Centennial celebration at St. Matthews Church
By Daniel Arens
A church in Hazen celebrated its 100 year anniversary this previous weekend. St. Matthews Lutheran Church held a variety of events and services to commemorate this milestone in its history.
Its celebration was based around the phrase “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”, from Hebrews 13:8.
A special celebration worship service was held Sunday afternoon, with a communion service during the regular morning service time. Several previous ministers who either served at St. Matthews or were raised up in it to later become ministers attended and helped lead the service, as well as the Vice President of the North Dakota District Missouri Synod Arie Bertsch, who gave the message.
During the course of this service, each of the attendant ministers read Scripture passages as well as sections from the Augsburg Confession, the primary confession of the Lutheran Church. Reverend Bertsch gave a sermon from the Book of 1 Kings, where he focused on two words: “so that.”
“The words ‘so that’ usually follows the question ‘Why?’” Bertsch said. He asked why the church exists, why people attend, why St. Matthews itself was formed, and answered these with various phrases beginning with “so that.”
