Planning for the Future - St. Mary's Lutheran Church

Planning for the Future

Also in 1991, an architect was chosen for the planned expansion. As the year neared its end, the Facility Study Committee presented the Church Council with a master building plan, it recommended increasing the building area by about 30 percent, and to remodel existing facilities.

The following May the plan received congregational approval. Some 47,000 square feet of space would be added. The north sanctuary wall would be moved 43 feet toward 80^th street, increasing the seating capacity 45 percent to 580. The choir loft would be expanded, the pulpit and lectern would be relocated and the altar made wheelchair accessible. Classrooms church offices and conference room would be added; basement areas would be remodeled; there would be more storage and activity areas. The parking lot would be enlarged by 70 spaces and exterior lighting improved.

On June 14, 1991, Pastor Anderson celebrated the 40^th anniversary of his ordination. To the press, he would described St. Mary’s as “one of the busiest, most influential churches in Kenosha…hard-working, middleclass and family oriented.”

He noted that a strong Danish influence remained in the church’s continuing tradition of social consciousness, although St. Mary’s by then had become “a melting pot with people form all walks of life.”

In October 1993, Pastor Paul Burrow left, accepting a call to a Minnesota church. With his departure, St. Mary’s went from four to three full-time ordained ministers, but hired more lay staff, including a part-time education assistant and a full-time youth director.

The following month, ground was broken for the new addition, and construction began. When it was completed and dedicated in October 1994, the expanded facility would be the church home for some 2,900 members, about 1,500 households, an increase of more than 1,000 worshipers in just seven years.

That important project and a decade of leadership at St. Mary’s behind him, Pastor Anderson retired at the end of July 1995, after 43 years in the ministry, to return to Moorhead, Minnesota. He would miss, he noted in leaving, “the seemingly endless generosity of spirit, and the intense loyalty of the congregation. St. Mary’s is a unique church in Kenosha, one of the places where people get things done. I am so privileged to have served here.”

The Rev. Robert Kriesel was invited to serve as interim senior pastor, serving about seven months until St. Mary’s issued its call to Pastor Thomas O. Lee, a veteran clergyman with a doctorate in ministry, extensive experience as a parish minister, mission director and evangelism specialist. In 1906, Lee became St. Mary’s third senior pastor of the past quarter century.

The most recent addition to the pastoral staff is the Rev. James Shadduck, who came to St. Mary’s in 1998. He began as a corrections specialist in the Nebraska prison system, but after 10 years received his calling to enter the seminary. For the past two decades, he has been an ordained minister, serving several Wisconsin churches.

Today, St. Mary’s Lutheran Church has a professional staff of 15, including three full-time pastors and a part-time minister. The congregation now numbers 3,300 members, and there are between 20 and 30 different groups or church activities in which members can involve themselves. This includes a youth program serving about 450 children from fifth grade through high school.

Some members meet to cut our T-shirts or sew quilts for Lutheran World Relief and a local women’s shelter. St. Mary’s members support world missions, operate a small food pantry and work actively in community programs such as the Shalom Center and the INNS program. The church’s Friendly Center, one of the first programs for seniors in the community, is open to all. In the last several years, the church has expanded its choir and added a brass ensemble for special music.”

“What is the Christian church but a group of people who have the same need of God’s grace?” observed Pastor Tom Lee, who in May retired as St. Mary’s senior minister. A church has to be theologically authentic, and have something fundamental to offer. It must be a community of the faithful. By that I mean it must be a community that praises God, one that is righteous I the way it cares for its members, and it must be a community filled with compassion for those who are less powerful and are less apt to receive justice in society.

Today’s Christian church has a tremendous opportunity to recapture more fully what it was meant to be in the first place, Lee said, a community of people seeking a deeper relationship with Christ, and the church that bears his name. "Today we don’t have the kind of family connections we had in the past. And rather than try and find a way to go back to what we had, we need to focus on how to deal with what we’ve got now.”

God is not only a God of the past, but also a God of the future. He’s bringing us along toward his plan for the future.