CELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF SERVICE … Don Krieger, the Pastor of the Zion United Methodist Church, and United Methodist District Superintendent, the Reverend Dr. Scott Ocke, pause before heading downstairs to the fellowship hall. (PHOTO BY TIMOTHY KAYS, STAFF)
(Story originally appeared September 19th, 2018)
By: Timothy Kays
If you travel the backroads of rural northwest Ohio, you will see them. Right out in the middle of apparent nowhere, sitting quietly amidst corn, wheat and soybean fields as if they were dropped out of the sky, the rural landscape is dotted with old church buildings.
As a young America expanded westward in the early nineteenth century, a class of rugged frontiersmen brought their families westward into this area with the hopes of a new life. These buildings are a tangible look back into a different era and a different America.
The area in which we live today is scarcely like it was when the pioneers first arrived. Some traces of the early landscape can still be found in places like the Goll Woods, but even that is not a good representation of what awaited the pioneers of the 1830s and 1840s. This area was under what we today know as the Great Black Swamp.
There were few trails, let alone a road of any fashion. The land was heavily wooded, and the swamp made some areas impassible. Black bears and wildcats roamed the area, and the swamp was a haven for disease bearing mosquitoes. Still, these determined people streamed into the area to clear the woods, build cabins, plant fields and raise families.
As more settlers arrived, small communities began to form. The increase in population called for the construction of early schoolhouses, and many of those schoolhouses doubled as early churches where many a circuit rider would preach the Gospel.
As the populations continued to grow, these pioneers took it upon themselves to raise churches in their areas. With travel to bigger population centers still prohibitive, these churches were constructed in rural areas where they could be accessed by settlement and farm neighbors.
Most of those early churches are gone, but some of the later nineteenth century buildings can still be found throughout the area. Because of their remote rural location, most of these old, proud buildings are populated by older congregants, which is sadly the final stage of having a church close its doors and die out.
Then there is the Zion United Methodist Church. Pastor Don Krieger has been shepherding this flock since 2004, but he has more than just 14 years of experience with the Zion congregation. He first began attending here 62 years ago, in 1956.
He answered the call to return home after leading congregations in Deshler and Malinta from 1993 to 2004. That might sound like a long time to be dedicated to one church, but Zion is one of those rural churches that defies the norms. For approximately twenty congregants, Zion is the only church that they have ever known. For the youth, that might be just a couple of years, but Pastor Krieger is not the only one whose span at Zion is multigenerational.
Congregant Kevin Demaline, the leader of the Praise Team, has attended Zion for 60 years, and Pastor Krieger’s wife has attended for 70 years. The blend and balance of youth and experience is the key that starts the engine of this church.
150 years after opening the doors of their humble rural Wauseon church, the members of the Zion United Methodist Church are still in the same location and not just surviving, but thriving…vibrantly. On September 16, the members of the congregation, the young and the not-so-young, gathered together to celebrate a Sesquicentennial Sunday with two services, one traditional, and one to look back on the past 150 years.
District Superintendent, the Reverend Dr. Scott Ocke delivered a sermon in the first service that tied the two services together. Utilizing the scripture lesson on servitude found in Luke 17:4-10 as a foundation, Dr. Ocke told the congregation that despite having 150 years in the books and a long history of service, ‘You’re Not Finished Yet.’
Between services, the congregation went downstairs to the fellowship hall for a potluck lunch. It was commented that the congregants of the Zion church loved their food, and the buffet line awaiting was ample proof that these folks know how to put on an occasion.
Beginning with entrees of either barbequed pulled pork or barbecued chicken, there was lined up a selection of salads too numerous to mention. Topping off the meal was not just any ice cream, but homemade ice cream. “It’s our own special kind,” I was told. Nobody could say with any degree of honesty that they left the fellowship hall hungry.
After the meal, the second service commenced inside, while kids games and face painting took place in the front yard. Conducted by the Pastor of the Zion United Methodist Church, Don Krieger, this service served as a look back at the last 150 years, but also showed a look into the future of a congregation that is not content to sit upon and hide their blessings.
Just when the first United Brethren Churches were organized in the Delta-Zion district is not known. The oldest quarterly Conference record mentions the Fulton Circuit – Michigan Conference, which in 1867 was composed of the Poplar Grove church (1 mile west and 1.5 miles north of Delta), The Spring Hill Church, which is today called Tedrow, and the Batdorf Class, which is today the Zion United Methodist Church.
The Reverend H. W. Cherry was the first pastor of record, and the Reverend J. N. Martin was the Presiding Elder. Lay officials of the Batdorf Class included class leader George Jennings, Steward Isaac Pontius, John Batdorf, George Valentine and Bethuel Gould.
The first services in the Zion district were held in the Batdorf School, from which the church organization derived the name of the Batdorf Class. In 1867, $75.00 was apportioned on pastor’s salaries.
The name of the church was changed to the Zion Chapel in 1868, and a location for the construction of the church building was secured ½ mile west and ½ mile south of the schoolhouse on land donated by Bethuel Gould. The Reverend J. Thomas was the Presiding Elder, and the Reverend T. Plackett was the preacher in charge.
Going into further detail on the 150-year history of the congregation, Pastor Krieger said, “The new building measured 34 feet by 50 feet, the size of the main sanctuary…just this room. That’s the original building. There was no entrance. There was no narthex; there was no nothing, just the doors. Speaking of doors, there were two doors, two entrances to the building…from the back.”
“There were two sets of pews…one for the ladies, one for the men. There were two heating systems, depending on your desire. If you wanted your half of the church to be warmer, you just put more wood in the fire in the heating stove on that side. This side could be cooler. We had dual heating systems from the very beginning.
In 1886, the first change to this building came when they secured a bell, and built a belfry and an entrance on the back corner. But as in any church, things weren’t always rosy. In 1889, the matter of fraternal societies, as well as other doctrinal issues caused a division of the denomination.”
“Here locally, the issues became so intense as to cause the church to be padlocked, closed, shut down while both the dissenters and the non-dissenters laid claim to possession of this building. In the end, the building was awarded to the non-dissenters. This was denomination-wide; it wasn’t just local.”
“The entire denomination got into a tiff about the Masons and other fraternal orders, and it caused a split in the denomination and in the church locally. Some of the cases went as far as the Supreme Court to be decided. Locally, the church was awarded to the non-dissenters. The words ‘liberals’ and ‘radicals’ were bandied about quite frequently. Needless to say, at that time, the work of the church of Zion went backwards. The church floundered. Some persons carried ill feelings for the rest of their lives…never forgave the others as they lived.”
In 1910, at a cost of $260, the floor of the sanctuary was made sloping. “If you’re not aware of it,” Pastor Krieger said, “…the flat floor in this church is underneath the sloping floor. They just went over the top of the old floor and made it sloping, for what reason I have no idea but they thought that the church needed to slope.
At that same time, a small cellar was dug to make room for an actual furnace and a coal bin, and there was an entrance put on the north side of the sanctuary to gain access to that furnace and coal bin. Notice that they dug under the church to make that happen. That was the beginning of digging. Through our history, they dug under the church.
On another note, in 1911 a singing school was conducted, which created a great deal of interest and resulted in the formation of a men’s quartet which included Clarence Seacrest, Gordon Ross, Rolla, London and Homer Dickerson. Long about 1919, it was decided to give names to the various Sunday School classes. If you’ve been here any number of years you will have heard these names: Little Sunbeams, Busy Bees, Joy Bears, Merry Workers, Loyal Hustlers and Christian Heroes. The names that this church used for Sunday School classes clear through the 80s and the 90s…they were started in 1919.
On May 18, 1920, the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, located one mile east and one mile south of Zion, was purchased at the price of $400. The men of the church moved it to be attached to the north side of the building. A basement was dug, and they simply slid the building up alongside the original building.
All they had to do was cut a hole in the wall, and the sanctuary was enlarged to accommodate their growing congregation. At the same time, kerosene lamps that were used in the church were thrown out and replaced with all too modern gaslights.
At the same time, the hitching posts were improved by putting iron pipes through wooden posts out in the yard so we could hitch our horses, and all of this was accomplished for a mere $3,300.
The ladies of the church began to organize, and organized the Women’s Missionary Society in 1922. In 1926, the belfry had to be rebuilt due to damage caused by a severe storm that blew the bell right off. Those repairs set the budget back to the tune of $500, which was $143 more than the insurance would cover.
By 1928, the gaslights had outlived their usefulness in eight years. So, Judd McLaren organized and supervised the men in the building of a half-mile of power lines from the corner, south up to the church in order to provide electricity for the building. Two years later, the last of the hitching posts were removed since it was deemed unnecessary to tie up cars in the parking lot.
In 1932, the Ladies Aid was organized, and it would appear that they went right to work because in 1935, they shelled out $200 to have the social room improved. The name of the church was added to the belfry at that time. The church was able to pay their pastor $400 that year.
In 1946, the United Brethren denomination and the Evangelical denomination merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The men of the church finally got on board and organized in 1950, followed by the youth fellowship, which came into being as an organization in 1951.
1952 and 1953 saw dramatic changes in the church building, a complete update and modernization. The covered entrance to the basement was added on the southwest corner of the building. They made the basement larger.
They dug out some more beneath the church, added a kitchen, restrooms, a larger social room complete with curtain dividers to form Sunday School classes. Those men really liked to dig. Upstairs, the sanctuary and the north room were completely remodeled to include new woodwork, all new doors, a cove ceiling and indirect lighting. Pews were replaced at the same time as well.
In 1962, the men went back to digging. The rest of the basement was dug out to make room for an enlarged fellowship hall, a larger kitchen and a new furnace. The heating system was replaced with a hot water heating system. A new entrance was provided for coat racks, an additional entrance to the fellowship hall, and another classroom. In 1968, the Evangelical United Brethren denomination and the Methodist denomination merged to form the United Methodist Church.”
On the afternoon of Saturday, June 7, 1980, an short-lived F1 tornado touched down about one mile south of the Zion church. They were spared the wrath of the storm, but it destroyed the neighboring Taylor church located about a mile east from the touchdown point at the intersection of County Roads 10 and C. “
After much soul searching,” Pastor Krieger continued, “…on November 29, 1980, the Taylor congregation joined the Zion congregation. To commemorate the Taylor church, the bell from the Taylor building was stationed in a newly constructed tower.
By 1989, the congregation was again feeling the squeeze and the need for additional space. The building project was undertaken to add a conference room, classrooms, and a large entrance with an elevator and handicapped accessibility. In the meantime, our neighbors to the north, the North Dover Evangelical United Church had enjoyed constant growth in their new building, built to replace one that was destroyed by fire.”
“As the congregation grew, it was necessary to add to the building in two different phases. In August of 2016, the congregations of Zion and North Dover caught the vision of becoming one vibrant church. North Dover had become a congregation of mature Christians who were leaders in the church, While Zion was a younger congregation in need of that Christian leadership. Thus on October 1, 2016, these two congregations merged to form the congregation that we are today.”
Pastor Krieger elaborated on the North Dover merger, showing how Zion continues to grow, not just in size, but in unity and strength through service. “The North Dover church was losing,” he said. “They were getting smaller and smaller, and we finally had to just face that there was not a lot of future here for us.
So we decided just to study it for a year. We set criteria…four criteria, and at the end of the year, we’d look at these. So we waited a year, and at the end of that year the four questions we had were number one, did we minister to our children, which we had to say no because we didn’t have any. Did we minister to our youth? We had a couple, and we had a Sunday School class for them, but if they wanted social interaction, they’re going to Zion.
Did we attract any new people into the church in the last year? No…and are we financially stable? So, with the four criteria, we had to say, ‘No, we weren’t.’ At that point, we had to make a decision. We could either ignore those signs and keep on being the church we were, till we couldn’t do it anymore. We could vote to close, and in which case we would just walk away and the Conference would come in, take all the assets and dispose of them. Or we could vote to merge, in which case we would keep all the assets, and we decided that the merger would be the best thing to do.
We had to decide then who we wanted to merge with. We decided there were five choices that we had, and Zion was the only one that we would really want to do. At that point, I asked them what they had to offer to a church if we merged, and they said that we don’t have anything. ‘We’re all older, and we don’t have anything to offer.’
I said, ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, because you have spiritual maturity, biblical knowledge and life experiences. We’ve got a whole church full of people at Zion who are younger with families, and they need they need to be led into spiritual maturity, and there’s no one there to do that.’ At that point, they caught the vision. They said, ‘We’re done. We’re going.’ That was in August of 2016. It took them six weeks and the merger was complete. It took 45 minutes for the boards of each church meeting together, and they had the merger agreement done. In six weeks, we merged.”
There were those up the chain of command who believed that it would take months for the merger to actually take place. “They told us it couldn’t be done,” Pastor Krieger said; “…not that fast. Now since we’ve merged, the North Dover building was the larger building, but we chose to come here because this was the more efficient building.
Now that we’ve done the merger, we found we have two problems. One, the parking lot was not big enough; we had to expand that. Number two is the fellowship hall is not adequate, and we don’t have a youth room big enough.
So once we sell the properties at North Dover, we can take that money, and we have drawings already drawn to take this whole building 30 foot west. Two stories, with a youth center, a new large fellowship hall, a new kitchen, new restrooms, storage rooms, and classroom.”
While many of their rural nineteenth century contemporaries have waned and vanished into the mists of time, the Zion United Methodist Church has not just survived, it has thrived. What is the secret? “Some of it is determination; people who were here did not want to leave,” Pastor Krieger said.
“They just said, ‘We are not leaving.’ The other part of it is when you’ve got a few young people who had left. They had gone away, tried the contemporary church, and came back saying, ‘The contemporary isn’t getting it for us. We were raised in traditional churches; we desire that,’ and they started bringing their friends.
When I came here in 2004, the average attendance was down in the twenties, and some days fewer than that. And just slowly, it started changing, growing, building. It’s not been instant. It’s taken that long to get back up to where our average attendance now is about 55 or 56, and if we can get everybody here at the same time, we can get 100.
Easter Sunday we had 100 here, but the average attendance is more than double what they were before. As they as they catch the vision, as they get excited about church, they bring their friends.”
Another part of the not-so-well-kept secret of the success of the Zion congregation is found in a unity through a demographic diversity that only a Christ-centered church family can experience, and a family they truly are.
The North Dover merger brought an influx of maturity, but Pastor Krieger describes his congregation as something that flies in the face of what is expected of a rural, agrarian church. “They are younger,” he said. “Actually, this congregation goes against the trends of the church. Where the normal church the age of the congregants is getting older, this church keeps getting younger. Where other churches are declining in membership, we are increasing.
Where other churches have youth groups that are almost nonexistent anymore, ours is growing. We sent ten kids to church camp this summer, and they didn’t pay anything; the church pays for all of those kids to go to camp. It is a part of our mission. It is a part of our being. When you baptize the child what do you as a church vow to do? To provide the opportunities for Christian growth.
That’s a part of our mission; no kid pays to go to camp. It’s not a big deal if you look at larger churches, but for this church…if we stay on the same track that we are on now, I would say in another 10 years, we ought to be able to double again.”
The next 150 years promises to hold a lot more history to be made by the congregants of the Zion United Methodist Church. They already have the plans in place to expand yet again, and their positive energy is the living proof of the words of Reverend Dr. Ocke…they’re definitely not finished yet!
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
