History of Linwood
Many hundreds of families and thousands of individuals have ministered to each other, as well as having been ministered to since the founding of Linwood Wesleyan Church in 1966. It has been a place of dedicated pastors and people wanting to serve the Lord and reach out to our community and the world.
The founding pastor Darrell Wagner, his wife Ruby and two children moved to Sioux Falls in 1963 to begin the work of planting a new church. Eventually the first building was completed on Sycamore Avenue next to Linwood Park, thus the name Linwood Church. At that time the congregation formally organized. Both these milestones took place in 1966.
Pastors who have served are Darrell Wagner (1963-1981), Dean Watson (1982), Rick Griffin (1982-1985), Steve Emery (1985-1993), and Bill Kinnan (1993-present).
As the congregation grew, additions were made to the building, one in 1974 and again in 1979. Eventually the congregation simply could not fit into their 256 seat sanctuary, so a second service was begun. Still the church grew and was forced to relocate. On Easter Sunday, 1989, the congregation moved to the present facility, a 600 seat sanctuary at 1101 57th Street.
In 1993 Pastor Bill Kinnan was called as pastor. In 1997 the church sent our her first short term mission team and has continued sending both adult and youth teams each year. Since 1997 the church's mission budget has grown from $45,000 annually to over $100,000. The church decided in 1998 to quickly eliminate the $400,000 remaining building debt and burned the mortgage in 2000. In 1999 Linwood church launched her first daughter church called Celebrate. We completed a $3 miillion addition in 2006, with a new youth center, gym, offices and classrooms. In March 2009 we launched our second daughter church called The Ransom.
