Johan Storm Munch (21 October 1827 – 13 August 1908) was a Norwegian minister who served as pastor to pioneer Lutheran churches in southern Wisconsin from 1855 to 1859[1][2][3] before returning to Norway and becoming a popular evangelist.
However, the Munchs belonged to the cultured social class in Norway, which meant that the younger Johan Storm was expected to get a higher education despite his family's impoverished situation.
He worked as a tutor and finished a theology degree in 1852, but continued teaching until he received a call in 1854 to serve pioneer parishes in Wiota and Dodgeville, Wisconsin.
In Wiota, Wisconsin, the Munchs lived near the church, but the pastor also served other Norwegian-speaking settlements, traveling by horse and buggy and often being gone for days at a time.
[5] The presence of a Norwegian professional minister and his family, with refined manners, dress, and speech was a constant source of irritation and was felt by some to be a threat to their newly won freedom.
The pioneers wanted preaching and the administration of sacraments within the church building, but any interference in their private lives was regarded as a transgression on their individual freedom.
He did not believe in Christianity in name only, which was a tradition some peasant settlers had brought with them from Norway, and would not relinquish his role as guardian of morals in his congregation or his responsibility as curator of the parishioners' souls.
In this connection he served as ship pastor on the corvette Nordstjernen when it went on a nine-month double excursion: first as official representative of the Norwegian government at the opening of the Suez Canal on November 17, 1869, and then on a good-will tour to South America.
His venues and audiences grew from a local dance hall, to the gym at Akershus Fortress, and finally to the Calmeyer Street Mission House in Christiania,[4] where he preached for 25 years until failing eyesight and declining health caused his retirement in 1906.