Immanuel United Church of Christ of Spring

The plaque calls the Evangelical and Reformed Church a merger of Lutheran churches, but its roots were broader. It formed in 1934 from the Evangelical Synod of North America, whose Midwestern German congregations traced back to Germany's 1817 union of Lutheran and Reformed churches, and the Reformed Church in the United States, begun by eighteenth-century German Reformed settlers in Pennsylvania. In 1957 it joined the Congregational Christian churches to form the United Church of Christ, which gave Immanuel its present name. The denomination's South Central Conference, covering Texas and Louisiana, was organized in May 1963.

What the plaque says

Immanuel United Church of Christ of Spring Immanuel's congregation was established in 1913 and chartered in 1916 under the German title Deutsche Evangelisch Lutherischen Immanuels Gemeinde Zu Spring. The founders' names reflected its German heritage – Lemm, Goedecke, Strack, Holzworth, Klein, Kothmann, Benignus and Arp. The founders designed and built their first church by 1916, a simple frame building with a single spire and stained glass windows donated by First Evangelical Church in Houston. Worship services, both in English and German, were held there until World War II. Over the years, the congregation and community joined forces to complete projects, including the 1948 parish hall addition, a project recognized by the Board of Missions of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, a merged group of Lutheran Churches. In 1953, a fire destroyed the entire campus. Members rebuilt quickly, and the present church and Parish Hall were dedicated in December 1953. The conflagration awoke Spring to the need for a fire department, which formed in 1954. When another fire threatened Immanuel in 2008, the fire department saved the sanctuary. As the area has evolved, so has Immanuel. The membership has changed from agrarian to urban, the name changed to Immanuel United Church of Christ, and the once German family church now centers on outreach and mission. For more than 100 years, Immanuel has remained dedicated to the community. Despite hardships, Immanuel United Church of Christ continues to flourish and persevere. The church has left a lasting influence on the history and development of the area and remains a landmark at the entrance to the town of Spring. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 22 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Rothko Chapel — 24 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• The Menil Collection — 24 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 24 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• Spring — steps away
• Spring Cemetery — 0.5 mi
• Trinity Lutheran Church Cemetery — 6.4 mi
• The Klein Community — 7.3 mi