hutchinson, began a 25-year career on the staff. Known as an exceptional accompanist and recitalist, Hutchinson had her own half-hour program Sunday afternoons on WCAL radio for many years.

Peter Tkach became choir director at Central in 1937 and soon put the church's choir on the map nationally. The director of award-winning choirs at the old West High in Minneapolis and later music director for the Minneapolis public schools, Tkach served Central for 14 years. During his tenure, Christmas Eve concerts by the Central choir were sent out nationwide on the CBS radio network.

In 1944 the bold leadership of Pastor Stub came to an end with his death after a ministry of 25 years. The Rev. Elmer Hjortland, a protege of Stub who had served pastorates in Eau Claire and Milwaukee, Wis., and was concluding a tour of duty as an Army chaplain, was called to succeed Stub and was installed at Central in the summer of 1945.

Photographer: Minneapolis Star Journal Tribune, c. 1953, photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society.

Under Hjortland, a gifted preacher, counselor and community activist, Central embarked on a decade of exceptional growth. Membership was hovering in the 2000 range when he came; it was over 5000 when he left in 1955.

Since its inception, Central had given birth to many organizations through which members could provide important help in carrying out the ministry of the congregation. But 115 new ones were launched after Hjortland's arrival as he sought to harness the energy of a rapidly growing membership.

Stub had given high priority to the role of the Sunday School, and in the postwar years it experienced exceptional growth. After construction of the new sanctuary in 1928, the congregation had retained the Old Central building for Sunday School classrooms as well as offices and meeting rooms. But by 1951 enrollment had reached 551 and congregation leaders insisted a new Sunday School building was necessary.

As a result, a new two-story Sunday School building, constructed behind Old Central on 4th Avenue S. at a cost of $242,000, was completed in 1952 and gave the church 44 new classrooms and four large assembly areas.

The music program added a new dimension after the Rev. Johan Thorson, a young pastor-musician, succeeded Tkach in 1950. He added a number of children's choirs to the music program, bringing the total number of singers involved to over 260, and he put all the choirs together for the first "Christmas at Central" performance in 1951.

In 1954, the beloved husband-wife team of Fred and Joyce Hilary launched what became the longest tenure of any leaders of Central's music program. Fred was the music director and Joyce the organist for 24 years,

Fred loved the great choral classics, including oratorios, and he had the Central choirs perform them frequently – in the church and at Northrop Auditorium and Orchestra Hall with the Minnesota Orchestra. The Senior Choir continued to sing on nationwide radio and television broadcasts and made its first recordings.

The Hilarys added more children's choirs to the program, and the total number of choral groups reached seven at its peak, with 370 singers involved. The couple also broadened the scope of "Christmas at Central," adding dramatic components to the musical ones in extravaganzas for which Fred wrote the scripts. In 1972 the Hilarys led the Senior Choir on a trip to the Holy Land, which was climaxed by a Christmas Eve broadcast back to the United States from Bethlehem.

When Pastor Hjortland resigned in late 1955 to accept a call to a suburban Chicago parish, he was followed within a few months by the Rev. A. Reuben Gornitzka, who had served a large Milwaukee congregation.

A top priority facing Gornitzka was bringing to fruition the construction of a new parish hall adjacent to the sanctuary on the east side. Old Central was demolished to make way for the new $628,000 building, which was designed to conform to the architectural pattern of the sanctuary.

 Photographer: Norton & Peel, c. 1957, photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society.

The parish hall housed such facilities as the church offices, more classrooms, a multipurpose fellowship hall, music rehearsal rooms, lounges for both adults and youths, nursery facilities, and a library and bookstore. The project was completed in midsummer 1957, just in time for Central to host what was probably the largest gathering in its history – the third assembly of the Lutheran World Federation.

After completion of the parish hall, Gornitzka was able to report in 1959 that Sunday School enrollment had reached 860 in classes ranging from age 2 1/2 to high school seniors – the highest figure in the church's history.

Another important Lutheran gathering took place at Central in 1960 when synods of three ethnic backgrounds (Norwegian, German and Danish) came together for the constituting convention of the American Lutheran Church. That body was absorbed in another big merger in 1988 that produced the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Central's current parent synod.

The only major modification of the sanctuary since its construction in 1928 was launched during Gornitzka's years. This was the installation of a big new Casavant pipe organ, with its 108 ranks containing nearly 6000 pipes. The $225,000 project required a remodeling of the chancel, which included closing off the large stained-glass window behind the choir loft and removing the 20-foot-long tapestry painting of Jesus' Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem below it.

Gornitzka, a popular, charismatic leader, resigned early in 1963, and he was succeeded later that year by Dr. Morris Wee, a former church college president and a pastor in Madison, Wis.

 

Photographer: Norton & Peel, c. 1964, photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society.

Shortly after Wee's arrival, the new organ was dedicated, and in succeeding years Central hosted many concerts, recitals and symposiums that featured renowned organists like American E. Power Biggs and Frenchman Maurice Durufle.

In 1965, the congregation launched a Friendly Visitors program which drew widespread attention. For more than two decades well over 100 individual volunteers and couples signed up each year to "adopt" a shut-in member, making at least two personal calls per month on these new friends. Besides the visits, the volunteers would arrange birthday parties for their shut-in friends, help with shopping for them and assist in writing letters and many other tasks.

Two major Central outreach programs that have grown and continue to this day were started in the late 1960s. One was Camp Amnicon, located on the south shore of Lake Superior in northwestern Wisconsin; the other was the Clothes Closet, originally a project to provide quality used clothing to single mothers and their children in the neighborhood around the church.

In the years since the Clothes Closet was launched, it has evolved into a daytime shelter for the homeless. Besides clothing, people in need receive a hot meal on Mondays, the opportunity for worship and fellowship, nursing services and counseling aimed at helping resolve personal problems and finding jobs and permanent housing.

During the Wee years, which ended in 1971, the postwar growth in Central's membership continued, reaching an all-time peak of just under 6000. One factor in this growth of a downtown church at a time when many people were moving to the suburbs was the wisdom of congregation leaders in pursuing acquisition of available property around the church for parking facilities.

Of crucial importance to the health of Central since its establishment in 1952 has been the Central Lutheran Church Foundation. The foundation receives gifts and bequests, invests the money and returns the earnings to support the programs of the congregation.

Each year the foundation distributes to the church 5 percent of its average net assets over the previous three years. In 2004 that amount was $630,000. Since its inception the foundation has received contributions of over $8 million, and it has returned over $8 million to the congregation. That means it has returned virtually as much as it has received and still has assets of over $14 million.

Following Dr. Wee's decision to retire late in 1971, the congregation turned to the Rev. Hoover Grimsby, a son of the congregation, for leadership as senior pastor. Grimsby had served large congregations in Milwaukee and Austin, Minn.

During the next two decades, membership at Central leveled off in the 4000-5000 range. In part, this reflected the fact that as many young families moved to suburbs farther and farther from downtown Minneapolis, they found it more convenient to attend the many large Lutheran churches growing up close to them.

But this situation did not lessen the vitality of the Central congregation. During the ensuing years, after-school and day-care programs for children in the neighborhood were started, refugee families from Southeast Asia were welcomed, the church's historic commitment to support individual foreign missionaries was continued, and the program for senior citizens was reinvigorated.

Katharine Holum was elected as the first woman president of the congregation in 1981, and the Rev. Nancy Connor joined the pastoral staff in 1985 as the congregation's first woman pastor.

The Rev. Cherian Puthiyottil, a native of India, joined the pastoral staff on a part-time basis in 1982 while completing a doctoral program at Luther Seminary. He embarked on a multifaceted outreach program to the new and ever-changing immigrant community that had moved into the neighborhoods south of the church.

Cherian became a full-time staff member in charge of neighborhood ministries in 1989 and continued in that role for another decade before shifting his passion for missionary outreach among the many new immigrants to the Twin Cities to the headquarters of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA and, currently, his own Agora Ministries program.

An important addition to the physical plant at Central during the Grimsby years was the construction of the Elmer S. Hjortland Commons, a $700,000 facility extending from the south wall of the sanctuary to 14th Street.

The project provided an enclosed connection between the sanctuary and parish hall, a new south entrance to the church on 14th Street, a popular area for casual conversation and meetings (the "South Commons"), and an elevator that made all levels of the parish hall and Sunday School building accessible to the handicapped.

Following the retirement of Fred and Joyce Hilary in 1978, John Ferguson, a member of the music faculty at Kent State University, took over as both music director and organist. Five years later he left to join the music faculty at St. Olaf College.

After a one-year interim, Charles Parsons began a 13-year tenure, also as both organist and music director. Both Ferguson and Parsons were outstanding musicians and choral directors. Ferguson added a bell choir to the music groups at the church. Parsons added the all-male Compline Choir of Minnesota and the Cantorei chamber choir and took the Senior Choir to Austria in 1987 to sing at the Salzburg Music Festival.

Mark Sedio, Central's music director and organist for the past five years, has upheld the highest standards of his predecessors, demonstrating extraordinary creativity and a unique ability to fit music into a worship setting. In 2002, Sedio led the Senior Choir on its latest trip abroad, to Eastern Europe.

Grimsby retired as senior pastor in 1986 and was replaced by the Rev. Stephen Cornils, who had served several congregations in California. In his six years at Central, Cornils won recognition as an exceptionally gifted preacher and worship leader and as a strong advocate of inner-city ministry.

In the decade-plus since Cornils' resignation, the congregation has witnessed an unprecedented turnover in its pastoral staff and a resulting decline in membership. It has gone through a rigorous period of self-examination and goal-setting for the new century and now awaits the calling of a new senior pastor to lead it in pursuing excellence in the areas of worship, education and service.

By Bob Ylvisaker,
Member, Central Lutheran Church