UNITED CHURCH O  F    C  H  R  I  S  T

"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." -- Gracie Allen

God is still speaking...to and through our congregation!

In the beginning...

The origin of the evangelical faith in which St. John's U.C.C. is rooted may be traced to the wanderings of Abraham and Sarah. For our purposes however, we shall trace our beginning no farther into history than Germany of the early 1800's...

With her economy suffering a depression, the German government became authoritarian. Provincial leaders maintained strict political control over the religious rites of baptism, confirmation, marriage and burial clergy were transformed into "de facto" state officials, evangelical Pietists and secular rebels alike were drawn toward America and her promise of freedom.

German immigrants sought out the fertile valleys of the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois rivers. Many who would eventually settled in Brighton made their stake by working to build the railroad which would begin operation in 1852. By this time Brighton was a well established little town. The citizenry welcomed the cheap labor provided by these hardworking German immigrants, but did not welcome them into the fold of their English speaking community. Like many immigrants across the nation, the Germans found their language and culture were not readily accepted. Rather than face discrimination, the Germans retreated to their own neighborhoods, bars and meeting-houses forming a sub-community on the south end of town which to this day is still referred to as Jug Town.

In 1858, after many years of hard work, clearing farmland, building homes and toiling for the railroad, a small group began the organization of a "free" church. Led by a group of Pietists who were not comfortable in either the German Presbyterian Church or the German Methodist Church, in 1860 they built an independent Evangelical Church. Not long afterward, the German Presbyterian Church blew down and was never rebuilt.

Dissension in the ranks of the independent church created an atmosphere ripe for a split. Without denominational support this "free" Evangelical church lacked the feeling of permanence or solidarity. In 1868, just eight years after it had been built, a lightening strike and the ensuing fire destroyed the church and all of its records. It was merely an appropriate epitaph for a discouraging decade the congregation was dissolved.

There remained a tremendous need for ministry to the German population a people seeking spiritual guidance and identity in a new land. Faced with continued discrimination and difficulty assimilating into the existing culture, they yearned for a word of hope. They remained determined another church would be built.

Meanwhile, in the motherland, although continued governmental intervention made it impossible for European churches to reach out to their brothers and sisters on the frontier, voluntary missionary societies were able to send trained pastors. Over a period of time a German Evangelical Kirchenverein was formed to serve as a vital resource for fledgling Evangelical churches. The German Evangelical Church Society of the West would become an integral part of the history of St. John's.