After fire, Lutheran church in Sacred Heart, Minn., to be rebuilt

Jan. 28--Six months ago, a fire destroyed the tiny wooden sanctuary where members of Hawk Creek Lutheran Church in Sacred Heart, Minn., had worshiped for 140 years.

Now, a new building is about to rise from the ashes, and that's no surprise to the church's pastor, the Rev. Daniel Bowman.

"I never had doubts that this church would be back," Bowman said last week after the 203-member church voted unanimously to rebuild. "How often do you get unanimous with that many people? What this tells me is that this had to be led by the Holy Spirit."

Within hours of the devastating July 23 blaze, sparked by a lightning strike, Bowman said he saw God's providence at work. As he stood in front of the charred ruins, he called his mother and asked her to pray. She did, asking God to spare the altar area as a witness to the world that God is still in charge.

The altar was untouched.

Then came a memorial service in August when Hawk Creek members gathered in a tent on the church grounds outside of town to bury the ashes, perform a baptism and ask God for new life. A 6-year-old said she'd run a lemonade stand to raise money to buy a new building.

"That is the kind of excitement that is leading our church," Bowman said.

More signs of a new beginning arrived in September, when Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Duluth delivered a package. Inside was "Hope the Comfort Bear" -- a teddy bear with cards attached to its neck listing the names of eight other churches that had encountered adversity and had hosted the bear. Gloria Dei got the bear after its sanctuary was ravaged by a fire in February.

A day after the bear showed up, the Hawk Creek congregation voted to draw up plans for a new building, Bowman said.

Computer renderings of the project call for a one-level building that includes a worship center with multipurpose space flexible enough to host weddings, confirmation classes and funerals. The altar from the old sanctuary might be part of a small chapel, but it won't be used in a new sanctuary, Bowman said.

"We don't want to go back with what we had before," he said. "This is a new design, a new vision."

Even with designs in hand, there are still many decisions to be made, Bowman said. The church must figure out how to pay for a new building. The congregation collected $1.5 million from an insurance payout, but it is not enough to cover everything on the wish list, which includes a geothermal heating and cooling system, stained glass window inserts, parking lot improvements, long-life steel shingle roofing and landscaping. The plan puts the church $260,000 over budget.

Some of that gap has already been filled by gifts from other churches and residents in the surrounding area, Bowman said.

In coming weeks, the church -- known for its pre-Thanksgiving Lefse Festival -- will solicit bids and find out what the final bill might be. Things like the wainscoting facade might be cut "if we can't afford it," Bowman said.

With the support from others, it's been a good lesson on how to sustain hope in the wake of tragedy, the pastor said.

Still, the congregation that has been worshiping at Rock Valle Church in nearby Echo is eager to get into a new building.

"There is a lot excitement on the part of the people to move forward," Bowman said. "The irony is a lot of small churches around here are talking about closing, but we are talking about building."

Plans call for construction to begin in the spring, with a goal of worshiping in the new building by Christmas, Bowman said.

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