Pastor Eric Christensen began a 10 year ministry at St. Ansgar on January 13, 1948. This was the great year of the completion and dedication of the new parsonage and church. The decade that Pastor Christensen served was a time of great growth and activity for the congregation. We received as many new members in this decade as we had in the first 22 years, a1though the transiency factor greatly reduced the net gain. This was the decade (1950-60) when the Lutheran Church became the fastest growing major denomination in Canada, largely due to the heavy post-war European immigration.
Many of the European immigrants were Danes and this revived the need for Danish services and the interest and problems related to language marked the whole period.
It was a time of great liveliness for our Church. In the forefront was the Luther League which had a strong program of work, fellowship, and worship and even published its own newsletter, “The Friday Nighter2′” Many of the youth spent a year or two at Lutheran Bible Schools in Minnesota and New Jersey, and three young men set out on vocations as pastors and missionaries. Another important addition to church life was the English speaking ladies Aid, tile Mary and Martha group, which played a big supporting role in this era. Worship and Sunday School attendance increased to the point that over-crowding was a problem and discussion was begun about building a larger church for the growing congregation.
When Pastor Clarence Paulsen began his ministry in May of 1958, he was met with this concern for a larger church and much of his time was occupied with realizing this goal. The highlight of the era was the dedication of the new church. It was a time of great optimism as we were growing as were most churches. St. Ansgar was achieving success in becoming “community church” and more and more area people from a variety of Christian backgrounds were adding to our numbers and our character. In this time also the first few Lutheran immigrants arrived from the United States and these new members were usually dedicated and talented church people.
Although there were times when the congregation had trouble keeping up with the annual budgets, the optimism and confidence of the time led us to employ two seminary interns, first Jolm Crilly and then Paul Winters who assisted in many areas of church work. Church and Sunday School attendance continued strong and perhaps it was the Church Women who were in the forefront of activity at this time. They had as many as five circles and raised large amounts of money through a variety of church suppers and catering. Also at this time the Men of the Church organized themselves for ellowship and provided voluntary labour to enhance and maintain our church property.
Yet another feature of the period were the directions taken in our synod. In 1961 we became part of the merger of synods of Danish, Norwegian and German background to form the American Lutheran Church and we now found ourselves in a large Eastern District rather in the small fellowship of a dozen congregations that made up the old Atlantic District. No sooner had this merger been achieved than the congregations of this synod in Canada began to press to become an autonomous Lutheran synod in Canada with a view to speeding up the emergence of one Canadian Lutheran Church. St. Ansgar at first opposed the autonomy movement and the autonomy was delayed one year in the East, but in 1968 we became part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada and again found ourselves in a very small Eastern Conference.
Original Credits Carl Larson, Philip & Irene Jorgensen