On June 9, 2007, Zion Church — an eighty-year-old fixture of downtown Lincoln, Nebraska — was destroyed by fire. Many individuals and congregations contributed to Zion’s Fire Recovery Fund. Zion used money from its Building Fund, insurance settlement, and the Fire Recovery Fund to buy our present building on south 27th, and do some updating and remodeling.

The story of Zion before the fire is a story of two congregations that God brought together at 9th and D.

The “Old Zion”

The original Zion church had deep roots in Lincoln’s historic South Bottoms neighborhood. German-speaking Zion Evangelical Congregational Church was organized in 1900 with a building a 4th and F streets. In 1927, Zion put up a new building at 9th and D. During the hard years of the Great Depression and World War 2, Zion faced difficult challenges. In the 1950′s and 60′s, the ethnic German character of the neighborhood changed. New neighbors and a new generation did not connect easily at Zion. In addition, a denominational merger made it more difficult to find leadership with strong biblical and evangelical committments, and membership slowly declined. In the 1990′s, Bruce Gregg became pastor and led the congregation out of the old denomination with a new resolve to stand as an independant, Bible-believing church.

Covenant Presbyterian Church

Meanwhile on the other side of town, a handful of young families met in a small building at 40th and Randolph. In 1979 they affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America. The congregation moved to a larger building at 40th and Sheridan in 1985. The church leaders set goals for growth and church planting. By the early 1990′s it was becoming clear that the building at 40th and Sheridan would not be large enough for a congregation that would have enough resources to plant healthy daughter churches.

The leadership of Covenant Presbyterian and Zion Church began to talk in 1996 to consider possibilities. Zion was glad at the prospect of a full building and renewed neighborhood ministry. Covenant was happy at the prospect of more space and ministry opportunities. In 1997, the two congregations combined. Zion became a Presbyterian church, and Covenant took the historic Zion name.

Zion Church, PCA

The new congregation continued to grow and soon called Mike Hsu as a church planting pastor and launched her first daughter church in 2000. Grace Chapel took the property at 40th and Sheridan where Covenant Presbyterian had been for 12 years.

As Zion continued to grow, plans were made to expand the facility at 9th and D, but on June 9, 2007, one day before the scheduled groundbreaking, the Zion church buidling was destroyed by fire. A decade in the neighborhood came to a close.

But ministry in that neighborhood has not been abandoned. In a way we hadn’t planned, the fire year and church relocation actually made it possible to accelerate the plan to start our second daughter church: Redeemer Church was launched just one year after the fire in June 2008 with two of our staff pastors and about 100 adults and children. Redeemer has a special focus on doing ministry in the old neighborhood with the property at 9th and D, the multi-use building across from the park at 8th and D, and in 2009 moving into an older church building at 9th and Charleston.

At Zion we continue our committment to being a resource church for planting new congregations. Studies show that the fastest way to grow the church is by church planting. And Lincoln needs lots and lots of good churches.