Covenant News

Stanton (IA) to Conclude 125th Anniversary Celebration

STANTON, IA (September 22, 2004) - Donn Engebretson, executive vice president of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), will speak during a Saturday evening banquet and preach during a Sunday morning worship service as the Evangelical Covenant Church of Stanton culminates its 125th anniversary events this year on November 13-14.

Pastor Paul Warder said that the church has already had various commemorative events during the spring and summer and has produced an anniversary booklet, tee-shirts and Christmas ornaments. Theme for the year is "Great is God's Faithfulness."

The Evangelical Covenant Church of Stanton is a congregation located in western Iowa, about 100 miles southwest of Des Moines and 60 miles east of Omaha, Nebraska. Organized with 16 charter members on April 3, 1879, under pastor N.G. Franzen, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Church built its first church a year later for $1,077. The church grew out of revival services in the early 1870s and joined what is now the ECC in 1885.

Many children of the church have gone on to serve in various full-time ministries both in and out of the Covenant:

• Verle Peterson is a longtime Covenant pastor, now serving as chaplain of Mt. Miguel Covenant Village in Spring Valley, California.
• Lillian Burkhart served in mission work in Peru, working with Native tribes for a non-Covenant organization.
• Clarice Hogberg was a Covenant missionary teacher in Gbado, Zaire, and died April 27, 1973, of acute hepatitis.
• Naomi Sundberg served for a time as a teacher missionary to Covenant Mountain Mission in Jonesville, Virginia.

In recent years, the mission emphasis of the church has been continued with some youth mission trips to Oklahoma, Missouri and Mexico. A substantial portion of the church's budget also was allocated for missions in 2003.

The congregation now averages about 70 in worship, said Warder, who will complete his sixth year as pastor in December. A Wednesday after-school Bible club has become a staple for the town of 700. The church also has enriched its devotional life with an Advent devotional booklet written by parishioners.

To learn more about the church and its upcoming anniversary event, call Warder at 712-829-2543. The church website can be found by visiting www.covchurch.org and looking in the Iowa section of the local Covenant church directory under the "Directory" tab.

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