Zion United Church of Christ

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way back when Waco was still finding its footing, a man named Reverend Friederich Werning had a mission. Not a building, mind you.

Not yet. Just a mission. Werning, born in 1843, held the very first services for the German-speaking people of Waco inside a Presbyterian Church.

Borrowed walls, familiar words, a congregation taking shape. That right there was the first mission congregation of the Evangelical Church in the state of Texas. Think about that.

The whole thing started with folks gathering in somebody else's house of worship, speaking German in a town that was still figuring out what it wanted to be. Then in 1882, a frame structure went up on this very site. A proper home at last.

That building served the congregation for decades, until the members decided it was time to do something bigger. In 1914, they replaced it with the present church, and they did not do it cheap. That new building cost ten thousand dollars.

Ten thousand dollars in 1914. That was a statement of faith if ever there was one. Now here is the part that sneaks up on you.

The congregation had always worshipped in German. That was the thread connecting them to the people Werning first gathered together. But by 1931, the members were speaking English in their homes, and so the use of German in the church came to a close.

The same year, 1931, was also the year Reverend Werning himself passed from this world, born 1843, gone 1931. The man who started it all and the language he started it in, both closing the same chapter. The story did not end there, though.

The congregation's denominational home kept shifting through the years as mergers reshaped the broader church. First the Evangelical and Reformed Church was created, drawing the congregation into a new affiliation. Then later, another merger brought forth the United Church of Christ, and that is where the congregation landed.

One congregation, one site, frame walls replaced by a ten-thousand-dollar church, German giving way to English, and a denominational name that changed not once but twice through mergers. Zion United Church of Christ. It earned every word in that name the long way around.

What the marker says

First mission congregation of the Evangelical Church in Texas. Initial services were held for German-speaking people of Waco by The Rev. Friederich Werning (1843-1931) in Presbyterian Church. Frame structure built on this site in 1882 was replaced in 1914 (for $10,000) by present church. Use of German ceased in 1931 when members were using English in homes. The denominational affiliation of congregation has been determined by mergers in which Evangelical and Reformed Church and, later, the United Church of Christ were created.