A church is more than a building. That explains why Trinity Lutheran Church will mark its 100th year in Everett Sunday, yet it didn’t have a home until 1910.
Marilyn Leatherman has been a church member all her life. “I joined when I was born, in 1931,” she said.
Leatherman knows a century of church history. It shows in a gallery of photos and memorabilia she put together in a downstairs meeting room.
The gabled church with the tall steeple on Lombard across from Clark Park began “in multiple places,” Leatherman said. “In 1910, it built a chapel at Rainier and Everett avenues. In 1922, this building was dedicated.”
The Rev. Lee Kluth had plenty of help preparing for the centennial celebration, which begins with a 10 a.m. church service Sunday.
Nearly a dozen members met with Kluth Wednesday to fill coffee mugs with chocolates, gifts that will be on the tables at a banquet later Sunday at the larger Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Everett.
Sunday will cap nearly a year of service, visits from former pastors and other projects. In a centennial challenge, members donated hundreds of food items for the food bank; rolls of quarters for an Ethiopian orphanage; stuffed animals for law enforcement to give traumatized children; and provided holiday food baskets and gifts for local families.
For Lutheran World Relief, they put together layettes and school kits. They donated hundreds of garments to the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Sweater Drive. With Lutheran Community Services Northwest, they helped persecuted Bantu refugees from Somalia settle in Everett.
“We host about 600 people a week involved in 12-step groups, Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon and Alateen,” Kluth said.
The Rise ‘n’ Shine group meeting at the church helps children living in families with AIDS.
The church itself has some 400 members in about 140 families, Kluth said.
The Rev. John Greeny, pastor at Trinity from 1976 to 1990, had 12-step groups at his former church in Ballard. A counselor he worked with there came to Everett to help launch AA, Narcotics Anonymous and other groups at Trinity.
“They were good groups, they were conscientious,” said Greeny, who now lives near Arlington.
“John Greeny had a heart for that,” church member Lynda Elwood said of the groups, which still use church facilities.
“Our building is totally full,” said Clara Griffin, an associate in ministry at Trinity.
“That’s what buildings are for,” Elwood added.
Griffin said people from the 12-step programs have come to thank the staff. “They’ll say they have healthy children because of us,” Griffin said. Kluth has performed weddings and funerals for people in the groups.
Being close to N. Broadway, “some Sunday mornings we have some fairly interesting characters come to worship,” Kluth said.
One church member, Bertha Enger, fed and temporarily sheltered Jewell Edna Armstrong, a homeless woman who was often seen on Broadway. She was known on the street as “Jessie.” When Armstrong died in 2000, Kluth officiated at her funeral.
Enger first encountered the woman sleeping across the alley from her home. “Now I think of how much more we could have done,” she said.
“It’s our second family,” said Rosalind Cry, who was lending a hand at church with her daughter, Barb Beck. “The church gives us such a feeling of belonging.”
Whether it’s to those with substance-abuse problems on the streets of Everett or to babies in faraway refugee camps, Trinity reaches out to help. More than a building – a church with a steeple – it throws open its doors to all kinds of people.
“We’re a little church with a big heart,” Elwood said.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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