Zion Free Lutheran Church

   Christ had become academic. Pews were filled with unchanged lives. The forgiveness of sins became disconnected from its application to the believer in everyday living. A dead orthodoxy failed to bring the transformative power of the Gospel into everyday life. But the revivals came. 
   Such was life 150 years after Luther before the ministry of Lutheran pietists the likes of Hans Nielsen Hauge. At the beginning of the 1800s, a Norwegian farmer's son began tramping over the mountains and valleys of the country preaching a message of repentance and personal salvation. Although branded a troublemaker by the state church, Hauge's message of spiritual awakening spread. 
   They took fresh look at the New Testament church in Scripture, they studied the old story of freedom in Christ and living Christian faith, and they concluded that the local congregation is the right form of God's kingdom on earth, and that no power, except for God's Word, may dictate to it, not even a synodical hierarchy. This conviction was not simply a matter of church government, but rather a vision for Spirit-filled churches driven by their freedom in Christ. The movement for free and living congregations was born.
   Our forefathers sought to plant congregations who would promote a living Lutheran orthodoxy, churches filled with changed lives. They sought shepherds who would serve rather than dominate as overlords, pastors who would encourage lay people to exercise their spiritual gifts in Kingdom service. 
   Georg Sverdrup and Sven Oftedal crossed the Atlantic with a genuinely radical view of Christian education and founded Augsburg College in 1869. They worked for a new kind of American church that was biblically-grounded, historically-rooted, and spiritually-living. They prized missions and emphasized evangelism to begin planting Lutheran free churches. And so our story began.

   This truth was close to the hearts and minds of the early pioneers that settled in this area. While they came to gain a livelihood, they understood that bread alone was not enough to have a happy living. A congregation where God's Word would be preached and the Sacraments administered was needed. So congregations were established, and Zion Lutheran Church has worshiped since 1903.
   Zion started with a quarter. It was given by Daniel Swenson in 1902 to start a new ladies ministry that would quickly become the catalyst for a new church. The new church became part of a large Lutheran parish including Lindahl (closed), Temple (closed), St Olaf (closed), Norman (closed), and Beaver Creek (still open). While the parish was begun in the Norwegian language, the faith of the fathers quickly came to be sung in the language of their children. Singing, teaching, and service have continued to be at the heart of our church family as we continue to serve the greater Tioga area. While most of the churches in the parish have closed, the heritage of determination to stand on God’s Word and let God’s Word stand continues at Zion. “Herren vare lov og tak for al sin naade,” or “the Lord be praised and thanked for all His grace!”