A Vision, A Move, And A New Church

Planning began in March 1955. Two city blocks once projected for an elementary school were purchased from the Kirchner family for $18,000. The new St. Mary's would be built on 80th Street, east of 22nd Avenue.

Thinking back on the path that led to building a $450,000 church complex, Pastor Siersbeck later said, "We dreamed, but we were scared." As the congregation had always done, however, when the need was demonstrated and the plans were solid, the necessary money followed.

The  cornerstone was laid on July 17, 1960, for a 20,000 square foot, highly functional, thoroughly modern A-frame church, with an educational unit including a fellowship hall and 22 Sunday School classrooms. The architecturally attractive structure was the first church of contemporary design constructed in Kenosha. On March 12, 1961, St. Mary's new home was dedicated in services conducted by Dr. Myron C. Austinson, former Southern Wisconsin District president. 

But space was not the only expansion St. Mary's needed. For more than eight decades, one pastor had been enough. In the new church, one February Sunday, Dr. Siersbeck served communion to 660 persons...by himself. He needed help, the congregation recognized.

So in 1962, a call went to the Rev. Raymond Pedersen, a young Iowa native of Danish descent, fresh out of the seminary. It was a remarkably happy choice. On a personal level, the two ministers, one nearly 60, the other in his 20s, hit it off immediately. Team ministry came to St. Mary's. It was a pastoral concept that worked, and would, in coming years, expand even further.

In the summer of 1967, the team approach was carried to the next step, when a seminary student intern, Steve Cornils joined the staff for a year. He would finish his schooling, be ordained and accept a call from a California church.

"Steve was outstanding," Pedersen remembers. "but it became clear that considering the time necessary to teach a new staff member, what we really needed was another associate pastor on a longer term basis."