Back in the 1970's, thanks to author Alex Haley, everyone was interested in their roots, their ancestry.  My great uncle, Alexander P. Waddell, took it upon himself to do much research on the Waddell family history (my mother's side of the family) and it was so interesting!  It also was very fulfilling and inspirational to learn about where my family came from.  This is a look back to the foundation of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, and, even further back beyond our organization.  Here is the beginning of who we are as a people of God:

Over the years, as colonial America came to be the colonies of the new land, many came because of different forms of religious persecution.  Religious freedom certainly was one of the important reasons people wanted to be free!

Lutheranism is not so different.  Many of the Saltzburgers who came from Austria in the late 1700's -- who landed in and around what is now the area of Savannah, Georgia -- came for the purpose of being able to worship in a way they had been raised for decades.  Their form of worship and belief was not welcomed in the old country.  The Lutheran Churches in Effingham County were some of the very first to come to the south, and they were the very first Lutheran Churches to organize that still exist on what we now call the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA.  (Our synod takes in the following states: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee.  This makes us the third-largest synod, geographically, out of the 65 synods that make up the ELCA!)

There is little or no evidence that East Tennessee was necessarily influenced by the Saltzburgers of the south.  We are mostly made up of a mixture of Danish immigrants (eventually known as "The American Evangelical Lutheran Church"); Swedish immigrants (known as "The Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church"); Finnish immigrants (known eventually as "The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America" or "The Suomi Synod"); and German immigrants (known as "The United Lutheran Church in America").  A number of these immigrants settled in the northern part of the country, with a few exceptions who landed in and around the beaches of Virginia and North Carolina.

As the country broke away from England and began to grow in industry and population, the many different groups of Lutherans began to come together and form alliances that made them more productive in ministering to their respective communities.  A number of those people migrated south, and Lutheranism -- though sparse in the south -- began to grow.  (Immanuel Lutheran Church, Blountville, Tennessee, organized in 1793, is the oldest Lutheran Church in the state of Tennessee.  Immanuel is one of the 11 ELCA congregations that make up the conference (out of 14) of the Southeastern Synod that we are in.)

Almost 50 years ago, on September 22, 1957, Our Saviour Lutheran Church of Johnson City was organized, two or three decades after the United Lutheran Church attempted to establish a church here.  This second effort began in 1955 when Dr. John Bennetch came over from Elizabethton and held afternoon services.  Three families were present at the first service.  From then on they met in the assembly room at the Pet Dairy General Office Building and in a Methodist Church.  When Dr. Edgar Cooper became supply pastor at Holy Trinity, Elizabethton, services were transferred to the basement of the Home Federal Savings and Loan Building, which has since been replaced by the present structure, in the center of Johnson City.  Other clergy, such as Chaplain James L. Shealy of Mountain Home, one of the charter members, provided much pastoral leadership for this small group of worshiping Lutherans.  Through the years, many thought that Pastor Shealy was the first pastor of this parish!  In the summer of 1956, Warren Strickler II, a seminarian, did some canvassing of the community to see the desire of the community for a new Lutheran congregation.  That October, as a result of Mr. Strickler's work, Rev. Elvin Bumgarner came as the mission developer and brought about the organization in 1957.  Pastor Bumgarner chose the name and the spelling of Our Saviour.  Fifty-one members signed the charter.  That charter presently hangs in the library of the church building.

Efforts to find a desirable, prominent location for the congregation ended in January 1960 when the present property was purchased for $25,000 with a loan backed by the United Lutheran Church.  This site was ideal because the congregation needed visibility in a non-Lutheran area.  This it got ultimately when the attractive edifice was erected and later when the area became the shopping center of the city (which it remains to this day).  The plot design, which was intended to be carried out in stages, was the work of Norman Mansell, a Philadelphia architect.  Roy D. Murphy of Urbana, Illinois drew the plans for the first unit which consisted of the nave and chancel and an education wing of three rooms.  Creative Buildings, a subsidiary of Murphy, provided the precast material which was put in place by the Burleson Construction Company under the supervision of William McDonald, a local architect.  All of this was done during the pastorate of Rev. Rudolph Ludwig, who came in April of 1960.  (Pastor Bumgarner moved on shortly after the land was acquired.)