By LEE BONORDEN

lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com

The Rev. Glennys Knutson, the first pastor of the church, remembers the Sunday morning 55 years ago when Our Savior’s Lutheran Church members broke ground for a house of worship.

“We walked over here from the theater in Sterling Shopping Center where we were worshipping at the time to the new site,” he said. “We had outlined the walls of the firs unit and the congregation stood around the perimeter for the ground-breaking that day.”

Fifty-five years later, Knutson and his wife, Margaret, joined Arnold and Hazel Sater and Roberta Finneseth as special guests at Sunday morning’s ground-breaking ceremonies for a new $5.1 million Christian education building expansion at 1600 West Oakland Avenue in Austin.

McGough Construction Company, Inc., St. Paul will begin construction of the 112,700 square foot addition to the north side of the existing facilities later this month.

The firm also completed the St. Olaf Lutheran Church expansion project, plus the Hormel Institute renovation and expansion.

“We were the victims of our own success,” observed Mike MacLean, president of the Our Savior’s Lutheran congregation. “The congregation was growing, the ministries were growing and the building supporting those ministries was starting to hinder that growth so we undertook this very exciting endeavor.”

With an active membership of 1,984 members, Our Savior’s has met the demands for a house of worship from a steadily growing population in west Austin.

Three ministers, three worship services, two Sunday morning Christian education sessions and a mid-week Wednesday youth session are only the tip of the ice-berg of ministries offered there.

“There’s been a lot of planning, many meetings and we’ve obtained a great deal of input from the members of the congregation in every facet of the church to make sure, when we did do it, it would be done correctly,” MacLean said.

Essentially, Our Savior’s is putting children first with the Christmas education expansion.

There will be gains in the worship and music areas of the church as well as the fellowship and support areas, too.

But the bulk of the expansion work will enhance the Our Savior’s Christian education and spiritual development areas plus children, youth and family ministries.

As Pastor Knutson said, a combination of looking ahead to the church’s future while not forgetting its past.

Marcia Pedersen, director of Christian education, recalled, “Even before my children started Sunday school classes here, we needed space then.”

“The need has always been great, but this just needed to happen in God’s time; not ours,” she said. “I think this is God’s time.”

Our Savior’s has “well over 300 children” who regularly participate in Christian education activities at the church, ages pre-school through ninth grade. There are “well over 600” individuals in pre-school through high school ages who participate in Christian education activities, according to Pedersen.

The church has not had problems in recruiting teachers.

“In the last years, it has become easier,” Pedersen said. “We have changed our format to adapt. Instead of believing one person had to do everything themselves, we have called upon parents to help out.”

The Our Savior’s Sunday school department conducted its own fund drive to assist the congregation’s fund-raising campaign.

They contributed well over $1,000 in pennies,” Pedersen said. “They were challenged to collect their height in pennies. The response was phenomenal.”

“They are not just watching it happen. They are participating, too,” she said.

Charter members Arnold and Hazel Sater observed their second ground-breaking Sunday at Our Savior’s.

They were among the charter members who outlined the original church building’s perimeter 55 years ago on a Spring morning.

They couldn’t miss Sunday morning’s second ground-breaking.

“It’s exciting,” Arnold said. “We’re happy to see it happen.”