Batak Christian Protestant Church significant person Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen
History
The first Protestant missionaries who tried to reach the Batak highlands of inner Northern Sumatra were English and American Baptist preachers in the 1820s and 1830s, but without any success. After Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn and Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk did intensive research on Batak language and culture in the 1840s, a new attempt was made in 1861 by several missionaries sent out by the German Rhenish Missionary Society (RMG). The first Bataks were baptized during this year. In 1864, Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen of the RMG reached the Batak region and founded a village called "Huta Dame" (village of peace) in the district of North Tapanuli Regency in Tarutung, North Sumatra.
The RMG was associated with the uniting churches also called a merged denomination that includes a Lutheran element. However, Nommensen and local leaders developed an approach that applied local custom to Christian belief.
In 1868, a local seminary for the education of teachers was opened in Sipirok, and in 1877 a seminary for the education of preachers was built in Pansurnapitu. 1881, Nommensen was officially nominated "ephorus" of the Batak congregations by the RMG. In 1885, the first Batak ministers were ordained in Pearaja Tarutung, where the HKBP headquarters is still located.
In 1889, the RMG sent out Hester Needham who started the work with girls and women and later established the first Batak deaconess. In the last quarter of the 19th century, further missionaries of the RMG were sent out to the other Batak tribes (Angkola, Dairi, Simalungun, Karo, and Pakpak).