On April 26, 1903, fifteen members of Die Friedens Gemeinde organized a new church called Die Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische Saint Paulus Gemeinde, or St. Paul German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation. The Rev. Albert Julius Fuenning became its first pastor while also serving a church in Haw Creek southwest of Shelby, and he remained until fall 1904, when the congregation called the Rev. A. Wenzel of the Missouri Synod. That year, trustees built a sanctuary at this site on land bought from C.P. and Anna Vogelsang, and Mrs. Charles Siebel sold land for a parsonage. The congregation later joined the old Texas Synod and then the Iowa Synod, from which it called the Rev. Julius Bosshard in 1908; he served until 1920 and then returned in 1930, remaining until his death in 1947. Other pastors in the first half of the 20th century included the Revs. M.C. Hoermann and E.J. Scheffel. During those years, the congregation formed the Luther League and a church choir, and in the 1950s members organized a brotherhood and women's missionary society. German-speaking for much of its first fifty years, the congregation also followed endorsed Lutheran practices, including seating men on the left side of the sanctuary and women on the right, and not permitting women to vote in congregational decisions; these practices were revised in the 1940s. As it grew, the congregation joined the Texas district and later the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, added facilities to its property, and continued serving its community more than a century after its founding.