It all started with a Tent meeting…

New Year’s Eve day, 1929, Evangelist Blanche E. Brittain of Des Moinse, Iowa was invited to the Busch’s home for a couple of services and arranged for a future tent meeting to be held in Cavalier. On July 21st, 1929, a tent was set up across from the Tongue River east of Cavalier. Accompanying Sister Brittain in the effort were Ole Vasend of Crosby, his sister Anna of Sisseton, SD, Evangelist W. Wangen, an assistant pastor in Grafton, and Christine Gotwald, a graduate of Central Bible College of Springfield, MO. After 3 weeks of meeting, many were saved, 19 people were baptized in water, several people were healed, and some received the baptism in the Holy Spirit according to Acts. 2:4.

Under the ministry of Evangelist E. Ellingsworth Krogstad, Sister Brittain continued to conduct services on a regular basis. As the temperatures began to drop, straw was spread on thegound and a stove was erected, but it became too cold to continue services in the tent. The last tent meeting was held Oct. 14th, 1929.

Cavalier City Hall was acquired for Sunday services but weekly services were held in different homes. Many saw the need to organize a board and purchase a property for all future meetings. Rev. Beatty, assistant superintendent of the North Central District of the Assemblies of God, out of Minneapolis, MN, came to provide classes and outline the principles and fundamental truths of the Assembly of God. Sister Brittain was officially elected for a three-year period. As time went on, the congregation began to seek a building they could call their own. They purchased a few empty lots just north of main street and purchased an empty church built in 1902 in the McArthur area, and moved the church on skids, pulled over snow-impacted fields 24miles to Cavalier.