Thinning flock leaves Pingree Grove church in peril

For months, the message sign outside St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Pingree Grove read, "Pray for our little church."

The 121-year-old church has been struggling to stay alive for years - the majority of its members are seniors, and as they die there aren't enough new congregants to take their places, said the Rev. John Greve, the church's pastor of five years.

Only two children are enrolled in Bible study and between 20 and 25 people attend Sunday service - on a good day.

Time is running out for the little church.

The Northern District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which oversees churches in the Northwest suburbs, has kept St. Peter's on life support for the past three years with an $85,000 grant to grow membership.

And because the synod hasn't seen evidence the church is growing, its leaders will meet between now and December to discuss whether they should keep the money coming.

"I think their plan ran into some snags," said the Rev. Keith Haney, the Northern District's mission facilitator. "We're probably going to go out and talk to them again."

The Northern Illinois District oversees 230 Lutheran churches and most of them in the Northwest and West suburbs are thriving, said Haney, who is responsible for planning new congregations and growing existing ones.

St. Peter's is at a disadvantage because unlike most other Lutheran churches, it doesn't have a school from which to draw members, Haney said.

Even so, it's still on the leader to grow the flock in other ways.

"Leadership is a huge key," Haney said. "A lot of times, your mindset is just making sure you can survive day to day."

Success storiesAs many congregations have found, it's not enough just to be a church.St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg has taken a strong role in both the community it serves and surrounds, said the Rev. David Hudak, its senior pastor of 19 years.The church comforted Shelly Engelhardt and took her under its wing after her husband, Al, her daughter Laura and mother, Marlene Gacek, were all stabbed to death in their Hoffman Estates home in April 2009.Besides holding funerals for the three family members and praying with family members and friends before and after the services, the church also set up a fund to help Shelly Engelhardt fix her house and pay for her own medical bills incurred from the attack.As well, the church has opened its historic chapel to local Lutherans from Ethiopia. For the past three years on Sunday mornings, roughly 30 Ethiopians have gathered at the church to give thanks and praise to God - for free."It sounds like we're doing a lot of stuff but we could always do more," Hudak said, adding that 700 people attend five worship services at its main church. "It all is relative. If we can trust that the Lord will provide for us, we can do even more in the days ahead." At Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Elgin, officials have created initiatives meant to attract the younger families nearby.Good Shepherd's new campus on Nesler Road sits close to scores of new residents in subdivisions on the city's far west side.Besides traditional liturgical services with hymns, Good Shepherd offers contemporary services in a Christian rock setting. Officials have also developed programming meant to build up members and now offer marriage counseling, support for people going through divorce and a 13-week course on money management, among other things.They have reserved a special Bible study for senior citizens and run gatherings that help would-be members understand God over dinner. Four hundred people now attend weekly worship services."We just really feel that sharing the love of Jesus needs to be shared in a way that people can understand," said Jenny McAdams, director of Christian outreach. "We definitely celebrate our Lutheran heritage but at our Nesler Road site ... we're trying to love people and reach people where they are."Salvation didn't comeLike Good Shepherd, St. Peter's in Pingree Grove lies less than a mile away from thousands of young families.Pingree Grove was a farm town of 150 people until 2003 when developers started building the 1,500 homes in the Cambridge Lakes subdivision. Today, about 4,000 people call Pingree Grove home.But the vast majority of them haven't found their way to the old-school Lutheran Church, and people are asking why. "When Cambridge came in, we thought we would get a lot of new members, but people from Cambridge drive right by us and we don't get a lot of action from them," said Ed Radloff, who has belonged to St. Peter's for 50 years and rarely misses a Sunday service.Greve said the church makes its presence known at community events and functions, whether they're handing balloons out at craft shows or selling cocoa at Christmas for the Northern Illinois Food Bank. At a recent pig roast, meant to raise funds at the church, Greve offered tours of the church to attendees and invited them to become members.There were 160 people at the roast, but none of them joined the church, he said."I think a lot of young people are drawn to these mega churches where they do not talk about sin and repentance," Greve said. "They simply want the warm and fuzzy feeling with no consequences." St. Peter's doesn't have room for a set of drums to hold a contemporary service and doesn't offer much else, other than service, Bible study and a food pantry. Becky Dambacher, now an Elgin resident, was born into St. Peter's church, attended for 57 years, got married there and had both of their daughters christened there.Dambacher, 61, also spent 25 years working at the church as a Sunday school teacher, janitor, secretary and acting treasurer.But she walked away from the church four years ago. She said Greve should have marketed to the new subdivision better as soon as people moved in."There was one golden moment in time when that church could have flourished ... and that minute has passed now and there haven't been people to pull it off," Dambacher said. "With Cambridge, how can we possibly fail? It was like a God-given gift."For his part, Greve said he knocked on doors then and continues to do so today while handing out brochures, free magnets and pencils and asking people what God can do for them today.Many just aren't interested, he said. "You still get that, 'OK, thank you, go away, we don't want to talk to you,'" Greve said. Radloff blames the apathy on the times we are living in."People today have such a struggle with mortgages and raising two children and if one person loses their job, their whole apple cart is upset," the 79-year-old said. "I don't know why people don't come to church. I don't know why people don't believe in the Lord Jesus. But I know that I do."True13282000The church bulletin was titled "They shall bring all your brothers." Only 17 people, including the pastor and organist, came to St. Peter's Lutheran Church on this Sunday morning.John Starks | Staff PhotographerTrue