In The Beginning

In the late 1990s, a young couple moved to the Mankato area. They began their search for a Reformed Church. There was none to be found. In 2001, they met with other like-minded Christians and began to search out ways to establish such a church in the area. In the spring of 2002, they contacted Dr. Max Roagland, Pastor of Trinity Church PCA, in Rochester. At the same time, Trinity Church had been seeking God’s leading for planting a daughter church somewhere in southern Minnesota. After meeting with the group, Pastor Roagland and the Elders of Trinity confirmed their decision to plant a PCA Church in Mankato. At PCA Assembly in the summer of 2002, Pastor Roagland searched for a possible candidate to pastor the church. He found a young man who desired to move to the North where winters were really wintery.

Shown below are Pastor Greg Lawrence and his wife Lara and their children Moriah, Abigail, Samuel, Jacob, and Nathaniel.

Enter The Shepherd

In the early autumn of 2002, Greg Lawrence met with the Trinity Church Session and then with the group from Mankato. Trinity Church called him to an assistant pastorship at Trinity which would allow him to pastor the planted church in Mankato. Following his move to Mankato with his family, Greg Lawrence was ordained by the Presbytery as a pastor in the PCA.

The Growing Church

The seed planted earlier was beginning to grow. At first the small group of believers met for Bible Study in the Fall of 2002. They had their first service in Mankato at the the Holiday Inn in downtown Mankato. For a while, they met at Country Inn and Suites in hilltop Mankato before moving to their present home at Seventh Day Adventist Church on Pohl Road.

They began meeting weekly for Lord's Day Service in March 2003 and became a particular church in the PCA in the fall of 2007.

Deuteronomy 5: 8-10
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.