The community around the Motala Verkstad engineering works had its own parish and church between 1842 and 1869. That earlier church, once sited near what is now Hårstorpssjön, was demolished in 1921 to make way for the Motala power station, leaving local residents without a dedicated place of worship for some 36 years. In the interim, various premises within the works area were pressed into service, including a temperance-association hall known locally as "lådan" (the box) on Borensvägen.
Lillkyrkan itself finally opened on the second Sunday of Advent in 1957, built alongside new housing at a time of housing shortage in Sweden. It was designed by the architect Lennart Ekenger and was notably one of Sweden's earliest purpose-built suburban district churches. Local builders Helmer Andersson and Albin Bengtsson carried out the construction, and a freestanding bell tower was erected by Motala Verkstad, funded jointly by the company and the parish's sewing circles (syföreningar), whose fundraising and gifts furnished much of the church's interior over the years.
The church building combines a worship space with a parish hall, rooms for children's and youth work, a caretaker's flat and four further apartments — a practical, multi-purpose design reflecting its origins as a community church for the works district.
Inside, the small worship space seats around 150 and is dominated by a fresco altarpiece composed by the artist Lennart Segerstråle and executed by Stig Kling, unveiled in October 1957 and later conserved in 2014; its subject is drawn from the Gospel of Matthew. Other notable furnishings include a font of Kolmården marble with a silver bowl, a sculpture of Mary and the infant Jesus made in the early 1980s and donated by the parish's sewing circles, and stained glass by Edlef Romeny. The mechanical organ, built by the Magnussons Orgelbyggeri of Gothenburg in 1957, retains much of its original character.