Our Story

It was once stated that a trait peculiar to all Scandinavian and German peoples is that the church is the heart and center of their settlements. Usually, as soon as a number of Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, or Germans settled permanently, a congregation was formed and a church built. As these people were overwhelmingly Lutheran, the Lutheran faith grew in proportion to the immigration of Scandinavians and Germans to the New World. The first Lutheran church in America was one built by the Swedes on the Delaware in 1638, but there were Lutherans among the Dutch in Manhattan as early as 1623.

In the 1700's, the Lutheran Churches began organizing into synods, formal groupings of churches from compatible ethnic backgrounds. The great bulk of Lutheran migration to the U.S. came in the midwest, and for many years Lutherans in the Pacific coast states were scarce. The German community in Oregon grew rapidly after 1850, and the German Missouri synod began its work and grew strong earlier than the Scandinavians. Not until 1890 were there enough Norwegians to form into permanent churches. One of the key churches for the Norwegian synod was the Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Silverton, established on October 29, 1893. The fourth pastor of this church was the Reverend E.C. Reinertson, who was the pastor called to preach the first Norwegian sermon in Eugene in 1904. In Eugene, the Danes established a Lutheran church (Bethesda) four miles out of town in 1897, and a group of Norwegians met in September of 1904 to form a Norwegian Lutheran congregation. Called Trinity Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church, this congregation eventually became Central Lutheran Church.

The language and nationality differences caused great problems for the Lutherans in America, and by the early 1920's some twenty or more different synods had sprung up. A publication printed in 1926 by Theodore Nelson commented upon the situation in Eugene at the time: "There is now an effort to have five Lutheran churches in addition to one only four miles out, and another only eight miles out. And the most pitiable thing in the situation is the fact that if all of the people who compose these seven congregations were welded into one, they wouldn't make a congregation any larger, if as large as either the Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational or Bible Standard churches out there."

Pastor K.O. Storli urged the congregation of Trinity in the early 1920's to have at least half of their services in the English language, which they did. But tradition dies hard, and the language question arose again in 1925 and created a near disaster for the congregation. A number of church members calling themselves the "Progressive" group broke away and formed a new congregation called the Eugene Lutheran Church, with an English language format. The failure of this group to get a pastor, and the efforts of Pastor P.J. Luvaas who worked out a compromise between the two groups resulted in a merger and a new constitution. The merged congregation took the name "Central" Lutheran and English thereafter became the official language.

The depression following the 1929 crash brought hard years to the congregation, and it wasn't until the improved economic conditions and the influx of many new people to Eugene following World War II that great strides began to be made. The congregation grew, sister congregations were spawned, and finally in 1949 the new church building at 18th and Potter was occupied. The new era of Central Lutheran Church was begun, and the work continues today, with grateful thanks to all those hard working pioneers who had the vision and the perseverence.

This text was taken from the booklet "Central Lutheran: 75 Years..." as compiled by the Anniversary Committee. Contributors include Joseph Kelsey, editor; Dan French, Kristi Hoiland, Mary Just, and Thelma Thomas. Historical research was done by Ingrid Carmichael, Janet Walsh, Joe Kelsey, and Arlene Axtell.