Trail Markers
Funeral and Resurrection for a Church
March 2009
In 1925, my dad became state missionary for the Swedish Baptist Conference of Wisconsin. He soon learned that many Wisconsin churches that had been organized before 1900 had since closed their doors. With Swedish immigration tapering off and the Americanization that followed World War I, English was now the language of choice in the churches; older Swedes who preferred to enhance their spiritual experience with the Swedish Bible resisted parting with their “sacred tongue.” Their places of worship, however, had fallen by the wayside in the face of change. Dad felt that these churches either ought to be revived or memorialized in some way, perhaps with a “funeral.”
One such church was in the community of Webster, Wis., which at that time had two stores, a tavern, a restaurant, and a railroad depot. The white-framed building that had housed the Swedish Baptist church had been moved into town from a country site. Now it was all boarded up, and obviously, no services were being held. When Dad found it, he stopped his Star coupe and trailer—the one that carried his “Gospel Tent” and his assistant. I. Cedric Peterson looked at the building and blurted out, “This will be a tough one!”
The two men got out of the car and walked around the dilapidated and deserted building; a rear door was open, so they entered. Bats and birds scurried for cover as their habitat was disturbed. The men’s shoes made footprints on the dusty floor. Exiting the church, they approached people on the street, asking if they knew who could tell them something about the building. They were directed to a widow and another family in town.
Dad and Peterson found the folk and explained their mission to commemorate the passing of the church. Both families endorsed their suggestion; the widow, many years Dad’s senior, invited them to share her home and table during their visit and mentioned two other families who lived on remote farms and who had been part of the congregation. Dad and Peterson visited, and they, too, agreed that there should be a funeral for their church. From there, by word of mouth, news of the event began to spread.
The next day, farmers helped raise Dad’s tent on property next to the church. A funeral service was planned for Sunday evening; one family volunteered a pump organ and their daughter to play it. Benches were made from cement blocks and farm planks. At the Sunday evening service, some people committed themselves to the Lord. Dad decided to announce another service to be held on Monday night.
When Dad got up the next morning, he found the tent flattened. Investigating, he met a local man who told him, “If you erect this tent again, it’ll be in shreds the next morning.” Drawing on divine guidance, Dad responded, “God will take care of it.” At the service the next evening, even more people attended than the previous night, and there was no mischief except they discovered the pump organ was filled with water. When the organist began to play, all that was heard was, “Splash, splash.” The service was stopped in order to remove the water. “It sounded better after that,” Dad related.
The meetings continued through the week with souls being saved and backsliders recalled to their faith. During the daytime hours, Dad and Peterson began taking the boards off the church windows to let fresh air in, evicted the bats and birds, repaired the furniture, and cleaned up the interior as well as the exterior of the church building. They planned a regular worship service in the church building for the next Sunday. People who attended found themselves filled with joy and thankfulness. Revival was stirring in the old Swedish church!
Dad heard that a clerk at a nearby drugstore was a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and taught Sunday school in another church; the clerk kept inviting people to the Baptist fellowship until the store manager fired him. Dad asked the man to fill the pulpit on Sundays when he couldn’t be present. Later, the church invited this man to be their pastor—and he stayed about 25 years!
Sixty years or so later, Dad had retired and was living at Grandview Home in Cambridge, Minn. He often mentioned how much he would like to go back to Wisconsin and see some of the places where he had ministered. I finally found a weekend when we could visit Prentice, where we had lived when Dad was state missionary. From there, we made stops at Spirit, Ogema, Phillips, Winter, Falun, and Wood Lake—at each place he had a refreshing story to tell.
Finally we came to Webster. Dad got out of the car, walked along a concrete sidewalk to enter a beautiful brick building, and there began to shed tears. We were shown through the main building and also an addition to the church that had found new life so many years before. It was and is a thriving work today. I think Dad wept with joy all the way home, remembering the time he went to conduct a funeral but ended up witnessing a resurrection!