BLISSFIELD TWP. — The members of Immanuel Lutheran Church celebrated 155 years of church history on Aug. 24.

The church at 1500 Blissfield Highway was founded in 1870 and had originally planned to mark its sesquicentennial in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to the plans. So instead, members chose to hold a celebration this summer of “150+5.” 

The story of Immanuel Lutheran Church begins with a small group of German families who settled north of Blissfield. According to a history compiled by Monita Fergus in 1991, most of them were from the northern part of Pomerania, now in Poland.

They were poor, but also strong-willed and resourceful — and undeterred by the fact that the rich farmland we know today was, in those days, a waterlogged swamp. As they settled and began to farm, they decided they needed a church. The first service was held in the home of Karl Miller and was conducted by the Rev. Franz Wilhelm Kroencke, who had previously organized Trinity Church in Riga. The church was officially formed on Aug. 28, 1870.

The congregation’s first church was built in 1878, and in 1890 the church called its first resident pastor — the Rev. A. Hahn, who also established a parochial school to serve the children of German families in the area.

Both services and schooling were conducted in German for the first several decades of the church’s existence, giving way to English only when World War I began to cause problems for German-speaking residents. However, the service for laying the cornerstone of the present church in 1927 was still conducted in both languages.

The congregation moved to its current location in 1898, building a church — its second — on land purchased from Blissfield School District No. 7. That church was destroyed by fire in 1926, and the original building was brought back into service while the third, and current, church was being built. 

The present church was dedicated on Dec. 11, 1927. The current pastor is the Rev. Rick Hogan.

Joining in the celebration were Bishop Donald Kreiss of the ELCA Southeast Michigan Synod and several pastors whose paths have crossed with Immanuel Lutheran over the years.