Covenant News
Palmberg to Preach for Home Church's 100th Celebration
AURORA, NE (May 27, 2004) - Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) President Glenn R. Palmberg will speak at his boyhood church on September 5 as the Evangelical Covenant Church of Aurora celebrates its 100th anniversary that weekend.Midwest Conference Supt. Kenneth Carlson will also attend the weekend festivities September 3-5, said pastor Karl Larson. Former pastors and pastors who grew up at the church have been invited.
The congregation will host a service of music at 7:30 p.m. on September 3, singing music that has been a staple of the church during the past 100 years. On September 4, the church will host a noon luncheon and offer a multimedia historical presentation and an oral history at 1:30 p.m. Later that evening, the church will host a 6:30 p.m. banquet at the Aurora Middle School. Palmberg will be the guest speaker for that event, which will require reservations.
The 10:30 a.m. Sunday worship service will feature special music with a light lunch following the service.
The Evangelical Covenant Church of Aurora is located 120 miles west of Omaha in a farming community of 4,000 people. The average worship attendance at the church is 80, said Larson, who will celebrate his 11th anniversary at the church in August. Larson praised the Covenant Women Ministries group and the church's Vacation Bible School and other children's ministries. A strong choir and a small orchestra bolster the church's music during worship, he added.
The church formally organized December 15, 1904, at the home of Peter Hedblom - worship meetings in homes had been held in the area in the 1880s. A Sunday school was organized in 1899 under Supt. D.A. Johnson and Vice Supt. F.O. Peterson according to church records.
Emanuel Berg is considered to be the first pastor for the congregation, which dedicated its first church building on October 29, 1905. The first full-time pastor was F.O. Gustafson (1906-12). A longtime pastor at the church during the first half of its history was Daniel Anderson (1944-52).
Two others served in Covenant educational schools and one is a chaplain at a Covenant retirement community. Elder Anderson served at Northwest Conference-sponsored Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis. Mark Olson, a pastor at the church from 1979-88, is an administrator at North Park University in Chicago - his wife Doreen is executive minister of the Department of Christian Formation. And Bruce Thorson is chaplain at the Covenant Village in Northbrook near Chicago.
Along with Palmberg, children of the church who eventually became Covenant pastors or missionaries include Leonard Anderson, Richard Scott, Larry Dieckman, Burdette "Bud" Palmberg and David Green. Dieckman is now a chaplain at The Holmstad in Batavia, Illinois, while Green is senior pastor at Church of the Good Shepherd Evangelical Covenant Church in the Chicago suburb of Crest Hill.
A special centennial booklet is available for those interested in the
church's history. To learn more about the church and its centennial
weekend, email Larson at klarson@hamilton.net
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