Just four miles apart in the unincorporated community of Cataract, Wis., two WELS congregations had dwelt since their foundings in 1896 and 1920. In 2007, the two congregations merged and began holding worship services in a new community 15 miles north—Black River Falls. And so the dual-site congregation of Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church was formed.
“There are over twenty dual-site congregations in WELS,” shares Pastor Wayne Schulz, a mission counselor for the Board for Home Missions. “A dual-site is one congregation, one board, one treasury, and one staff serving at two locations. While each situation is unique, most have the goal of reaching more people with the good news of Jesus without abandoning the area of the mother congregation.”

In the case of Cataract, both congregations had been facing challenges. “St. Paul’s averaged 25 people in worship and was struggling with an aging and declining membership due to the fading out of the family farm,” explains Pastor Nathan Berg, who has served the two congregations since 2004.

Although Peace didn’t have the same issue—they had a core group of members who were driving 15 miles from their homes in Black River Falls—both congregations were facing the challenge of how to do outreach. “It’s very hard to convince someone to visit a church in the middle of the country, 15 miles from where they live, when there are numerous churches right in town,” Berg shares.

The idea to merge picked up steam when Peace passed a motion to actively look into starting a worship service in Black River Falls. Peace and St. Paul had shared a pastor since 1923, and it was agreed that worship at three locations would be too much of a strain on their pastor’s time.

“While the benefit of the merger was obvious—being able to reach new people that would likely have never come because of the distance—the drawback was that two congregations with long histories were going to have to change what they had always known,” Berg reflects.

The process of merging didn’t happen overnight. First each congregation voted on the merge individually. Then a joint constitution was formed and approved. The name was changed to reflect the new group—Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Berg says that some members still had misgivings and asked questions like, Why couldn’t people drive to Cataract where there is already a church? Why is it okay to “close” one church just to open another? “On the other hand, many people saw this as a wonderful opportunity to do something that many congregations never get to do—reach out to a previously untapped area with the truth of God’s Word,” Berg says.