‘It’s going to be a sad day’
Parishioners prepare for closing of Ruthton church
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RUTHTON -- 21-year-old twins Jenna and Cody Lingen are the two youngest parishioners of Peace Lutheran Church. The next youngest is their mother. They sat at the tables downstairs eating breakfast, reflecting on the church’s final year and what life will be without it.
“Peace Lutheran to us, it’s not just a church; it’s more like a family.” Jenna Lingen said.
"It felt like a second home in some places." Cody Lingen said.
The Peace Lutheran Church in Ruthton will be closing down at the end of 2026 and giving away property.
In January 2025, the members came together to vote on the church’s future, Cody Lingen said. While the members wanted the church to stay open, but membership was declining. Members voted unanimously to close the church while they could still put everything in order properly.
"Other churches that sat for 20 or 30 years and just went down to nothing," parishioner Leon Mortland said. "We don’t want that to happen either.”
For many, like Joanne DeRuyter, the closing will mean leaving a community that she’s been a part of her entire life. She grew up attending services, she baptized her children there and those children now have children of their own.
DeRuyter’s children attended Sunday school and she was a teacher. However, as the years have gone on, the class sizes have shrunk.
"We kind of went from having separate classrooms for the grades and stuff, to then over time, we had to condense till everybody was in one Sunday school," DeRuyter said. "We got smaller and smaller and smaller."
DeRuyter said she does plan to attend services at another church, she doesn’t know if it will ever be the same.
"I’m going to look around for a while and go to different churches and see," DeRuyter said. "It’s gonna be a hard decision. I think things have changed so much. It’s not traditional churches anymore.”
As part of the closure, the church community wants to give away all of its contents to those who need it. The most interest has been in the handmade church carvings by former Peace Lutheran Pastor Allen C. Erickson.
"Some beautiful stuff up there," Marilyn Mortland said.
"Erickson did a nice job," she said.
According to Leon Mortland, many rural churches have closed down in the past couple of years, including in Pipestone, Jasper and Tracy.
Quinn Horvath, the owner of Horvath Funeral services, has not attended Peace Lutheran in many years, but came back recently to take a look at the church one last time. He said he remembers a time when every small town had not only a church but a lively small community with a shop and station and community center. He sees the church closings as another symptom of small town population decline.
"Church is important, not just for spiritual health, but for community." Horvath said. "People are becoming less connected with each other because of these phones and computers."
Not every part of the church is closing, however. Every Tuesday, Leon and Marilyn Mortland make quilts with community members. Marilyn said last year the church gave 40 quilts to Southwest Minnesota State University for abroad students and an emergency stockpile. They plan on keeping up the quilting downstairs even after Sunday services end.
"We’ll be down here, evidently, as long as they allow us to be here -- we’ll quilt.” Marilyn Mortland said.
Marilyn and Leon Mortland continue to take any cloth and materials they can get to make quilts. Anyone who wants to donate material to them can contact them at lms68mort@gmail.com.
Shepard Dale Schley finished Sunday’s conversation emphasizing that while the building itself may close, it only means the idea will spread to others.
"It’s going to be a sad day when we close," Schley said. "But nobody really knows where they’re going. And when we had people leaving the congregation to move to be closer to their children, I made the statement, the Ministry of Peace Lutheran is reaching out. And that will be what’s happening again."