03/29/2022
Another historical tidbit from 1884:
- Also in 1884 we find an entry reading “Decided that the congregation take a subscription as help for building a parsonage in Stavanger, with the understanding that we not demand any share or part of the building.” This entry brings up some interesting ideas! What does “take a subscription” mean? For many years after the church was organized, subscriptions is how the church was financially supported. There was no such thing as a Sunday offering as our early ancestors thought it rather unseemly to mix money or worldly concerns in the same place we worshiped God. Therefore, each year members would put their name on a sheet of paper (thus subscribing) along with what they planned on and were able to contribute to the church that year. The exception to the offering in the church did however occur a couple times a year. Those were special offerings normally designated for the pastor. That brings up that small altar table that still stands up by the old pump organ. That table would be used to put a collection basket on and the pastor would sit just behind the table with his head bowed in prayer. That table would be up front and the church members would file by and drop their donations in the basket. Offering plates were never placed on the altar itself as that would again be mixing the secular with the divine. The subscription method worked well for many years but did eventually morph into an assessment system. What that involved was there would be an elected assessment committee that would actually go around and visit the members farms and come up with “assessment” of what they felt the member could afford. If you appeared to be a successful farmer then your assessment would be higher than someone who appeared to be struggling. That system did not actually last too long as there were lots of disagreements about the assessed amount.
Now, why would the Hauge congregation ever agree to helping build a parsonage in Stavanger? We might forget that Hauge never had a resident pastor until we yoked in 1921 with St. John’s in Locust and jointly built a parsonage in Locust. That was when we called our first resident pastor who would serve both Hauge and St. John’s. That pastor was Christian Heltne. Prior to Heltne we shared pastors with other churches. The first three pastors who were at Hauge also served two other churches. One was called Stavanger (later First Lutheran) south of Ossian. Just north of this church was another church also named Stavanger which was a Norwegian Synod church. Folks from that area got used to calling one of the churches the stone church (present day Stavanger Church) and the other the frame church (Until recently called First Lutheran) and was a Hauge Synod church. First Lutheran closed their doors not too long ago and brother Glenn and I went down there for their final service. The other church our first three pastors served was also called First Lutheran and is located a couple miles south of the entrance to Pike’s Peak Park up on the ridge above McGregor. The original church building still stands but the congregation dissolved and joined a Swedish Lutheran Church just a short distance up the road north of the old Hauge Synod church. The parsonage for the pastor was located near the First Lutheran church south of Ossian as it was somewhat centrally located. I would suspect that when the time came to build a parsonage for a pastor to serve all three congregations Hauge felt some obligation to assist with that project. I would suspect that Elling Eielsen who helped organize our Hauge Church was a driving force in getting our three Hauge Synod congregations to jointly call a pastor and provide a place for him to live. It is obvious now why our early church services were not as often or regular as they are now.
