REBIRTH AFTER TOUGH YEARS

It’s tempting to talk about divine intervention when you hear the story of the First Lutheran Church in Ellendale.

It’s there, certainly, but there was also plenty of hard work that went into a rejuvenation that can only be called impressive.

Things began to slide in 2022; attendance continued to decline through 2024 – as few as 20 worshippers in the summer months.

In June 2025, the church and its minister separated. The once-vibrant congregation was struggling, and now it needed a minister.

God and the grocer

Enter Ross Sletten, owner of the 125-year-old grocery store in Ellendale. He bought Lerberg’s Foods in 2007.

He grew up in a house kitty-corner from the church, teaching and leading music for Sunday school when his children were young.

“I’ve always been a strong Christian, and I have always felt very close to the Lord,” Sletten said.

“When I was probably five or six years old, my parents would have company over, and I decided that’s when I would have my church service – when I had a congregation,” he said. “I used to do that, and everybody thought it was cute … until it was time for offering, and then it wasn’t so sweet anymore,” he laughed.

It was the start of a life of service.

Sletten was a member of Children of the Light, a group of high school-age kids from Ellendale and Geneva who toured southern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, singing Christian music.

They were successful enough to record an album in 1981, traveling to Cookhouse Recording Studios in Minneapolis – no small thing: The studio hosted a 16-year-old Prince in 1975, laying the foundation for his legendary career.

Despite his faith and his voice, Sletten earned a college degree in sales, marketing and management, working in grocery stores until buying the one in his hometown.

He still attended First Lutheran Church there, too, and watched with dismay as family after family left. His devotion to Ellendale’s history didn’t stop with Lerberg’s.

“Since June, I’ve pretty much been filling that role,” Sletten said of the empty pulpit.

A lifelong faith had landed him in the sights of people who needed him: “People from the congregation would tell me, ‘I think you missed your calling.’ Eventually, people started asking me, ‘is this something you would consider?’

“This is something I wanted to do my entire life,” he said, tears filling his eyes.

Perfect timing

He loved being a lay pastor – a baptized, non-ordained member of a congregation who assumes spiritual and administrative leadership roles within a church.

The members loved it, too, providing positive feedback about his services.

“But I’m 63 years old,” Sletten said, “and my plan has always been to retire at age 65. Hopefully, I’ll have a successor at the store, because I’d like to see that continue.”

Scott Swanson is president of the First Lutheran Church Council. He approached Sletten “a few times” to ask if the grocer would be the minister.

It was time for Sletten to seriously consider the opportunity.

The church offered to pay for his seminary work.

“A lot of prayer went into it, and a lot of thought,” Sletten said.

There was also something that felt like … divine intervention.

In September 2025, he was diagnosed with leukemia; his final chemotherapy treatment was Dec. 26. About six weeks later, he had a bone marrow biopsy.

“I sat down with my oncologist after that, and he looked at me and said, ‘Ross, I have good news. You’re in complete remission.’ And it was like, ‘wow,’ you know? How can I not do this?”

So in the fall, Sletten will enroll in the Masters Institute Seminary in White Bear Lake, a two-year program.

“Fortunately, everything is online, so I’m able to do it in my own time when it works for me,” he said of the coursework. “It sounds like it’s going to take about two days a week – so two full days, then I’m the grocery guy the rest of the days – except for Sunday, of course.”

The timing was perfect: Two years until retirement; two years of seminary; and a wide-open future.

Getting guidance

The church has joined the Lutheran Congregations and Missions for Christ, which encourages churches to do exactly what the Ellendale folks did: Promote somebody from within the congregation.

“They really believe that somebody that knows people personally in the congregation might have an easier time pastoring a church,” Sletten said – and staying there.

The church council did its diligence, Swanson said, and learned a lot of lessons from the process, including the wisdom of rules that were in place.

Still, he said, “it’s all spirit-led, so one of the lessons you learn is, it’s about prayer. God wants you to pray. God wants you to talk to him.”

The church council also talked to a lot of people within the congregation, with “thoughtful, prayerful conversations … and the benefits of all those things came together with Ross and (his wife) Michelle deciding to make that commitment,” Swanson said.

The family is “a staple in the community to begin with,” he said, “and it just seems to have a natural fit. It is an absolute joy to be here on Sundays and to have Ross’s personality come through – it’s been a really great experience.”

Bringing them back

On Mother’s Day, there were about 125 people in church, a far cry from the dwindling numbers just a year before.

That day, the Sunday school students had a program; the service was followed by a Mother’s Day brunch and the dedication of the town’s first Lending Library – similar to a “Free Little Library” program.

“We had parents and grandparents here, and when I got up front, I didn’t realize the church was that full,” Sletten said. “I turned around to greet the congregation and was like, whoa.”

He and Swanson heap praise upon Wendy Shultz, who has revived the children’s education program.

“Our Sunday school has just exploded,” Sletten said.

The previous declining church attendance means families were going elsewhere, obviously taking their children with them.

Shultz and her husband Marty had left, too – despite being the fifth generation of Shultzes to bring their families to the church.

The couple instead attended church with their adult children, or tried new churches. Nothing felt like home, Wendy Shultz said.

One Sunday last September, as they drove past the church, “I just thought, ‘I wonder how they’re doing in there.’ So I parked and snuck up to the balcony” during church service, she said.

“I peeked over the railing and saw two kids, and it about broke my heart.”

By then, Sletten had taken over the pulpit; he, the organist and Swanson’s wife Suzanne spotted Shultz – and cornered her.

There weren’t any children in Sunday school, they told Shultz, who had “spent my whole life being in Sunday school” before leaving the church.

Would she please come back?

It had been three years, but Shultz went to the church classrooms and found her former curriculum.

“I pieced it together and made copies,” she said, “and told them, ‘I’ll get you going and get you through a Christmas program.’ It felt like my baby, you know?”

A couple of weeks later, Sunday school began again.

“I think I had, like, five kids,” she said. “Then word got out, and the very next Sunday” she needed more room.

“My whole goal was to have them do something every month,” Shultz said, “whether it’s singing, or a program.”

Kids bring adults, she said, while receiving their own faith foundation.

“If you ask (adults) where their faith started, nine times out of 10 they’ll say, ‘I think it started in Sunday school when I had to dress up like a shepherd for a Christmas program,’ or something like that. That’s what I want the kids to have.”

So does Sletten.

“It’s so good to see that the numbers are back up again,” he said, “because that Sunday school is tomorrow’s congregation.”

There were 26 children in Sunday school on Mother’s Day.

Allowing the gifts

The key to the church’s recovery, Swanson said, was simple: “We went back to allowing people to share their gifts. Everybody has a gift, has something special, and we had lost that.”

The church had become “an environment where that wasn’t encouraged, but when we changed things, the whole attitude of the church changed,” he said. “You feel the spirit more often in here … allowing folks to do what they love to do just naturally attracts other people.”

“And that’s their ministry,” Sletten added, “when they can share their gifts.”

It’s the work of many members that brought the church back, he said, “and it’s all part of the recipe for making a successful loaf of bread here in our church.”

They see it after church services, as well, when everyone heads downstairs for brunch – every week.

Becky Lassahn’s gift to the church is to organize a team that provides egg bake, fruit, pastries and more to feed the crowd.

The Sunday school rooms are also downstairs, so the children can share that day’s crafts or projects with all of the adults – something they all enjoy, Swanson said.

The kids’ lesson of sharing is now the church’s legacy: Their “noisy offering” from throughout the year was used to buy books for the lending library – which looks suspiciously like the church itself.

The church is back to participating in the community Lenten services, which was “another really big thing,” Swanson said, because the collection is donated to the Ellendale Area Food Shelf.

“It brings the churches together, in that regard,” he said, “and that’s been another piece that has been missing.”

That ministry, in addition to the lending library, is “teaching the kids about being involved in doing things with the community, and being hands-on,” Swanson said.

For his part, the future minister sees the plan. 

“I look back at everything that’s happened to me in my life, and I think that God has just had a plan for me,” Sletten said. “He’s just been walking beside me and guiding me while all this stuff is happening.

“Now he’s saying, it’s time. Now’s the time.”