Your Father’s Place on the Mother Road is No More

156 years of continuous Word and Sacrament ministry came to an abrupt end on September 13, 2026. That’s the day of the final Sunday liturgy at First and Santa Cruz Lutheran Church in the heart of Illinois’ fourth largest city, Joliet. Founded in 1870 by German Lutheran immigrants, Die Erste Evangelische Luteranische Kirche, First Lutheran welcomed Iglesia Luterana Santa Cruz as onsite ministry partners in 2005. The two congregations grew into what could be called the Joliet City Center Lutheran Parish, jointly offering Christian education, worship in both English and Spanish, a food pantry and other community programs.

The property’s new owner is a downtown developer. His intentions for its use are not fully known, but he clearly is retaining it for commercial purposes, implementing needed repairs. One of the first acts was to remove the Cross which stood atop the steeple since a 1962 renovation.

I retired from this ELCA urban parish in 2021 after thirty years of bilingual ministry in Joliet (plus ten prior in Chicago), having been called as the Mission Developer / church planter for Santa Cruz in 1991 and later, pastor to the yoked parish. The congregation conferred the title of Pastor Emeritus to me shortly thereafter. Subsequently, the area synod in Northern Illinois attempted but could not secure an ongoing bilingual interim pastor. Offers to fortify the Spanish language dimension of life at FSCLC were rebuffed. Hispanic-Latino Lutherans who called First Santa Cruz home faded away. Except for the weekly food pantry, many community connections dissipated. Once bustling Sunday School and catechism classes are no more.

Ironically, the closure of FSCLC comes just as downtown Joliet is entering a long awaited resurgence. New life is pulsing through the area, thanks to the completion of a celebrated City Center Square, a Joliet Junior College Culinary Arts campus building, county courthouse, and growing number of shops and restaurants. The Joliet Latino population continues to grow exponentially.

Sadly, the closing and sale of the First Santa Cruz property, effected by a small council remnant and synod officials living two hours away, took place in the midst of the Route 66 Centennial Year Celebration. The famed “Mother Road” runs right in front of the historic church site at North Ottawa (Rt 66) and West Benton Street. Thousands of vehicles—autos. vans, buses and motorcycle brigades— many from other countries—will pass by this year. What lost opportunities.

The final service took place on the eve of Holy Cross Day—Dia de la Santa Cruz—the “parish name day” for the bilingual faith community. Throughout the thirty-five years of the Santa Cruz ministry, this was a day for joyous worship, celebrating fe, familia y fiesta. Not so, now. It was hard to hide the grief and sadness of the occasion. Opportunity for food & table talk was offered to the seventy or so present.

Absent was any recognition of the immigrant past, their sacrificial giving that built the structure, the rich history of parish ministry stretching into a third century, the pastors and lay leaders who were so vital to ongoing congregational life and service. As it turned out, I saw no other former pastors present. None were named, not even the longest tenured cleric, +The Rev. Dr. John Goeken, of blessed memory, who served from 1924 – 1966. I came prepared to share brief remarks, but I was not called upon.

Underscoring the troubling ministry shut-down was the fact that on this very day, the City of Joliet was hosting a vibrant Fiesta en la Plaza—the inaugural edition of the annual celebration to be held in the new City Square—just five blocks from the FSCLC building. In the past, FSCLC hosted hospitality & craft tables at this street festival, coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month. This year: a lost ministry opportunity.

It was truly perplexing to witness the parish closing—especially given the ELCA’s prioritizing racially inclusive ministry. Santa Cruz had been the premier Spanish language ministry in the Northern Illinois Synod. Its influence was significant: initiating and supporting a network of fifteen or more participating congregations in an annual celebration of Las Posadas, helping to draft a synodical Latino ministry strategy, hosting the Bilingual Ministry Resource Center and contributing to a “Five Church Process” for Joliet area ELCA congregations—advancing a vision for inter-parochial witness and service. (Three of those five are now closed, a fourth has a very limited future horizon.)

Most notable was the Santa Cruz co-sponsorship with Lutheran CORE of an annual Inter-Lutheran Hispanic-Latino Ministry Encuentro (Encounter)—a multi-day gathering of ministry practitioners both lay and clergy— theologians, seminarians and others drawn from various Lutheran church bodies, from the midwest and beyond. ELCA synodical support of this unique resource event was tepid—demonstrating reluctance to offer positive regard for a Lutheran CORE affiliated gathering.

Does what is described here illustrate the impending “tsunami of church closings” highlighted in a recent PBS documentary, Christianity at a Crossroads? In that program, a forecast is made that 100,000 churches will be closed or repurposed in the next decade. (Since the 1990s, First and Santa Cruz is the sixth church in downtown Joliet to be sold or repurposed.) Even so, the ageless Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed to all nations, in the context of varied cultures and idioms. Matthew 28 (the Great Commission) and 9:38 point the way: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

The Rev. Keith L. Forni, STS, serves in retirement as Church Planter / Pastor of Cristo Rey
Lutheran Church, in Joliet IL – a parish of the North American Lutheran Church, est. 2023.