The Concordia Story: A Fifty-Year History of Concordia Lutheran Church 1951-2001

Address Record, which gave us the names and
addresses of everybody who moved into the area.
And we could break it out by nearby postal zones.
“We’d send them a letter and try to make a call
on the home. We’d drop off a little tract and in that
way we gained a lot of people. In the meantime
there were a lot of loose Lutherans who had moved
north. They watched us and got to thinking, ‘Gee,
this is so close to us, we’d better check it out.’ So
we had that momentum going for us, as well.
“But the vast growth came from adult confirmation,
that is people brought in from outside
our denomination, many of them actually converts
to Christianity.
“We also used things like Vacation Bible
School. Back in 1955 we had 508 children in
VBS. That’s a huge Vacation Bible School for a
small church. Then we’d follow up every child
who said they didn’t have a church home. We
sent a nice packet home with them and then
we’d try to visit their parents in the home.”
By 1955 the communicant membership
count broke 400. This represented approximately
one hundred net new members a year.
This growth rate continued through the 1960’s.
In September 1952 Concordia opened a
kindergarten. This was the beginning of
Concordia Lutheran School, which expanded by
one grade a year for the next six years, until the
school offered the full complement of grades K
through sixth. In 1992 and 1993 the seventh
and eighth grades were added.
Laverne Brendemuehl was the first kindergarten
teacher at Concordia School. She was
only at the school for a year, however, before
returning to her home in Minnesota. She was
replaced by Neva Odell, who became a fixture
and an institution at Concordia. Mrs. Odell
began as a kindergarten teacher and ultimately
became Concordia’s principal. She served in this
capacity until 1989. In 1953 Bobbie Brown
joined the school as the first grade teacher.
Sunday School at Concordia grew dramatically,
and soon the church was out of space for
teaching all the classes. The adult class met in the
Merkens’ home and later in the sanctuary, but
youth and children’s classes met in neighborhood
homes through Concordia’s first two years.
✦
Above: Vacation Bible School in 1957
attracted 641 boys and girls to
Concordia’s modest campus to learn
about their Savior.
Below: The athletic field eventually
had to be moved further back to
accommodate additional parking.
Note the sanctuary and bell tower in
the background.
Chapter I ✦ 13