More than 100 people attended a dedication service at Zion Lutheran Church, Oriska, N.D. The rebuilt church received many items from the recently closed Blanchard [N.D.] Lutheran Church, including the organ and piano.


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As one church closes, another rises from the ashes


Garland around the entry of Zion is a perfect image (Isaiah 61:3) for what Eastern North Dakota Synod Bishop Bill Rindy called “a day of great celebration. “


Levi Trader, 5, looks at a collection of photographs that document the May 16, 2011, fire that destroyed the origi- nal Zion building.


Text by Julie B. Sevig Photos by Ann Arbor Miller


hen Bishop Bill Rindy tells the story of Zion and Blanchard Lutheran churches in the Eastern North Dakota Synod, he likens their relation- ship to that of organ recipient and donor. Only the front doors were left standing after a fire last May destroyed Zion in Oriska. “They could have simply closed up and gone to other area congregations,” Rindy said. “But the 23 children God has called to be part of their Sunday school compelled them to rebuild.” And so they did. About the same time Blanchard Lutheran, 50 miles to the northeast, was deciding that its ministry was complete and it was time to close after 75 years


Sevig is a section editor of The Lutheran. 28 The Lutheran • www.thelutheran.org


on the prairie. Rindy called up Blanchard’s lead- ers to see how they could help Zion, which could only afford a new shell of a building. While Blanchard’s building (most of it built by log) couldn’t be moved, a conversation between the two congregations eventually took place about what might be donated from a dying church so another could live. And a resurrection story was


born.


In September, Tom Utke, then president of Zion, went to Blanchard. “Whoa, they had a lot of nice stuff,” he said. “They told us to take whatever we wanted.” As Rindy described it, the exchange went something like this: “Would it be OK if we got the pews?


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