St. John’s Lutheran Church in Chehalis Celebrating 125th Anniversary

Originally founded and constructed in 1898, St. John’s Lutheran Church in Chehalis is preparing to celebrate its 125th anniversary on Sunday, Sept. 25.

The morning service will feature a trombone quartet rendition of “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” and baptisms will be performed as well.

Following the service, the church will serve a brunch in the community center and historic church memorabilia will be on display.

St. John’s Lutheran Church was originally constructed on the corner of Pacific Avenue and Prindle Street and used for 70 years.

Worship services were initially only held in the German language, though they did start to incorporate English services in the evening.

It wasn’t until the 1919 Easter service that a sermon was given in English in the morning. German services continued until 1929.

The current church was constructed in 1968.

While the church itself moved, the original church bell was kept and raised in the new church’s bell tower. It is still rung on special occasions.

St. John’s also features an 1895 Koehnken and Grimm pipe organ that is still played to this day. The church acquired it in 1992 when several church members traveled to Ohio to disassemble and transport the instrument. Once they got it to Chehalis, around 50 volunteers put in over 1,000 hours of labor to clean, restore and reassemble the organ.

The Sunday morning service will begin at 9:30 a.m. St. John’s Lutheran Church is located at 2190 Jackson Highway in Chehalis.

For those not able to attend in person, the church streams services live at https://stjohnschehalis.online.church/.