December 2024 marks 130 years of missions and ministry in Lansing
LANSING, Ill. (October 19, 2024) – First United Methodist Church was founded 130 years ago when things were a lot different in Lansing.
In 1893, Lansing was home to four churches, not one of which conducted services in English. Two were Dutch Reformed — First Reformed Church of Lansing (1861) and a Dutch Reformed Church in West Bernice. And two were German Lutheran — Trinity Lutheran (1864) and St. John Lutheran (1883).
It started with Sunday School
Back then the Cook County Sunday School Association was fairly new and was recruiting churches and schools to join. They sent a Mr. Standon to Lansing to establish an English-speaking Sunday School. He started two such schools, one in West Bernice (a community that incorporated with Lansing in 1893) with George Dekker as superintendent, and a second in Lansing proper with Mr. Eaton as its superintendent. The Bernice school lasted only through the summer.
Having established the Lansing Mission Sunday School, Eaton left it in the hands of four women — Minnie Zust, Cora O’Dell, and Anna and Amelia Schoop. Their Sunday School efforts became the origin of the First Methodist Church in Lansing. First Methodist was the first church in Lansing to hold English-speaking sermons.
Sunday School, schools, and rules
Adults began attending the Mission Sunday School, which was by now holding classes in the village schoolhouse, a small white frame structure at School Street and Indiana Avenue. Corstiaan Int-Hout became very active in the Sunday School even though he was a member of the Christian Reformed Church. Soon John C. Ton joined him in the leadership, and the Rev. Frank Boeye, pastor of the Thornton Methodist Church, began conducting Sunday afternoon services…