Mount Olive Lutheran Church stands on Saint Johns Avenue on the west side of Billings, Montana, across from West High School at the corner of 24th Street. From this corner in the city’s west-end neighborhoods, the congregation has gathered around Word and Sacrament since 1959, holding to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s confessional witness, keeping the historic daily offices of Matins and Vespers, and hosting a Lutheran school on the same campus. Visitors who walk up to the building on a weekday morning at 8:45 will find the doors open for prayer, and on Sunday morning at nine the sanctuary fills for a Communion service that has shaped the congregation’s life for more than six decades.
How Mount Olive Came to West Billings
Mount Olive grew out of Trinity Lutheran Church at 537 Grand Avenue in downtown Billings, the mother church of Lutheran life in the city. As the west side developed in the late 1950s, members of Trinity who had moved into the new subdivisions began to talk about planting a “suburban” church close to where they lived. Trinity Lutheran School had already been established on ten acres in west Billings in 1958, and the question of starting a second congregation moved from idea to plan.
On February 22, 1959, thirty-four communicants and their families were granted a peaceful release from Trinity to begin a new mission. That day the new congregation held its first service at Trinity Lutheran School, which was itself on the edge of 1959 Billings. The Reverend H. A. Wood became the first pastor and Lois Wroge Fehrmann the first organist. Within a year, the congregation had outgrown the borrowed space. Ground was broken in April 1960 for a building on a few acres across from West High School, a site a consultant had identified as ideal, with room to grow. The first phase, essentially the present fellowship hall and the first floor of the education wing, was dedicated in September 1961.
Growth was rapid. A kindergarten opened in 1962, and by 1967 eighty-three children were applying for the program’s fifty-three spots. When both Trinity and the Billings public schools opened kindergartens in 1975, the Mount Olive kindergarten closed. By 1967 baptized membership had passed five hundred and Sunday School enrollment ran over two hundred fifty, and the Montana District ended its mission subsidy. In 1981 and 1982 the congregation built the present sanctuary and the second story of the education wing, finishing the choir loft a year later and the office area by the spring of 1983. The same years saw Trinity Lutheran School move its preschool and kindergarten classrooms to Mount Olive, then first and second grades, the result of a Lutheran Interparish Education Association formed in 1977 to coordinate Lutheran schools in Billings. From the same pulpit in the early 1980s, Mount Olive also called a second pastor to start a mission of its own in the Billings Heights, Our Savior, and twenty Mount Olive families became the nucleus of that new work.
Confessional Roots and a Closed Communion Practice
Mount Olive identifies as a congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and its beliefs page sets out a thoroughly confessional foundation. The congregation holds the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the written Word of God and the only rule and norm of faith and practice. It also confesses the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a true and unadulterated exposition of that Word, naming the three Ecumenical Creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian), the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, Luther’s Large and Small Catechisms, and the Formula of Concord.
The mission statement adopted in May 2000 puts this confession into a single sentence: the church exists to provide opportunities for worshiping the Triune God, for growing in the Christian faith, for helping one another, for bringing others to know Christ, and for serving others in their vocations.
The congregation practices closed communion. Mount Olive administers the Sacrament of the Altar to its own communicant members and to members of sister LCMS congregations, who are asked to notify the pastor beforehand. Visitors who are not communicant members are respectfully asked not to commune, and anyone interested in communicant membership is invited to arrange a visit with the pastor. This is the historic LCMS practice and is presented as a matter of care for the sacrament, not exclusion.
A Week Shaped by the Daily Office
What sets Mount Olive apart at first glance is the rhythm of its week. Almost every weekday brings the church to its knees for prayer. Matins, the morning office from the Lutheran daily office, is sung or spoken at 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and Vespers, the evening office, is prayed at 3:15 p.m. on Thursday. A Monday-evening Communion Service at 6:30 p.m. and a Wednesday-morning Text Study at 10:30 a.m. round out the weekday teaching life. On selected Saturdays a Saturday Morning Theology group meets at 7:00 a.m.
This is not a building that opens only on Sunday. The calendar posted on the church’s page shows Matins and Vespers appearing week after week, a pattern that fits the congregation’s identity as a liturgical church and gives members many small doorways into the week’s prayer.
Sunday at 24th and St. Johns
The Sunday schedule keeps a single, simple shape. The day begins with the Communion Service at 9:00 a.m., followed at 10:30 a.m. by an Adult Bible Study. On certain Sundays of the month, Sunday School meets at 10:30 a.m., and on selected Sundays the congregation also makes a Primrose Visit at 1:00 p.m., traveling to a local care facility to spend time with residents. Members and visitors can follow the same week’s calendar on the church’s online calendar, with options to subscribe in Google Calendar or export to iCal.
The order of service follows the historic Lutheran liturgy, with the historic hymns, readings, and prayers that flow from the church’s confession. Visitors who are not communicant members are gently directed to speak with the pastor before receiving the sacrament.
Bible Study, Text Study, and Saturday Morning Theology
Teaching has a place of its own in the congregation’s life. The Adult Bible Study at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday follows the Sunday service and is open to anyone in the building. On Wednesday morning at 10:30, the Text Study gathers around the appointed Scripture readings, the same texts that will shape the coming Sunday’s sermon. On selected Saturday mornings, the Saturday Morning Theology group meets at 7:00 a.m. for a deeper look at doctrine and Scripture. A Voter’s Meeting also appears on the calendar, the LCMS congregational form in which members exercise their voice in the life of the church.
Mount Olive School on the Same Campus
Sharing the property with the church is Mount Olive School, a Lutheran preschool and elementary program that grew out of the cooperation between the Billings-area LCMS congregations in the 1980s. The school moved preschool and kindergarten into Mount Olive’s education wing in 1981, then first and second grades by 1983, and the school remains a presence on the church’s campus. The school maintains its own site at mountoliveschool.org, where families can learn about enrollment.
Parish Life Beyond the Sanctuary
Other rhythms of the congregation carry the church out of the building. Members are part of the Yellowstone Valley Lutherans for Life, a local affiliate of the LCMS-recognized Lutherans For Life, and the calendar lists recurring Lutherans for Life meetings. The Lutheran Lager League, a men’s fellowship by its name and tone, also meets at the church. A Quilting group gathers to work on handmade projects. Members regularly travel to Primrose to spend time with residents, a practice that is part of the church’s wider care for the community around it.
The parish is governed through a Parish Council and Voters’ Meetings, and the congregation publishes weekly bulletins and a Constitution. Members have access to an online directory and a household contact information form, and the office keeps weekday hours Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The People Who Shepherd and Run the Church
Senior Pastor Willis McCall currently shepherds the congregation. Two Emeritus Pastors, Pastor Brandt and Pastor Grunst, remain a part of the church's life. Donna Johns serves as Business Manager and Crystal Zoeller as Secretary. The church has been led by pastors who came out of the LCMS's seminary system, reflecting the Missouri Synod's understanding of the pastoral office.
Visiting, Giving, and Staying in Touch
Visitors and members can reach the church office at 2336 Saint Johns Avenue in Billings, by phone at 406-656-6687, or by email at info@mountolive.com. The office is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and closed on weekends. Driving directions to the church are linked on the contact page, and the church's Facebook page, Mount Olive Church Billings, carries announcements. Donations can be made in person at the office or by mail to the church's address, and a Make A Donation page on the church's site offers the same information. The Lutheran school next door maintains its own site at mountoliveschool.org for families interested in learning more about enrollment.