During the 1870's the Swedish pioneers met at homes to worship God. They sang their Swedish songs and read their Swedish Bibles and sometimes a visiting preacher would come.  On April 18, 1882, eight men: C. Branch (chairman), L.P. Eggerstrom (trustee), N.J. Larson (trustee), John Sundstrom (trustee), John Holm, Gus Johnson, Oscar Holmes, C.H. Lundin met to form a corporation. The corporation was named the "First Swedish Christian Congregation of Brooklyn Township". The corporation papers were taken to the territorial capitol, Yankton. The papers were recorded May 25th, 1882.

          C.H. Lundin was one of the early preachers when they met in homes. He was a Swedish homesteader in section five, Brooklyn Township.  He had lived in Brooklyn, New York, for awhile, thus naming the township and the church Brooklyn.  The Lundins suffered the loss of five children from diphtheria within the time of a few weeks. While digging the grave for one of the children, he got the news that another one had died.  They all are buried in the southeast corner of the Brooklyn Cemetery.  The one son, Ernest, lived and was a Minnesota state senator.

     Another lay pastor was Constantine Branch who had immigrated to America in 1869. He homesteaded on the quarter of land where the Brooklyn church was built. Branch donated three acres for the church and cemetery. He would tell the children, "Oh, I would like to take you all in my arms and bring you all to Jesus and lay you all at His feet." Gwen Nielsen and Norman Erickson are great grandchildren of Branch.

     The Brooklyn Church members had their services in the Swedish language. In 1914 some of the homesteaders thought the Sunday School should be in English. The motion was voted down 26 to 14. The English speaking group left and held services at the Brooklyn schoolhouse. On November 14 they settled some of their language differences. A hundred Swedish songbooks, Hemlands Klochen, (Homelands Bell) were ordered in 1909. The business meetings were recorded in the Swedish language until 1925. During the 1930's and 40's a Swedish Sunday morning service was held once a month. The last year the Swedish services were held in the basement and English services upstairs.

     The first recorded mention of building a church was Nov. 15,1890. The building  committee was C. Branch, N.J. Larson, Z. Strom, O. Holmes and P.J. Norman. The committee decided on a building 36'x26'x14' with a pitched roof. A 16'x12'x12' was built on the South. The church was painted white and had green window shutters.  

      In 1917 the wooden church was moved so the brick church could be built on the same place. Carl Linder, a long time janitor of the church, purchased the building and moved it to his farm one-half mile East. He was never able to put the building to use because a windstorm blew it down soon after it was moved.

     The need to build a parsonage was first discussed at a business meeting, Sept 29, 1904. It had been 14 years since the wooden church was built. Eric Soderstrom would give $150.00 to the parsonage fund, three acres of land and an agreement to build the house for less than $1700.00. The members had one week to accept Mr. Soderstrom's offer. 

      The church members met a week later and accepted the offer. Nels Larson at that time offered an acre of adjoining land. The parsonage was built on the donated four acres a quarter of a mile east of the church. The parsonage was home to the pastors and their families until 1945. The house was sold and moved to Centerville and is still used as a home.

In 1915 women were allowed to vote at business meetings. National suffrage began in 1918. The first listing of Deaconesses was in 1914. They were Mrs. Carl Edblom, great grandmother of John Edblom, and Mrs. August Soderstrom, great grandmother of Joann Ladeen. The first mention of Ladies Aid was in 1891 when the wooden church building was short $230.61. The Ladies Aid paid the debt.

Women wore hats to church. Slacks were not considered church wear. Makeup and bobbed hair were considered sinful by some. There was a mother’s room to take hungary babies but no nursery. Most of the men sat on the East side of the church and the women sat on the west side.

Until 1901, the church had visiting pastors or laymen filling the pulpit. The first full time pastor was Fred Nelson (1901-1905). Rev. Nelson was a great uncle to Gladys Twedt.

The next pastor called was C.H. Hedlin (1903-1905). Irving Halleen served from 1905-1908. Halleen organized Sunday School offerings and the birthday offerings that went to missionaries. The pennies, one penny for each year of their age, were put in a small cast iron church and Happy Birthday was sung.

Other pastors who ministered in the first church building were Andrew Anderson (1908-1913) and J. Fjeilistedt (1913-1916).

A committee to make plans to build a larger church was appointed in 1907 when Halleen was pastor. Due to a national depression the matter was dropped. Next attempt to build the brick church was April 18, 1917. The building committee was finance: Pastor Kalberg(1917-1920), A.G. Anderson and Nels Edman, materials: Eric Soderstrom, N.J. Sundstrom and Oscar Holmes, hardware and lights: J.A. Norman, Alfred Volin and Charles Reynolds.

It was noted that $12,000 should be raised before the building was to start. This amount was raised by June 1917. However the cost would be over $18,000. More pledges were needed and secured. The building committee went ahead and the cornerstone was laid September 16, 1917.

The dedication of the brick church was May 23, 1918. Pastor Kalberg introduced the guest speakers: Fred Nelson, E.A. Halleen, Axel Olson, John Kalson and John Merlin. The bell had been donated by the young men’s Bible class. Each of the younger families had designated dates to clean and do maintenance work on the church.

Electricity was furnished by Delco Battery System until Rural Electric Association furnished electricity in 1939.

The first furnace burned coal. In 1948 an oil furnace was installed. In 1955 the gas main passed near the church property and the oil furnace was converted to gas. The basement was finished during the years 1938 to 1941. In 1954 restrooms and running water for the kitchen purposes were installed. The entire basement was remodeled and redecorated in 1954.

In 1957 when Brooklyn Church celebrated it’s Diamond Jubilee, the church had received many donations and usable gifts. Some of those gifts are still used today with the exception of the organ.

Many of those gifts and money donations were given the next 50 years. Some of those gifts will be written about at a later time.

Brooklyn choir was organized in the fall of 1888. The pitvh was obtained from a tuning fork since there was no piano. Mr. Youngberg of was the first director. The next director was Alfred Wickstrom, brother of Zacharias Strom. Hans Bodine was the next director and other talented directors were : dagney Soderstrom Lechler, Wesley Reynolds, Lois Seashore Ryan, Donald Thissell, Alice Mae Larson Kennedy, Rev. Milton Nelson, Rev. Wallace Johnson and Norman Twedt. Patty Twedt and John Fahlberg are the present day choir directors. For many Sundays the choir sang at both the morning and evening services. The first choir robes were purchased in 1957.