St. John’s Lutheran in St. Paul, Minn., is an old congregation established by German immigrants over 150 years ago. It was the second WELS congregation started in the Twin Cities area. In the 1980s, the neighborhood demographic started to change. Asians and African Americans moved in while Caucasians moved to the suburbs. Throughout the 1990s and in the 2000s, the change continued as Hispanic immigrants moved into the area.

In 2005, St. John’s opened their facility to Immanuel Hmong, a WELS congregation focused on reaching out to the local Hmong community. As the neighborhood around St. John’s changed, so did the congregation. By 2015 the membership had decreased to about 300 souls. Enrollment in the school continued to decline throughout the years. In 2017, St. Johns made the difficult decision to close the school.

Over the next three years, St. Johns considered merging with other area congregations or closing their doors as they could no longer completely support a full-time pastor. Then, in 2020 a member of the church passed away and left a large bequest to the congregation. With the help of District President Rev. Dennis Klatt and Rev. Tim Flunker, Hispanic Outreach Consultant, the members of St. John’s “opened their eyes and looked at the fields” around them and decided to move forward in a new direction. They decided to ask WELS Home Missions for some financial help to call a bilingual pastor with the goal of starting a Hispanic ministry in addition to the English-speaking community.

In spring of 2022, St. John’s installed Rev. Tim Otto to serve as pastor to focus on outreach to the Hispanic community. What a joy to see God answer in a greater fashion than we could ask or imagine: the building now hosts worship in three languages every weekend!

Check out below some of the recent activities happening at St. John’s facility.

Hispanic Services in St. Paul, Minn.

Over the past year, St. John’s has started up Hispanic services and held various local community events under the name of Iglesia Lutherana San Juan.

In September, San Juan had a table at Fiesta Latina. It served to create a prospect list of around 100. The group gave away over 100 Bibles and a lot of flyers advertising their Hispanic ministry. This event was held by CLUES (Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio) at a building next door to the church.

In January, San Juan started an evangelism program to the community called Kicks and Conversations (Patear y Platicar). They invited the community to come out of the cold and to play soccer or basketball in the gym. Attendees could also practice their English on Wednesdays in January and February leading up to Ash Wednesday. There was good participation and attendance from the community varied from 10 to 30 people.

In summer 2023, San Juan started a summer evangelism program partnering with Raices y Ramas, a Hispanic pregnancy counseling organization. The program is called Community Thursdays (Jueves en comunidad) and ran for six weeks over the summer. San Juan opened the gym and volunteers organized and ran crafts for the moms.

For more information on St. John’s/San Juan, please visit their website at stjohnev.net

Celebrating Thanksgiving & Hmong New Year in St. Paul, Minn.

In November each year, the congregation of Immanuel Hmong Lutheran in St. Paul, Minn., welcomes friends and guests to a special Thanksgiving and Hmong New Year celebration. This is a yearly celebration that includes members dressing in traditional Hmong attire. The celebration includes a special worship service followed by dinner that includes many Hmong dishes.

In addition to the annual Thanksgiving and Hmong New Year celebration, Immanuel Hmong also hosted various other activities such as marriage retreats, vacation Bible studies, summer fun festivals, family camping, and many different choirs.

God has truly blessed Immanuel Hmong, and we pray that God would continue to bless this home mission!

For more information on Immanuel Hmong, please visit their website at immanuelhmong.net

Written by Daryl Schultz, Minnesota District Mission Board member.

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