This week in Christian history: Battle of Sudomer, mission school established, Gunpowder Plot priest trial begins

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, March 24, 2024

Friedrich Schmid establishes Heidenmission – March 24, 1842

Friedrich Schmid (1807-1883), a German Lutheran pastor known for his mission work and church planting in Michigan. | Wikimedia Commons

This week marks the anniversary of when German Lutheran Pastor Friedrich Schmid established the Heidenmission, a missionary school meant to help train people to evangelize Native Americans in the Great Lakes region.

Ordained in 1833, Schmid helped to found several Lutheran congregations in Michigan, and is credited with overseeing the first Evangelical Lutheran Church service in the state.

“Three years later this effort bore fruit when three of his students, Auch, Dumser, and Sinke founded a mission among the Chippewas at Sebewaing. Eventually Auch parted with Schmid and joined the Missouri Synod,” according to Christian History Institute.

“Schmid continued to minister into the 1870s, relinquishing church after church as other pastors arrived to fill their pulpits and as age made it increasingly difficult for him to carry his previous heavy load.”