Beginnings

Washington Territory was not even born when pioneering Norwegian emigrants, Jorgen Eliason, his sister and her 6-year-old son, had settled in the picturesque bayside town in 1883. Not long thereafter, the Ivar B. Moe family arrived from a Norwegian city, Paulsbo, meaning “Paul’s Home” in Norwegian. In fact, Norwegian was the official language in the small community when it was incorporated in 1908, including official records and church services. The Scandinavian immigrants who populated the town harkened back to their Norwegian roots and skills and found work catching and processing fish or farming the land.

As sometimes happens, a misspelling alters the intended name of a town. The residents of a small community in Iowa, for instance, wanted to name their city after the inventor of movable type and the first printing press. Someone recording the name added a “t,” and the city’s name today is “Guttenberg,” pronouncing it with the short “u.” Likewise, when Mr. Moe submitted his application to open a post office, the postmaster mistakenly recorded the name as “Poulsbo.”1 It is pronounced the same, but the odd spelling has confused visitors for decades: “You live in Ploosbo?” It’s easier to remember its nickname, “Little Norway.”

The following is taken from a church history compiled by Alf and Ruby Watland. Gunder Birkeland contributed his recollections to the Watland papers on April 10, 1975.

A small group of approximately 14 people gathered in a small building next door to the old post office in the year 1909. Their leader was Pastor [Henrik] Langeland, and they worshiped there for several years. About 1914, Pastor Langeland, L.L. Watland and other members secured the hall on the street by the city (Lutheran) cemetery, which was later named “Free Mission Hall.” That facility…was [later] remodeled into a dwelling.

Pastor Langeland had been the second pastor in the Fordefjord (First) Lutheran Church. He was a fine musician, both vocal and instrumental. He ran a small print shop and a notions store in Poulsbo after his resignation from First Lutheran and published a religious quarterly through the Martha and Mary Home. He published a songbook arranged for the guitar….

The Free Mission Hall became a prominent place for visiting, traveling ministers and missionaries to hold services. Frequently laymen would be in charge of the services. L.L. Watland was a prominent layman in the church.

In the 1920s, L.L. Farman, a single man2, and then Pastor and Mrs. Stokkan. Arna Nicholson wrote that Pastor and Mrs. Stokkans had been missionaries to China for many years.

Three families who joined the fellowship at this time have family members who still serve the church as members and offered their recollections. Leonard Olson said that his parents were looking for a church in approximately 1922 and began attending at the Free Mission Hall. Leonard was 7. A tent was erected on the lot that the Full Gospel Tabernacle was later built on; the tent meetings were well attended, and the congregation decided to buy the property and build the tabernacle.

Arna Waag Nicholson, with articulate passion, describes those spirited days and the time when she and her family (four siblings: Thora, 18; Arna, 16; Austa, 12; and John, 10) moved to Poulsbo in 1928 when the Stokkans were here. “My parents were Pentecostal, and they were looking for a Pentecostal church,” she said. The Stokkans pastored the Free Mission Hall, where the Waags found what they were looking for.

“Poulsbo was Scandinavian, and they loved Poulsbo,” she said. “My parents bought 16 acres where McDonald’s is. [Where] McDonald’s [now is located] was a chicken house. Our land extended clear to Bond Road. We would go swimming there. There was no Viking Way. Later, we needed money and sold the land for Viking Way.”

While the Free Mission Hall filled the bill for worship, “Dad made us go to Sunday School in the Lutheran Church, because there was no Sunday School in the Mission Hall.”

The move of the Holy Spirit in those days not only was impressed on the hearts of the young and old congregation, but it has sustained those roots until today, motivating the “survivors” to serve God with consistent and persistent fervor. Arna is the mainstay of several prayer meetings. Along with Gary and Marilyn Silberman, Leonard led seniors in worship at Liberty Shores retirement home each Sunday. Quipped a fellow senior to the 90-year-old, “You’re leading people that are younger than you, Leonard!”

It began as a Pentecostal fellowship, and Leonard recalls that those associated with the tent meetings and the Free Mission Hall believed in divine healing. “Some of them came to our home to pray for me when my parents thought I was dying of appendicitis at age 10,” Leonard said. It was that healing and other ways that “God was dealing with me” that Leonard ultimately invited Jesus into his life at age 19. “I still have my appendix.”

“The preaching of the Word was more than just man speaking,” he said. “It was the power of the Holy Spirit that was anointing the pastor and bringing conviction. There were signs of the work of the Holy Spirit. I saw with my own eyes a young man dancing in the Spirit.” Leonard was convinced of the genuineness of this manifestation, having noted seeing some men and women lying on the floor after being slain in the Spirit. Leonard worried that the dancing man, not looking, would trip over the prone worshipers. But as the Spirit guided the dancer’s every movement, “he never stepped on one of them!” Apparently, such divine choreography so startled and amazed the teen that he has remembered it vividly for more than seven decades.

Leonard recalls some humorous incidents as well, since the noisy congregation was regarded with a degree of curiosity and, perhaps, derision.

Leonard recalled a man who delivered fuel oil. He carried a loud horn and at least on one occasion, he sounded the trumpet-like horn during a meeting of the congregation. “They’ll think it’s the Rapture,” the man said.

Arna to this day fervently practices and encourages prayer gatherings because of her teen roots. “We used to have home prayer meetings every week in the Louis Watland home in Keyport, in the Andrew Olson home in north Poulsbo and the Simon Waag home on Bond Road. All the young people and everyone would gather for prayer….This church was built on prayer services.”

Arna said that her family and others also attended a Finnish mission church in nearby Scandia pastored by a Finnish minister and his wife – the Lindquists – who were highly esteemed in the Scandia area. One Sunday every month a group of young folks came over on the boat named Hyack from Pastor Offiler’s Bethel Temple located at 3rd Avenue and Bell Street in Seattle, she said. “They would conduct a great service in the Scandia mission hall. Their service was held in the afternoon, so we all loved attending these meetings.”

Henry Johnson, a young man who loved the Lord and was a great tenor singer lived in the area, caring for his elderly parents. He was a faithful attendee at these services. David Hedlund, a neighbor in the area, took great interest in these Gospel services. These young men loved to sing, and so a mixed quartet emerged together with Thora and Arna Waag, who also loved to sing. The group became very popular singing in several different churches in the surrounding area. Arna describes Pastor Lindquist as a great leader, but he died in 1940. Arna, who had married Enoch Nicholson, joined her husband in leading the Scandia mission. They conducted a Sunday afternoon service at 2 p.m. and also a Wednesday evening prayer meeting. Arna wrote that this became an outpost of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Poulsbo – a subsequent name of the group that had met initially in the Free Mission Hall in 1909 and would later be known as Christ Memorial Church.

The congregation built the new church downtown and gave it its name, Full Gospel Tabernacle, in 1932, the building that would later be known as the Blue Sky Printing structure on Front Street across the street from the Sons of Norway Hall, and torn down in 2006. A business property now occupies the site of the FGT.

Miss Mia A. Jacobsen came as a missionary pastor and stayed until the old mission hall building was sold and the congregation built the new Tabernacle. Pastor Jim White was there at the time. Arna wrote that Gust Anderson, a member, took full charge of this new church building projects. “His wife, Gena, was our faithful pianist in the past in our [singing] group.” Gust created the church building plans, added two rooms in the back and a bathroom. “We were so excited when we could worship in our brand new church building.” Miss Jacobsen and Pastor White were followed by Pastor Bob Smythe in approximately 1934.

Meanwhile, other families began boat trips to Kitsap County. In 1915-1920, revival camp meetings took place at Green Lake in Seattle, yielding additions to God’s Kingdom and Pentecostal Christians, current parishioner Jim Strum reported. Some worshiped at Hollywood Temple, later called Calvary Temple. Strum’s Uncle Oscar and Aunt Julia Strum sang on a radio broadcast from Hollywood Temple and others of his family worshiped at Bethel Temple in Ballard.

“My grandfather, Ivar, had a pursing fishing boat and began bringing people over to Keyport’s Liberty Bay, where they worshiped with other believers at Brush Arbor, a shelter

Arna recalled that the Trostad and Fred Hansen families would spend their summers in Poulsbo.

They were a great blessing in our early church days. Lillian and Myrtle Hansen were great additions to our church string band with the Waags and Thelma Anderson. The Harry Johnson family joined us in 1935 when Henry Johnson started street meetings on our Poulsbo streets every Saturday evening. All the church young people, joined by our string band of guitars, mandolins, banjos and tiples [a rare 10-string instrument], would be out on the street usually in front of the drugstore or bakery singing, playing our instruments and stepping out to give our testimony for the Lord. This was a great witness for our new Tabernacle. We would invite people to our services.

William Hubbard (1936 – this and following years are approximate) took over pastoral duties, followed by Rev. Elmer Smestad (1936). Pastor Smestad reported to the Pentecostal Evangel, published April 4, 1936, that this was the year that “the assembly also voted to join the General Council of the Assemblies of God. District Superintendent T.A. Sandall set the church in order. We now have 18 charter members.”

The following years saw the arrival of Rev. Karl Leonard (1938), Rev. Nickell (1939), Rev. Herron (1940), Rev. and Mrs. George H. Mitchell (1941-1942). The Full Gospel Tabernacle subsequently sent the Nicholsons as full-time missionaries to Cherry Point, Alberta, in 1946. After this, the church called Rev. Walter Wheeler (1947), Rev. Don Skaggs (1949), followed by a return of Rev. Mitchell in 1949 and Rev. Martin Haack (1952).

Rev. Haack recently provided his recollections:

In January 1952, while residing in Tacoma and serving as evangelists, we were asked to fill the pulpit until a new pastor could be called, as Bud Mitchell had recently resigned the church. I was not seeking a pastoral position being just 21 years of age and no experience in pastoral ministry.

After about two months of pulpit supply we were approached by the board asking if we might be interested in becoming the pastor. I think that the youth group, led by Robert Griffin, was putting pressure on the board about calling us. However, the board felt they should first consider three mature and experienced candidates. Each of the three men presented their ministry but, after three months, none was selected. We were given further consideration and the congregational vote called us to be the pastor April 1952.

Though God called me to the gospel ministry from early childhood, I now felt a compelling love for the people of Poulsbo, and accepted their call as God's will. It was now a frightful challenge to prepare every week. Sunday included adult class, two preaching services and leading in a nursing home service. During the week there was Bible study and prayer service. My wife Faith led the youth services. Any counseling was very direct and we learned by experiments and the graciousness of the people.

A wonderful spirit of unity and cooperation existed during our entire stay in Poulsbo. Growth was not rapid, but continuous, with the largest gains in the Youth and Sunday School Departments. Ruth Raygor was a loving, caring, and dedicated Sunday School leader. The small sanctuary became outgrown and a make-ship balcony was created. A small Hammond Organ was purchased and seemed to enhance the worship atmosphere. More space was developed in the apartment in the back of the church when a parsonage was purchased on Nelson Street. At the time this was a big forward step.

Arletta Hampton and Don Baskins were united in marriage as I performed my first wedding ceremony. It has lasted and we keep in touch and get together occasionally.

There was definite drawing of the Holy Spirit upon lives. On a regular basis people of all ages came to Christ as Savior. From 1953 to 1955, a remarkable, sovereign move of the Holy Spirit came during the Sunday night services. Many within the church and several prominent people from the community, including Lutheran Pastor Hammer Benson, received the Baptism of The Holy Spirit. The ministry of Evangelist Fulton Buntain and the gifted teaching ministry of guest Howard May contributed to this special wave of the Holy Spirit.

A humorous incident: About a month after moving to Poulsbo, while outside, a young man approached me about selling a row boat for one dollar. It was at the down town dock. I paid the one dollar in advance and hurried down to see our new boat. Yes, it was at the dock, but 8 feet under water with most of bottom rotted away.

Of course it was a team effort with my wife Faith that made it possible to make whatever our contribution has been. Through the years, our awareness of the honor and blessing of pastoring in Poulsbo has grown, and we are indeed grateful for the amazing development of God's Kingdom through Christ Memorial Church.

Having accepted a call from the Wapato Assembly of God we moved from Poulsbo, August 1956.