St Peter's is a caring congregation of Evangelical Lutherans dedicated to the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ and true to the principles of the Lutheran Reformation. We are a member church of the Atlantic Conference, Eastern Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Together with Bethany Lutheran Church we form the Lutheran Parish of New Denmark.
This congregation confesses the Triune God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — as the one true God. It proclaims the Father as Creator and Preserver, His Son Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Lord, and the Holy Spirit as Regenerator and Sanctifier.
This congregation confesses that the Gospel is the revelation of God's saving will and grace in Jesus Christ, which He imparts through Word and Sacrament. Through these means of grace the Holy Spirit creates believers and unites them with their Lord and with one another in the fellowship of the Holy Christian Church.
This congregation confesses the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God, through which God still speaks, and as the only source of the Church's doctrine and the authoritative standard for the faith and life of the Church.
This congregation subscribes the documents of the Book of Concord of l580 as witnesses to the way in which the Holy Scriptures have been correctly understood and explained and confessed for the sake of the Gospel, namely:
- The Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds as the chief confessions of the Christian faith;
- The Unaltered Augsburg Confession as its basic formulation of Christian doctrine;
- Luther's Small Catechism as a clear summary of Christian doctrine;
- The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Luther's Large Catechism, the Smalcald Articles with the Treatise, and the Formula of Concord as further witnesses to the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.
The history of St Peter's in New Denmark — the oldest Danish settlement in Canada — began as the 19th century turned to the 20th. On November 19, 1905, a meeting was held in the old Patrons Hall and the church was established under the authority of the Bishop of København as part of the DKU (Dansk Kirke i Udlandet — Danish Church Abroad. Pastor A. P. Hansen was the first Minister — at that time, his salary was $25.00 a month, plus free lodging.
In 1908, two acres of land was purchased from the north-west corner of Mr. Anton Johansen's farm, to be used as a cemetery and church site. In 1916, a committee was appointed to build a church and parsonage, which were completed in 1917.
The minutes of the church were written completely in Danish until 1960. Around 1969, our Danish services ceased, but a Danish hymn is still being sung every Sunday.
St Peter's Lutheran is the first Lutheran church established within the Province of New Brunswick, and it is the mother church of the next two to be established. Bethany Lutheran Church, also in New Denmark, was originally an annex of St. Peter's, built to accommodate the people's needs and travel difficulties of earlier years. For many years known simply as "the annex", but is now a separate congregation sharing pastor and parsonage with St Peter's. Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church in Saint John was established in 1931 as Elijah Lutheran Church, also under the DKU, when St. Peter's Pastor Emil Nommesen sent his assistant pastor, Ravnkilde Møller, to Saint John in order to organize a Lutheran church there for the local Danish immigrant community.
The Pastors who have served us faithfully over the last century are:
- Pastor A. P. Hansen — 1906 to 1909
- Pastor Atlef Hansen — 1909 to 1915
- Pastor Frank Nielsen — 1916 to 1921
- Pastor John M. Jensen — 1922 to 1926
- Pastor Emil Nommesen — 1927 to 1931
- Pastor Harald Nielsen — 1932 to 1939
- Pastor M. P. Bollesen — 1940 to 1944
- Pastor A. N. Skandrup — 1944 to 1948
- Pastor Ejvind Nielsen — 1949 to 1953
- Pastor Fred Jensen — 1954 to 1959
- Pastor Immanuel Johansen — 1959 to 1969
- Pastor Ove Pedersen — 1969 to 1974
- Pastor Douglas Moore — 1976 to 1981
( Pastor Doug was the first pastor of St Peter's with no knowledge of the Danish language )
- Pastor Dan Gilbert — 1981 to 1983
- Pastor John Singh — 1983 to 1984 (interim pastor)
- Pastor Douglas Moore — 1984 to 1994
- Pastor Chris Olesen — 1994 to 1997
- Pastor Kimberlynn McNabb — 1998 to 2004
( Pastor Kimber was the first woman to serve as pastor of St Peter's )
- Pastor Ron Leonard — 2004 to 2005 (interim pastor)
- Pastor David Knudson — 2006 to 2011
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