The Rev. Christian Oefinger, pastor of the Castroville Lutheran Church, led the founding of this congregation in March 1852. Its first church building was dedicated in 1854, at the same time as a synod convention in Castroville. The church hosted synod meetings in 1869, 1875, and 1894. The present brick structure, dedicated in 1914, was built largely by parishioners. St. John's Lutheran Church of New Fountain, founded in the late 1850s by the Rev. A. Kitterer and served by Bethlehem's pastor, merged with this congregation in 1949.