In 1903, Rev. Karl Linsenmann became pastor of St. John’s. During that year the congregation purchased three lots on the corner of Grove and Gordon streets and built a schoolhouse there in 1907. A Christian day school was led by the pastor two days a week. Due to a state law requiring ten consecutive half-days of attendance, and because the students needed to travel 4 to 12 miles to school, the school went on a thirty year hiatus.
In 1946, Mr. Herman Glawe and Mrs. Helen Stanford were brought in to run the newly reopened school. During that first year, the school had seventy-one students. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, a new church facility was designed by Alden B. Dow and built at the current location. In 1959, the voters’ assembly of St. John’s approved the relocation of the school from the Grove Street two-room schoolhouse to the rooms around the church. The school continued to grow and in 1966, St. John’s added four classrooms and an office. Then in 1984, three more classrooms, a kitchenette, and a fellowship hall (gym) addition were completed.
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