History:

Missouri Synod Lutheran Church work started in the Levittown-Fairless Hills area in the early 1950’s and was associated with the name of Bruce Clark. Mr. Clark, who was employed by the new United States Steel Company in Morrisville, and his wife Erna had moved here from the Chicago area and were interested in helping to establish a Missouri Synod church in this rapidly growing area. The Clarks joined St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Croydon and very soon enlisted the help of St. Luke’s pastor, the Rev. Laurence E. Wachholz, to get mission work started in the Levittown-Fairless Hills area.

Mr. Clark began by securing the community building in Fairless Hills for use by the Sunday School; today that is the smaller of the two buildings that house the Fairless Hills Senior Activity Center. Within a short time 35 children were attending Sunday School on a regular basis.

Because Levitt and Son, Inc. of New York were proceeding with the building of over 16,000 homes (the first model homes were opened in December of 1951), the Clarks saw the vast mission potential in this rapidly growing area. Mr. Clark was untiring in approaching such groups as the Home Mission Board of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod in St. Louis, the Mission Board of the Synod’s Eastern District in Buffalo and others in an effort to obtain the services of a pastor who could begin to establish a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church..

In the fall of 1951 the Call process began, and in June 1952 the Rev. Louis A. Kaufmann accepted the Call to be Mission Developer in the general area of Levittown and Fairless Hills. The first families involved in this endeavor along with the Clarks were Fred and Norlene Lening, George and Helen Kraus and John and Shirley Jordan.

On September 7, 1952 the group held their first Lutheran Sunday School and worship service in the second floor auditorium of the Fallsington Free Library. Mr. Clark had secured use of the building for the grand sum of $2.50 per Sunday – which included electric, heat, water, a piano and folding chairs! The group chose to be known as Hope Lutheran Church. It would be just two years later that they would dedicate their new house of worship.