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The Zion Lutheran Church (originally named Bethlehem Lutheran Church) was the first church in Michigan to conduct services in the German language exclusively. Missing the faith they had left in Europe, early German settlers asked Jonathan Mann, a leader in their community, for help. Mann wrote to the Evangelical Institute of Switzerland is 1832, asking for a Lutheran minister to lead a congregation in the "Michigan wilderness." In response, the Evangelical Institute of Switzerland sent the newly ordained Frederick Schmid. Schmid arrived in 1833 and the first church was built shortly thereafter at a cost of $265.32.
Schmid led the congregation through such a large period of growth that the construction of a larger building was necessary in 1849. The second church was constructed for $1,820.00. In 1871, Schmid was forced to retire because of poor health.
A pastor named Reuther assumed the pastorship after Schmid's retirement. In 1873, he was in the center of a church crisis over the construction of the new church building. Half the congregation left the Bethlehem Church over this matter, including the founding pastor, Frederick Schmid. Reuther
returned to Germany. This document gives more information about the church split.
The members who left Bethlehem church founded the new Zion Lutheran Church under the leadership of Herman Belser in 1875. Belser was a German immigrant who had led a church in Sandusky, Ohio prior to his position at Zion. He retired from Zion in 1890.
The next 27 years in Zion history are rather obscure. There were two ministers between the years 1890 and 1917, but little information about them has survived.
In 1917, however, there was a storm on the horizon that would involve the world--and engulf Ann Arbor's German community and Zion Lutheran Church along with it.
