A Cedar Falls Congregation Built by Danish Emigrants
Nazareth Evangelical Lutheran Church stands on the corner of University Avenue and Main Street in Cedar Falls, Iowa, a steady presence in the neighborhood for more than 150 years. Its story begins with Danish emigrants who settled in Black Hawk County and were moved to pray and act together, establishing a fellowship for gathering in prayer, hearing the Word, sharing communion, and supporting one another in Christian life. They named the new congregation Nazareth Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, choosing Evangelical to signal that Jesus, crucified and risen, is the good news of light and salvation for the world, and Lutheran to anchor the work in Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:8-10, that salvation is by grace through faith and not by works.
The common language at Nazareth has changed over the years, but the passion for Jesus and His message of hope and salvation continues. The congregation’s simple three-part rhythm - To Know Christ, Grow in Christ, Make Christ Known - still describes what happens inside the building on Sundays and what the people of Nazareth carry out into the Cedar Valley and beyond. Today the church is known regionally for its depth of mission support, its large Vacation Bible School, and a busy Food and Essentials Pantry that helps neighbors across the community.
Sundays at 9:30
The Sunday gathering at Nazareth centers on a single morning worship service at 9:30 am, followed at 10:45 am by a full slate of discipleship classes and children’s programming that runs until about 11:30 am. The service is livestreamed through the church’s online platform for those who cannot attend in person, and recordings remain available on Vimeo afterward. Visitors are warmly welcomed; the church’s own invitation is simply, Come as you are.
The worship space sits on a campus that includes classrooms, a Wiggle Room just off the worship center where little ones can move while a live stream of the service plays, a Nursery at the west end of the building near the gym, Larson Chapel for smaller gatherings, a coffee shop, and an Underground area below the gym used for hands-on ministries like Kits and Quilts. The congregation is intergenerational, with families, college students, and seniors sharing the same Sunday hour.
KidzRock, Nursery, and Vacation Bible School
Children are central to life at Nazareth. KidzRock is the Sunday school program for ages three through sixth grade, meeting during the 10:45 am discipleship hour. Kids and volunteers worship together and learn through storytelling, teaching, and video, then break into small groups for kid-relevant relationship-building, discussion, and activities. The 2026-2027 school year adds a Wiggle Room and a refreshed Nursery space next to the women’s bathrooms.
Vacation Bible School is a hallmark of the church’s summer ministry. Emerald Crossing VBS 2026 drew more than 240 children and 140 volunteers for a week of worship, Bible drama, science experiments, crafts, and games built around the life of David and the words of Psalm 23. The next VBS is set for June 13-17, 2027, with the theme to be announced.
For the youngest, the Nursery is open during the Sunday worship service and discipleship classes for infants and toddlers up through age three. The church also maintains a private Facebook group and an Instagram account (@nazkidz) for family ministry updates.
Milestones for Growing Faith
Nazareth walks alongside families through a series of eight faith milestones that mark significant moments in a child’s spiritual life. Parents receive a folder for each child and communication from staff before each ceremony or training. The milestones begin with Baptism, supported by a Pre-Baptism class offered four times a year, and continue with the Birds and Bees parenting curriculum for parents of children ages one through ten. Pre-K Orientation welcomes new preschoolers into KidzRock. A Kindergarten Rite of Passage prays over and celebrates children entering school. Second graders receive their own Adventure Bible with instruction on exploring Scripture. Fifth graders prepare for first communion through a dedicated class. Confirmation classes for seventh and eighth graders run Sunday evenings, 6:30-7:45 pm, from mid-September through late April, with ninth grade covering Apologetics and Life Application. The milestones conclude with Graduation Sunday, when high school seniors are recognized during a Sunday morning worship service on graduation weekend.
Confirmation and Student Ministry
Confirmation at Nazareth is a three-year intentional discipleship journey for junior high and high school students. The current seventh and eighth grade class studies Luther’s Small Catechism, while the ninth grade class works through an Apologetics and Life Application curriculum. After three years, students are invited to publicly confess their belief in Jesus and give their lives over to His authority and Word.
Beyond Confirmation, the Student Ministry Director coordinates ministries for older students, and the BASIC college and young adult ministry travels each spring break to serve at the Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf in Kingston, Jamaica. The team there focuses on relationship-building, encouragement, and supporting the social enterprise DeafCan!.
Life Groups, Men’s Studies, and Women’s Groups
Nazareth’s small-group life is rich and varied. Life groups are intentionally continuous, rotating between studies and prioritizing relationships, while study groups focus on a specific topic for a set time. Many meet in rooms throughout the church building on University Avenue, while others gather in homes or online.
Among the regular offerings are the Men’s Sermon Study on Wednesdays at 6:30 am, hosted by Larry Steffens and facilitated by rotating pastors, which combines prayer, study, and occasional singing; the long-running Reisetter Men’s Bible Study on Thursdays at 8 am; and the Prail Men’s Life Group on Saturdays at 7:30 am, which uses the Life Application series. Women gather in the Women’s Life Group on Mondays at 9 am, the First Place for Health group on Mondays at 10 am, the Gather Bible Study on the second Thursday of each month, and Moms Monthly on the third Thursday at 9:30 am in the church coffee shop. The Fox Life Group meets every other Sunday at 4 pm for seniors. Couples and mixed groups meet in the Bakken/Young-Kent Life Group on the second and fourth Tuesdays, and several other groups meet on Wednesday evenings and Thursday mornings. POW (Parents on Wednesdays) is a group for parents with kids of all ages that meets from 6:15-7:30 pm, with nursery provided for children three and under.
Bible Study, Sermons, and Spiritual Disciplines
Sermons can be watched live on Sunday mornings and revisited anytime on the church’s Vimeo channel. Each week the sermon is supported by Small Group Guides, five-day devotionals, and transcripts posted online, with standalone sermons and series that have included While We Are Here: A Great Hope, Questions Jesus Asked, The Resurrection Life, Stories of Easter, The DNA of Prayer, The Characters of Christmas, The Laws of Love, Unstoppable, Bible Overview, A Powerful Trinity, God and Freedom, and Roman Road. The church subscribes to Right Now Media, giving members free access to thousands of videos and faith-building studies for kids, parents, marriages, and adult Bible studies.
Nazareth teaches that spiritual disciplines are the practices found in Scripture that promote spiritual growth - habits of devotion and experiential Christianity that have shaped God’s people since biblical times. The point of any discipline is being with Jesus and being transformed, not simply doing more.
The Food and Essentials Pantry
One of the most visible expressions of Nazareth’s local mission is its Food and Essentials Pantry, a partnership with the Northeast Iowa Food Bank and Love INC of the Cedar Valley. The pantry distributes food and personal hygiene and household cleaning supplies to neighbors in need throughout the year. Appointments are available on Mondays and Tuesdays from 1:00 to 3:00 pm and can be scheduled by emailing peg.merfeld@naz.org or calling the church office Monday through Thursday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, or Fridays, 9:00 am to noon. Households may schedule an appointment once every 30 days to ensure the pantry can help as many neighbors as possible. Scheduling through Love INC offers additional benefits, including a delivery option for Pantry Boxes and help with other needs. Donations of accepted items - canned fruits and vegetables, soups, tuna, chicken, peanut butter, hygiene supplies, paper goods, and cleaning products - are welcomed year-round, with a specific monthly focus highlighted in the weekly newsletter.
Local Missions Across the Cedar Valley
Beyond the food pantry, Nazareth partners with a wide network of local ministries. Members serve with the Boys and Girls Club, the Cedar Falls Iowa Bible Conference (one of the longest-running annual Bible conferences in America, now past its 100th year), and Alternatives Pregnancy Center, which explores Christ-centered alternatives with those facing unplanned pregnancies. A Prayer Shawl Ministry of ladies crochets and knits shawls for weddings, new babies, recovery, sickness, or bereavement; in 2024, more than 275 shawls were distributed locally and worldwide, and the group meets on the third Thursday of each month at 11:00 am in Larson Chapel. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes reaches coaches and athletes across northeast Iowa.
Nazareth also supports the Christian Crusaders radio and media ministry, House of Hope (a two-year transitional program for homeless single mothers), Iowa Heartland Habitat for Humanity, The Job Foundation (which equips Cedar Valley children with financial education), NewAldaya Lifescapes, the Northeast Iowa Foodbank, and Highland Elementary School in Waterloo, where a group of volunteers mentors students and staff and collects Hy-Vee receipts through the Cash 4 Students program. On the first Tuesday of each month, Nazareth helps prepare and serve a community meal at First United Methodist Church in Cedar Falls alongside several other local churches.
U.S. and World Mission Partnerships
The US & World Missions Committee oversees Nazareth’s support of fourteen missionary families, most of whom have close ties to the congregation. Partners include Shannon and Lisa, who serve with Oaks International on the Global Missions leadership team; Steve and Bethany, who have served in Tanzania for thirty years running medical clinics for the Maasai; Mark and Maki, who serve in Japan; Paul and Jay, recently retired from leadership of Radio TV Caranavi in Bolivia; Andy and Amy, who serve the Ngabe people on an island off Panama; Jim and Marissa with SEND International in Alaska and Northwest Canada; Burton Adrian, who develops portable ultrasound training for medical missions in Ghana; Andrew and Adria with ReWire in St. Louis, working among urban poor, immigrant, and refugee communities; Danny and Nel, focused on evangelism and church planting among immigrants and refugees in Iowa City; Dean and Ruth, equipping Christian artists in Southeast Asia; and Mac and Selah, soon returning from South Asia to serve as Missionary Care Coordinators.
Nazareth’s signature short-term mission is Hope and Health to Jamaica (H2Jamaica), begun in 1990 by Dr. Neil Williams. Each year between 40 and 60 participants travel to rural Jamaica to provide medical and dental care, run a construction team, and install drip irrigation systems for subsistence farmers. The Kits and Quilts ministry, meeting the first and third Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 am to noon in the Underground, produces 500-600 quilts and hundreds of school, baby care, personal care, and sewing kits each year, which are shipped to the Lutheran World Relief warehouse in St. Paul, Minnesota, for distribution around the world.
Beliefs and What Membership Means
Nazareth holds to the foundational Christian teachings articulated on its beliefs page. The congregation confesses one God eternally existent in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and accepts all the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments as the divinely inspired, revealed, and inerrant Word of God and the only infallible authority in matters of faith and life. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, given through the call of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel. The church teaches the priesthood of all believers, the return of Christ in glory, and the sanctity of life from conception. Its statement on marriage defines marriage as the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union for life, and teaches that sexual intimacy is to take place only within that union, while also affirming that every person is to be afforded compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity.
The church’s mission statement reads, Living together in God’s amazing grace, we invite all people to know Christ, grow in Christ and make Christ known. Four values shape the congregation: Holy Discontent (righting what is wrong), Responsiveness (action, not apathy), Relationships (we are better together), and Leading Beyond Our Walls (around the corner, around the world). For those ready to commit, membership classes are offered several times a year, with the next class on Sunday, February 15. New members are welcomed into a community that traces its identity back to a group of Danish emigrants more than 150 years ago and that today worships, disciples, and serves in their name.