Emanuel Lutheran Church (Sisseton, SD) and Zion Lutheran Church (Waubay, SD) are a dual parish of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). We gather weekly around the Word of God and His Sacraments to receive from the hand of Christ His abundant blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Visitors are always welcomed and warmly received.
Emanuel and Zion Lutheran Churches are confessional, liturgical Lutheran congregations that are founded on the truth as revealed to us in the pages of God’s inerrant and unchanging Word, the Bible. We believe, teach, and, confess that God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, took on human flesh, became part of His creation, to win for us the victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil. He did this through his life, suffering, death, and bodily resurrection. This is the entire focus of all of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, and is the focus of our preaching and teaching. We believe that we are saved when the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God properly proclaimed, and the Sacraments properly administered according to Christ’s own institution, works faith in the hearts of sinners who hear and receive these truths. We are, therefore, saved by God’s divine grace alone, given to us by faith alone, in Christ Jesus alone.
Both congregations trace their founding to the late 1800’s. As German Lutheran immigrants began to make their way into the Glacial Lakes region of northeastern South Dakota, their desire for Word and Sacrament ministry brought circuit pastors and missionaries to the region. This, in turn, led to the formation of congregations. Zion was founded in Waubay in 1892 and Emanuel was founded in Sisseton in 1898. They became a dual parish in 1992. Since their founding, they have been beacons of the light and the hope that can only be found in the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, to their communities and throughout the world.
