The History of Hope
The history of Hope began many years ago at what is presently known as Forks UCC. The Forks UCC congregation and Forks Lutheran congregation both worshiped in what was then called the Reformed Church, located in Forks Township.
In 1970, the Forks congregations split and the Lutherans moved to 7th street in Tatamy. Here, the Lutherans merged with the former St. John’s Lutheran Church of Tatamy, where they remained for only 3 years.
In 1973, the church on 7th street was sold and the entire congregation moved less than a quarter of a mile to it’s current location on 8th street in Tatamy. On this property, a new, handicap accessible Hope Lutheran Church was built. A renovation took place in 1989 in which a new fellowship hall was added to the building.
On December 31st, 2004, Reverend Charles Orem retired after being the Pastor of this congregation since it met at Forks Church.
In the beginning of 2005, Pastor Donald Billick came on board as the interim minister. During his time with us, he assisted in updating all church records as well as aided us tremendously with the transition between Hope’s lone, long term pastor and the incoming new full time pastor.
In June of 2007, Reverend Herbert C. Dolich, began preaching as our new full time pastor. On November 11th, 2007, Pastor Dolich was officially installed as the pastor of Hope Lutheran Church. In June of 2008, the Hope family celebrated Pastor Dolich’s first anniversary. We all hope for many more to come!
Hope reached it’s 50th anniversary on September 30th, 2023. On Sunday, November 19th, 2023, we celebrated this significant milestone in our history with a special worship service including a special guest speaker, Pastor Orem! Pastor Orem shared several memories and stories of how we got to this point in Hope’s history. It was so wonderful seeing and hearing him speak from the pulpit again. You can listen to his remarks below.