Our History

For over 150 years, the people of ECC Princeton have been responding to God’s call to be present in our community
in ways that show God’s goodness and serve the needs of our neighbors.

BEGUN BY SWEDISH IMMIGRANTS

Our story begins in Sweden in the mid-1800s. After a population explosion, there were too many people for the land to feed, and famine was rampant. Thousands of Swedes fled to the United States. Unlike Sweden, there was land aplenty here, particularly in the Midwest (due to the earlier forced removal and extermination of many indigenous nations). So sometime after 1850, Swedish immigrants began to arrive in Illinois.

When some came to Princeton, just over 100 miles west of Chicago as the crow flies, they found a town on the rise. Princeton had become a stop on the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad just a few years earlier. A small Swedish settlement took root a few miles southeast of the town center. Initially, many of these immigrants found work on farms or as domestic workers.

They also found a place to worship. Some were Christians prior to immigrating; others were converted by revivals in Chicago. Naturally, they joined the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church (now First Lutheran Church), where they shared bonds of common language, history, theological roots, and the experience of transatlantic immigration. And then, in 1863, three new immigrants from Sweden arrived in Princeton: Mr. and Mrs. S.P. Lundholm, and their brother (in-law), John Hogberg. They were newly converted Christians, overflowing with joy and enthusiasm for the new life they had found in Christ. Back in Sweden, the Lundholms and many like them were called läsare, or “readers.” It was meant to be an insult, a mockery of their habit of gathering together for devotional reading of Scripture.

What is Pietism?

A spiritual revival swept through Sweden in the 1840s and 50s. It happened outside the walls (and more importantly, outside the approval) of Sweden’s official state church. This wave of excitement and renewed commitment to faith was part of a larger movement called Pietism, a religious movement begun in Germany in the 1670s which believed that true Christian faith was an experience that bore fruit in a changed life, and therefore, that the true Church is a gathering of people who share this experience. Pietism disagreed with the current teaching of state-run Lutheran churches, which taught that to be a Christian was to participate in the rites and rituals of the church, regardless of one’s actual personal experience.

Pietists held in-home religious gatherings, known as “conventicles,” where they would read Scripture together, as well as other devotional materials, sing newer hymns that reflected their personal experience of faith in Jesus Christ, and encourage one another in living out the implications of their new identity in Christ. The semi-independent nature of conventicles (members were still part of the state church, but also participated in these non-sanctioned groups for their own spiritual nurture) was seen as a threat to the order and authority of the state church. Emigrating from Sweden did not just offer economic opportunity; it also opened doors of greater religious freedom for those who left.

In Princeton, the Lundholms and Mr. Hogberg joined the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church, which had started just 9 years earlier. But they also began to hold “cottage meetings” in their home and the homes of friends, where they joyfully shared their own personal experience of God’s grace in their lives. At these meetings, like earlier Swedish conventicles, the enthusiastic new arrivals to Princeton would read aloud from Pietisten (a Swedish devotional newspaper, copies of which the Lundholms had packed in their trunks for the long voyage to America). Mrs. Lundholm had a lovely singing voice, and would lead the group in singing familiar hymns. They would pray together. To some people, they probably seemed overly enthusiastic about their faith. But there was something contagious about their joy and the fervor with which they worked to convince their new friends and neighbors to open themselves to having their own transformative encounters with God.

They invited people to join them at every opportunity. While cutting timber, S. P. Lundholm would pause to preach an impromptu sermon for his neighbors, Jonas Person and C.G. Swanson, begging them to find peace with God. When Person one day finally experienced this joyful salvation for himself, he reportedly startled Swanson by vaulting over the fence bordering Swanson’s field to announce, “Praise the Lord! Now I am saved and happy.” Later, C.G. Swanson would find the same joy for himself.

Finally, on a cold December night in 1868, by the light of a kerosene lamp in Jonas Person’s farmhouse, a group of 32 men and women signed the charter to become the Svenska Evangeliska Lutherska Missionsforening, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Association. They had no constitution, bylaws, or board, believing that Scripture itself was enough. They had no pastor, either, but appointed C.G. Swanson chairman.

While it was not their original intent to separate from the Lutheran Church nor to start a church of their own – in fact, the charter members of the “Missionary Association” kept their memberships in the Lutheran Church as long as they could – conflict was inevitable. The Mission Friends’ approach to faith, their habit of meeting separately, and their Pietistic definition of what makes a true Christian (and a true Church) were not compatible with the church’s approach. By 1871, they acknowledged in name what was already true in practice: they had become a separate church in their own right. We are grateful that, over time, these two churches were able to maintain their relationship as fellow Christians. Our church’s history is marked by signs of the ongoing hospitality and cooperation of our friends and neighbors at First Lutheran Church, from helping us to host delegates for an annual conference in 1929 to ongoing collaborations in different ministries and outreach. The group legally incorporated in December 1871. Three days before this, they had already voted to build a 40 foot long “mission house” to seat approximately 200 people. (Estimated building costs were $1,200.)

C.G. Swanson, first chairman of the Svenska Evangeliska Lutherska Missionsforening