Spiritually speaking ... Immanuel Lutheran Church serves the community

PERU – The Immanuel Lutheran Church located on the County Line Road in rural Peru has two church services every weekend. The first is at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, and the second service is on Sunday and rotates every four months with St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Leonore. The Sunday services are at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. The Rev. Roger Helgren is the pastor for both churches.

Helgren said the church has a strong, older congregation.

“The congregation is older,” he said. “But we are vital, and we do have a number of things that happen here in the congregation.”

Helgren is proud of the Sunday School at Immanuel.

“We have a small Sunday School,” Helgren said. “Prekindergarten through eighth grade, and depending upon when the worship time is each Sunday, they meet before or after the service.”

There are several people who work and run the Sunday school.

“We have some very, very fine, loyal and dedicated people who are in the Sunday school program who I am so very grateful for,” he said.

Confirmation in the Lutheran church is a two-year period of study, usually held during seventh and eighth grade, where students look at themes from the Bible, Christian theology, the church and living a Christian life. The confirmation classes meet on Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

“We cooperate with Emmaus and First Lutheran on this,” Helgren said. “Currently I'm the confirmation pastor; next year Pastor Ann (Ziegart of Emmaus and First Lutheran) will be the pastor.”

Continuing with the theme of learning at the church, the Women of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) hold both monthly Bible studies and perform service projects.

The women of Immanuel work on the Lutheran World Relief quilting project. Each year the women and some men get together and make quilts to give to Lutheran World Relief for distribution in third world countries. Last year the group delivered more than 150 quilts for this service project and hope to do more this year.

The group also sponsors a fall spaghetti supper. Funds raised are used in the congregation when needed and then are given away locally and globally.

“It's well known in the area,” Helgren said. “We invite the community to come out and join with us.”

The men of Immanuel Lutheran have a young service group as well.

“We have a neat program that started back in 2007, our Lutheran Men in Mission meets the first Sunday in the month,” said Helgren.

The men have dinner, Bible study, prayer and fellowship at their meetings and invite anyone who would like to attend. Service projects are part of this group's work as well, and this year's project is the Food Resource Bank through Lutheran World Relief.

"We are sponsoring a project in South America that's also connected over to Emmaus and First Lutheran," Helgren said.

The church also holds an aluminum can drive with proceeds that are used within and beyond the church.

Helgren also noted in the nine years he has been at Immanuel the church has given to the Katrina and Japan disasters through Lutheran World Relief, helped a seminarian in need, and regularly donates to local food pantries. Immanuel has also assisted local families with financial and medical emergencies.

One of the local projects Immanuel has helped with started with a Christmas project and has continued beyond that time period.

“It was making meals for the Illinois Valley PADS Homeless shelter," Helgren said. "But it has gone on and will be serving into May.”

Active members number somewhere in the 80-90 people each week who attend one of the church services as well as participate in Immanuel's outreach missions.

Immanuel Lutheran celebrated its 150th anniversary last September. The church had invited parishioners who were no longer connected with the church as well as previous pastors who had served at Immanuel. The event grew very large, which pleased Helgren.

“We had a committee that did a really excellent job of putting together a history of the church, a program. The Bishop was at the service. We had a wonderful worship service; we invited people from all around. We had a number of visitors that day including former pastors,” said Helgren.

Immanuel had a dinner that got so large, they had to move the location out of the Fellowship Hall at the church.

“We outgrew our location,” said Helgren. “We ended up going down to the McNabb Fire Hall. We had a good problem that day.”

The Immanuel Lutheran Church has a rich and strong history in the area. Helgren wants area residents to know the doors are always open to visit a service.

“Our hope is just to continue to carry out our mission,” he said. “We want to preach the word of God and to invite new people to hear God's word and respond faithfully.”