About

Most of the original members of Zion Lutheran Church came directly from or were sons and daughters of Norwegian immigrants while there also were a few Danes and Swedes among them. Many of these immigrants didn’t feel at home with either the tightly structured Norwegian State Church (Norwegian Synod) or with the loosely structured Eielsen Synod. In 1890 at the same time our Zion fathers were organizing two groups which had taken a middle-of-the-road approach , the Norwegian-Danish Lutheran Conference and the Norwegian Lutheran Augustana Synod, combined with the Anti-Missourians, merged to form the United Norwegian Lutheran Church. It is in this merger that we, Zion Lutheran Church, find our roots.Eleven families gathered in the first permanent schoolhouse in the new city of Thief River Falls for a congregational meeting on January 7, 1890, and organized into the Thief River Falls Evangelical Lutheran Congregation, thus becoming the second congregation to organize in Thief River Falls. Pastor Elias Berlie was called to temporarily shepherd this fledgling parish. In 1892 Pastor Hans J. Villesvik consented to act as temporary pastor for the congregation.