A Lutheran Home on North Broadway
St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church has stood at 400 North Broadway Street in Medina, Ohio - three blocks north of the Square - since the first service in its current sanctuary on May 6, 1951. The congregation itself is older by fifteen years. It traces its roots to Memorial Day 1936, when the St. Peter's / St. Paul's mission was formed to serve Medina. Pastor Waldo E. Byers of Lodi rode a circuit between his home parish and the storefront mission in the afternoons, with the Rev. Robert Glaser soon called to help establish the new work.
The first worship service was held on February 6, 1938 in a small storefront at 110 West Washington Street. Standing room only was the order of the day, and St. Matthew became the ninth church established in the city with twenty-six charter members. By 1939 the young mission had purchased two lots at the corner of Broadway and Pearl and begun a building fund. In 1948 the congregation became fully self-supporting, broke ground on June 4, 1950, laid its cornerstone on October 1, 1950, and moved from the storefront to the new church the following spring.
Growth came steadily through the second half of the twentieth century. A parsonage across the street was dedicated in 1956, a pipe organ arrived in 1973, a second education unit opened in 1981, and an elevator was installed in 1990 to make the building accessible. A northwest entrance was added in 2011, and a Memorial Garden on the south side of the church was dedicated in 2015 as an Eagle Scout project. Today, nearly nine decades after that first storefront service, St. Matthew continues to gather on the same corner of Broadway and Pearl.
Living God's Love
The congregation describes itself as a welcoming and caring community known for its outreach into the wider city of Medina. Its mission is captured in a simple motto, Living God's Love - LGL for short - which frames everything from Sunday worship to the food pantry on Pearl Street. Small groups across the church take LGL as their brief, working to spread God's love within the faith community and into workplaces, schools, and neighborhood playgrounds.
St. Matthew is a member congregation of the Northeastern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The church confesses the Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Members respond to the call of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, desiring to preach the Word, administer the sacraments, and carry out God's mission together.
Worship is built around what Lutherans call the means of grace: the Word proclaimed and the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. Both are offered every Sunday. The basic Lutheran pattern shapes each service - the congregation gathers, encounters God's word, shares a meal at the Lord's table, and is sent into the world.
Sunday Worship at St. Matthew
Most of the year, two Sunday services are offered: at 8:30 AM and 11:00 AM, with Holy Communion at both. The earlier service is livestreamed each week on YouTube. A typical Sunday follows a rotating pattern of musical settings across the month. Week one uses the Now the Feast and Celebration setting. Week two returns to the Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) setting. Week three is a Praise service. Week four uses the ELW setting again. Week five is announced as it comes. Special services mark the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, All Saints, Reformation Sunday, and other holy days.
During the summer months and on a handful of other Sundays each year, the congregation gathers for a single service at 9:30 AM. Consecration Sunday, an annual stewardship emphasis, falls in late September and is celebrated with one combined service.
The worship style is mostly traditional. Hymns and service music are led on the organ, piano, and other instruments by song leaders and choirs, with a liturgy drawn from ELW and Augsburg Fortress resources. Services typically run about an hour. Visitors and members alike are welcome to linger over coffee and conversation during fellowship time after the service.
A nursery staffed by a certified childcare professional is available at every service for the youngest worshipers. Holy Communion is open to all who are baptized, and gluten-free wafers are offered alongside the regular bread.
Music Ministry and the New Allen Organ
St. Matthew is a singing church. Director of Music Rachel Knaggs, co-organists Cindy Piovarchy and Elaine Stone, and Praise Team Leader Scott Schwandt lead a program that includes vocal choirs, two chime choirs, a children's choir called Kids of the Kingdom, and a roster of soloists and instrumentalists. Weekly rehearsals take place in the sanctuary on Tuesday evenings, with Chimes 1 from 5:30 to 6:30, the Luther Choir from 6:30 to 7:30, and Chimes 2 from 7:30 to 8:30.
In December 2025 the congregation celebrated reaching the full goal of $116,000 to purchase a new Allen Organ. The Organ Committee, chaired by Helen Graf and including Ellen Jakovcic, Rachel Knaggs, Larry Mohler, Carol Muhlbach, Kelly Obermeier, Cindy Piovarchy, Susie Siebert, and Kristin Weight, thanked the congregation for faithful and unified giving. The instrument now supports the choir, enriches the liturgy, and helps proclaim the Gospel in worship.
Children, Youth, and Sunday School
St. Matthew's Comprehensive Youth Ministry welcomes children from preschool through twelfth grade, plus adults, for Christian education and faith formation each Sunday from 9:45 to 10:45 AM between the two worship services (September through May). The program opens each year with Rally Day, gathers in the sanctuary for a Spirit Rally, and then journeys downstairs to the Fellowship Hall for games, snacks, and classroom time.
Two adult volunteers are present in every classroom to comply with the church's Child Protection Policy, and helpers are welcome even if they do not wish to teach. The director of this ministry is Deacon Lindsay Stertzbach.
High school youth gather as the Luther League, a name the group has carried since 1944, when it began meeting at the pastor's home while the congregation was still in the storefront on the Square. The Luther League today organizes service projects, conference trips, and fellowship activities, advised by Tom and Amanda Kotick, Julie Shrader, and Kristin Weight.
Each summer, Vacation Bible School brings another generation of children into the building for a week of Bible stories, music, crafts, games, snacks, and a group service project. The annual theme in 2026 was Rainforest Falls, a journey through the rainforest to learn about the nature of God. Older youth look forward to the 2027 ELCA Youth Gathering in Minneapolis.
Adults Growing in Faith
Between the two Sunday services, an Adult Sunday School class meets in the Fellowship Hall. The 2026 - 2027 curriculum walks through climate change and stewardship, the Lutheran Rosary, a study on human sexuality drawn from the ELCA social statement, a Christmas program, the 1946 movie, several weeks of Lutheran Studies, and a sustained walk through the Nicene Creed. Teachers include Bill Smith, Barb Woodard, Pastor Steve, and Joe Robinson.
On Thursday evenings at 7:00 PM, Bible and Brews meets at the clubhouse at Forest Meadows Villas. The Thursday studies in recent months have moved through the books of Ruth and Esther in an informal small-group setting.
A Prayer Group gathers each Thursday at 2:00 PM to lift up the names on the congregation's prayer list and to pray for one another's concerns. Anyone may request prayer, and the prayer ministry also weaves the Prayer Shawl Ministry into its care for those who are ill, grieving, recovering from surgery, or welcoming a new baby.
Care, Prayer Shawls, and Pastoral Presence
Pastoral care at St. Matthew has roots going back to 1981, when the congregation launched both Stephen Ministry and a Lay Pastoral Care program. The congregation's long commitment to walking alongside those in need continues today through the Prayer Shawl Ministry and regular visitation. Sandy Kelling, with assistance from Sandy Andrews, lovingly crafts shawls that are prayed over during their making and placed in the Narthex for anyone to take, free of charge. Recipients often keep them for years as a tangible reminder of being wrapped in prayer.
The Altar Guild, founded in 1939, prepares the altar and chancel for worship, arranges the Easter and Christmas flowers, decorates the sanctuary for Advent, and observes three weeks of Harvest Home each October using produce donated from members' gardens. Lay Servants - acolytes, readers, communion servers, ushers, audio and video technicians, greeters, and Altar Guild members - are the hands and feet of the Sunday assembly, with training available for anyone who wishes to serve.
Reaching Out into Medina
St. Matthew's social ministries are coordinated by a team led by Melody Costello and Hillary Walker, working with the Congregation Council. The church's outreach has been part of its identity since 1976, when the congregation resettled and sponsored the Toua family from Laos through the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services program. That experience sparked a long-running Transitional Housing Ministry, which over the years has included Priscilla House (1996), Promise Place (a six-unit building purchased in 2002 and later sold), and the Faith House (purchased next door to the church in 2006).
Today, the most visible regular outreach is the St. Matthew Food Pantry, open on the last Sunday of each month from 1:00 to 2:30 PM. Guests enter through the side entrance off Pearl Street and are welcomed by a volunteer. The pantry began with a soft opening on December 28, 2025, and has since served dozens of families with food, paper products, hygiene items, and refrigerated dairy - adding categories based on what neighbors have asked for.
The Living God's Love Samaritan Fund, administered through St. Matthew, offers financial assistance to Medina County residents. Applications are reviewed monthly by a board that meets on the second Wednesday of each month. An Intake Specialist can be reached at 330 - 725 - 8886.
Other hands-on ministries include Loads of Love, when the congregation covers the cost of laundry for every customer at North Court Laundry on West Liberty Street for three hours; Bell Ringing for the Salvation Army; disaster relief trips (the most recent, in September, partnered with Bethesda on the Bay Lutheran Church); a quilters' group; the Weir Looms of Love ministry that provides hats and blankets for Akron Children's Hospital and others; the 6:10 Project; the Noisy Offering; and visits to homebound members.
St. Matthew is also one of several area congregations affiliated with Love INC of Medina County, a Christian nonprofit that works across denominational lines to coordinate help with food, clothing, furniture, shelter, life skills, health care, and family support.
A Public Witness
Through its Social Justice Awareness Ministry, led by Dan Walker, St. Matthew engages the wider church and the wider world on pressing public issues. The congregation draws on the ELCA's social statements and social messages as the framework for its witness, addressing immigration, creation care, hunger and poverty, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and gender justice, Middle East peace, and Christian nationalism.
The church's Social Justice page shares ELCA action alerts on legislation affecting refugees, asylum seekers, and Dreamers; on hunger and farm policy; on environmental regulation; on voting rights; and on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Visitors to St. Matthew will find that the congregation takes seriously the ELCA's call to defend human rights and to work for freedom, justice, peace, environmental well-being, and good order in public life.
Welcome to North Broadway
St. Matthew's building sits three blocks north of the Medina Square, an easy landmark for first-time visitors. On Sunday mornings there are two outside entrances into the sanctuary: one at the northwest corner with an awning, and one at the southwest corner with a ramp for accessibility. Reserved visitor parking is just to the left as you enter the lot from North Broadway. An elevator on the ground floor is accessible from the north entrance at the center of the building, and restrooms are located on the east and west ends of the church.
On weekdays the outside doors are locked. Visitors may enter during office hours (Monday through Thursday, 10 AM to 3:30 PM; closed Friday) at the southwest Pearl Street entrance by ringing the bell. Ushers and members are glad to help anyone who needs assistance.
Those curious about the Lutheran tradition can take a New Member Class, and the church regularly welcomes people who are simply curious. The congregation's promise to newcomers is simple: there is a place for you here, whether you are a lifelong believer, a seeker with questions, or just passing through.