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

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Some 200 visitors were brought to
Concordia by members on Friendship
Sunday, October 22, 1989.
preaching style and a full plate of church events
and activities could no longer hold off the effects
of the transitioning neighborhood. The area
around Concordia, particularly toward downtown
was becoming increasingly populated by
lower income families. The signs of a deteriorating
neighborhood were everywhere: homes in
disrepair, declining business areas, increased
crime, gang graffiti.
The mostly middle class members of
Concordia, many of whom had moved miles
north of the church to new suburban areas, found
themselves attending church in a location in
which they did not feel completely comfortable.
While the church continued to draw attendance
from across the city, some in the church began to
ponder solutions to the location challenge.
“We always watched the demographics of our
members,” Merkens said. “We knew that many of
them were moving out further north. One of the
biggest problems was that it was difficult for them to
bring their friends to a church that was so far away.”
“We started thinking about how we could
either move or have a presence on the far north
side of the city in 1990,” he said. “The leadership
started sharing ideas on how we could
accomplish this. What came out of this was the
possibility of starting ‘Concordia North.’
“We even went so far as negotiating a lease
with a high school to rent some space to hold
services on Sunday morning. We thought we’d
start a service there and provide that to people
living in the area. We’d still call it Concordia, of
course, and we’d just see how it would go.”
Although the idea never came to fruition,
Merkens believes the discussion “helped prepare
the people for the move that came later on.”
In the fall of 1993 an opportunity opened for
Merkens that made him begin to think seriously
about his future as senior pastor of
44 ✦ THE CONCORDIA STORY