Advent Lutheran a Roseville Cornerstone

My antennae wiggled when someone told me that Advent Lutheran Church at Hamline and Lake Josephine Road, was designed by the dean of Finnish architects, Eliel Saarinen.

As one of 100 percent Finn descent, I have long admired the work of Eliel and his son, Eero, and by looking at that sleek building, with its elegant free-standing bell tower and modernistic colored windows, I thought that information must be true.

Not exactly, says Advent's Pastor Matthew Basich. But there's a strong chance that architects Clair Armstrong and Gordon Schlichting, who studied the modern movement in post-WW II Europe, were influenced by Saarinen's work.

It's also likely they viewed a true Saarinen church, Christ Lutheran in south Minneapolis, built in 1949, Eliel's last project before his death. Compare the brick-lined soaring sanctuaries, the capture of light, and similarities between Advent and Christ Lutherans are striking.

So I didn't exactly get the story I was seeking when I visited with Rev. Basich and his mother, Lavergne -- the keeper of Advent's history. But I did learn more about one of Roseville's landmarks, and I was captivated by the play of light through Belgian glass rectangles that, in increasing numbers, draw the eye to the simple altar with a Scandinavian blue cross echoing the tones of intricate  beams at its apex.The church's name Advent Lutheran harkens back to its founding during the Advent season.

Though the santuary was added to previous wings in 1961, it is still cleanly contemporary after five decades, and the "Crayola colors" decorating the front of the building remain bright.

"I can't find a single crack anywhere in the building," says Pastor Basich, who credits that to Cyril Sheehy, a church member whose construction company built it.

The Basiches led me along a wall of photographs relating history of what began, in 1953, as a missionary church. Augustana Lutheran Synod headquarters in Illinois sent the new congregation 50 hymnals then, which are still used.

The Rev. Thomas Basich -- known affectionately as Pastor Tom -- is in nearly all the photos, even the ones picturing the ordination of his youngest son, Matthew, in 1986. Pastor Tom was a bulwark of the church until his death last summer. 

Though the church's early services were at Lake Johanna Elementary School, by 1955 they started building on the Hamline Avenue site, formerly an asparagus field. A dairy milking building was across the road.

Over the years, the congregation has acquired adjacent land, now including a nature trail fronting Cottontail Park, which the church has "adopted" on behalf the the Parks and Recreation Department, keeping it pristine.

Roseville has grown around the church, and it has become a center for everything from AA meetings to a math and reading academy to a school for the mentally challenged, all using the Sunday School classrooms. Mounds View schools even conducted kindergarten classes there.  

My intended story took another detour. I had planned to mention that another nearby church, Roseville Covenant, is my favorite place to be in December when the Roseville String Ensemble plays for an evening of Christmas caroling. Pianist Karen and conductor Joel Johnson, who I knew when we were students at Macalester, get everyone to sing robustly, and it is the perfect way to welcome the holiday.

But it turns out this year's String Ensemble Christmas concert wouldn't be there. It had a new venue this year, playing Monday night, Dec. 12 at Centennial United Methodist Church, 1542 W. County Road C-2. It's an event I always have on my calendar each year.

Turns out that the Roseville String Ensemble, when it first organized, practiced at Advent Lutheran, and held its first sing-alongs in the church, known for its wonderful acoustics, the Basiches told me.

I went to Advent under a false impression, and though this column didn't turn out to be the architecture lesson I'd originally intended, I learned much about the history of one of Roseville's earliest churches. Wrong turns sometime lead a person the right way.