On December 27, 1875, God created the fourth congregation on the land around Maple Plain, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Gotalund Church of Maple Plain. Immigrant farmers, Jonas and Kajsa Moline hosted worship in their little home on December 25th, 1875. Two days after Christmas, twenty three men and women committed themselves to God and to one another as the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Gotalund Church of Maple Plain.

Four years after the first service, the people put hammer and saw to wood, building the first sanctuary at the site of the current church cemetery on County Road 110, just south of town. Amazingly, the capitol drive for funds brought in more than was needed! Though the congregation now had a building, they did not have their own pastor until 1914. Until then, visiting pastors and theology students preached. In 1914, Rev. Rudolph Peterson became the first pastor, serving until 1919. That year the congregation merged with the new parish in Lyndale, which had been started in 1898. Each congregation had fewer than one hundred members; both had to be partially sustained by mission support funds from the Minnesota Conference of the Augustana Lutheran Church until the mid-1930’s. In the mid 60’s Maple Plain and Lyndale became separate parishes.

The name of our church evolved over time. It began as the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Gotalund Church of Maple Plain and then when the church was incorporated in 1833, the name became the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Gotalund Church of Independence. On the occasion of building the new church in town, the 1925 documents change the name to “Christ Lutheran Church of Maple Plain”.

In 1925 the decision was made to construct a new church building inside the village of Maple Plain. This church became known as Christ Lutheran Church of Maple Plain. This building was used until 1988, when the decision was made to raze the current sanctuary and build a new one on the same site. On Pentecost Sunday, May 22nd, 1988, the second church was deconsecrated at a special worship service. On May 31st the walls came down, and within three days everything was gone. In 1989 the new sanctuary was completed.

In 1966 a permanent storage facility was constructed to house the items for Christ Lutheran Women’s massive spring clothing sale. Because the fourth organ was damaged by a lightening strike, a fifth organ was purchased in 1998. The church owned a bus in the 70’s and purchased a van in 1999 for youth activities and other group functions.

Over the years the building stones of one structure after another have come and gone, just as Jesus himself said would happen (Luke 21:5-6). But two things have never gone: the living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him, and the living stones of this congregation which are continually being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:4-5).