St. James Lutheran Church in Zepp dates to around 1822 when W.G. Keil, a ministerial student, began conducting services in local homes. By September of 1822 he had established a church with 30 confirmed members. The first church building was…

Lutheran Ministers began preaching in St. Luke in 1878 when locals formed a congregation separate from the Woodstock Lutheran Church. Their first minister, P. Miller, had a congregation of 42 who met in the Union Church and the local school. One…

An old history of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church reports that the Lutheran Church arrived in that area of Shenandoah County around 1806. Their efforts centered on the construction of a school near Saumsville, named Borden’s, which could be used as a…

In 1760, residents of this area who wanted to worship walked, or rode on horseback, to a small building at Rude’s Hill south of Mt. Jackson. This Union Church, called Rude’s Hill Church, accommodated congregations of various denominations. Among…

In the late 1700s, Shenandoah County residents who were members of the Lutheran and Reformed denominations banded together to form Frieden’s Union Church west of Toms Brook. This served the needs of Toms Brook’s residents until the mid-1800s when…

In 1965 the Lutheran Congregations of St. Davids and Mt. Zion Churches agreed to end the 75 year old dispute that had separated them. This effort was a result of several decades of improved relations that had led to joint Sunday Schools and Youth…

The first Lutheran Church in Woodstock predated the arrival of the town’s founder Jacob Mueller. Local German residents had felt the need for a place to practice their Lutheran faith and had therefore constructed a modest wooden structure in the…

Between 1734 John Caspar Stoever Jr., the first German Lutheran Minister in Virginia, made seven trips through the Shenandoah Valley to baptize individuals and organize churches. He, and his successor George Klug, must have been extremely successful…

Mt. Zion Lutheran Church was born in the nearby Kipps School House on August 21, 1853. That day the traveling Lutheran minister Socrates Henkel, began preaching in the area. Six months later the members of the community organized a congregation and…

The congregation that became Emmanuel Lutheran Church began in 1790, when Reverend Paul Henkel founded the Davidson Lutheran Church in New Market. In 1820 Samuel S. Schmucker, a Yale Graduate became the church’s new minister. Soon afterwards the…