Good Shepherd Lutheran Church sits on Vermont Route 15 in Jericho, a small town tucked between the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain. For more than fifty years the congregation has been a quiet fixture of that road, known today as much for its welcome of LGBTQ+ people, asylum seekers, and farmworkers as for its hymns. Members of the surrounding Essex, Jericho, and Underhill communities drive past the building every month to pick up groceries from the food shelf it houses, and travelers from across the country find their way to its Sunday morning worship.
The congregation began in 1971 as a mission church and was formally organized two years later. It became a founding member of the local Ecumenical Ministry and, through that ministry, has long housed the community food shelf. Nationally, Good Shepherd is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), part of the New England Synod. Today the church describes itself with the phrase "Growing in God's Grace - Welcoming All," and lives that motto through an unusually broad set of programs that reach from Jericho to Central America and the Holy Land.
A Half-Century on Route 15
Good Shepherd has been part of Jericho's religious landscape for half a century. The mission that gathered in 1971 became a formally organized congregation in 1973 and, in the years since, has held a steady place as a founding member of the local Ecumenical Ministry and the host congregation for the regional food shelf. Members today include young families, retirees, and everyone in between, drawn from Jericho and the surrounding towns of Essex, Underhill, Bolton, Cambridge, Jeffersonville, and even Burlington. The church's own description of itself - "Prayer, Praise, Word and Deed" - hints at the balance it tries to keep between contemplative prayer and hands-on service.
Sunday Mornings at Nine
Worship takes place at 9:00 a.m. each Sunday, with Sunday School and Adult Forum following during the school year. The service draws on liturgical settings from the ELCA's Evangelical Lutheran Book of Worship and other resources, blended with contemporary and global elements. Communion is celebrated every Sunday, and all are welcome at the table; gluten-free wafers, gluten-free cups, and grape juice are available for those who need them. Visitors who prefer not to receive communion are invited to come forward for a blessing.
Music is the heart of Sunday worship at Good Shepherd. The "Good Shepherd Folk" service uses a more contemporary, acoustic feel; the choir sings anthems especially during Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter; the With One Voice orchestra gathers flutes, guitar, piano, and whatever else members can play. A Contemporary band and chorus leads several services a year with guitars and drums, while the Green Mountain Celts host a quarterly Celtic Christian service. During Epiphany the church keeps a tradition of "Global Music" featuring hymns from different parts of the world, and at other points in the year a service built around Latin American music fills the sanctuary.
Throughout the year, special services mark the seasons. Advent begins with a midweek evening Lessons and Carols. On Christmas Eve afternoon the Sunday School children lead a Family Candlelight service, and a more traditional Candlelight Communion follows. Lent moves through a Maundy Thursday service at 7 p.m. with Holy Communion and the Stripping of the Altar, then a Good Friday Tenebrae service of increasing darkness, before the Easter Festival returns to the usual 9 a.m. hour. Children's sermons are offered as part of the Sunday service, and nursery care is often available for children under five.
A Sanctuary That Sings
Few features are more distinctive about Good Shepherd than the variety of its music. The congregation is large enough to support a choir, an orchestra, a contemporary band, and a Celtic ensemble, and small enough that anyone with a gift for music is welcome to play. The choir presents anthems especially during Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter. The With One Voice orchestra meets whenever members can gather and includes flutes, guitar, piano, and any additional instruments that arrive. The Contemporary band and chorus lead worship several times a year, backed by guitars and drums. The Green Mountain Celts, a group of church members, host a quarterly Celtic Christian service. Latin American music fills the sanctuary at summer services, and the Epiphany season brings "Global Music" featuring hymns from different parts of the world.
Growing in Faith
Faith formation at Good Shepherd is built around three rhythms. Sunday School meets weekly during the school year with age-appropriate curriculum for children from pre-K through sixth grade. Adult Forum gathers after worship for presentations and discussions on a wide range of topics - community efforts, justice work, scripture, the wider church, and the world. The forum resumes each fall.
During the week, three small contemplative practices knit members together across the region. Centering Prayer meets Friday mornings via Zoom and runs about thirty minutes. Lectio Divina, the ancient practice of "listening with the heart" to scripture, meets Monday mornings at 9 a.m. on Zoom and is co-hosted with Immanuel Lutheran Church in Holden, Massachusetts. Tuesday Vespers meets at 7 p.m. on Zoom for evening prayer. All three are open to anyone, regardless of church membership, and the church's welcome statement is explicit that people at every stage of belief - from deeply committed to still searching - belong.
The church's approach holds to "God as our Creator and Christ as our Savior" while giving people freedom through Bible study and reflection to develop their own expression of God's love and compassion. Worship expresses faith "in the love and care we have for one another, instead of through religious rules and mandates we impose on one another."
A Sanctuary Built for Every Body
Good Shepherd has long welcomed people with mental and physical disabilities as part of life in God's good creation. The Welcome Statement asks anyone who might need accommodation to contact the pastor. The most visible sign of that commitment is the Grace Space, a sensory room set up in the church for anyone who needs a quiet place to regulate during a busy Sunday morning. Stocked with sensory tools, the room grew out of the pastor's experience of how overwhelming a sanctuary full of people can be for nervous systems - and it is open to anyone, not just children or those with diagnosed sensory processing differences.
The church is also a Reconciling in Christ congregation, an affiliation through Reconciling Works that publicly affirms the welcome of LGBTQ+ people. The Welcome Statement names race, ethnicity, age, ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity as dimensions along which God's love is freely given, and commits the congregation to doing its part to end racism. People with diverse needs and abilities are explicitly invited to contact the pastor about accommodations.
A Food Shelf on the Church Lawn
Twice a month the parking lot at Good Shepherd fills with cars. On the third Saturday of each month, from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m., the Essex-Jericho-Underhill Ecumenical Ministry (EJEUM) Food Shelf hands out groceries from the church using a drive-through model - drivers stay in their cars and a volunteer walks the food over. The food shelf is a partnership of local churches, groups, and individuals and is a network partner of the Vermont Foodbank. Monetary donations can be mailed to PO Box 65, Jericho, and canned goods are collected at donation bins in the Jericho Market, Hannafords, Price Chopper, and the church itself.
Walking with Migrant Minors and Asylum Seekers
In January 2020 the congregation voted unanimously to become a Welcoming Congregation in the ELCA's AMMPARO initiative - Accompanying Migrant Minors with Protection, Advocacy, Representation, and Opportunities. The church's Immigration Justice Team had grown out of the Social Action Ministries and was already busy: organizing conferences, sponsoring community forums on immigration with two neighboring congregations, sending a delegation to the Arizona border, and supporting the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network (CASAN).
CASAN is the place where Good Shepherd's immigration ministry has become most concrete. The volunteer, interfaith network supports people in Chittenden County who are in the lengthy legal process of seeking asylum and are not allowed to work or to receive most government assistance. CASAN fully sponsors several families at a time - covering rent, food, and living expenses until they can be more financially independent - and helps many more with housing, furnishings, and referrals. Its motto is "Welcoming People - One Family at a Time," and Good Shepherd members sit on its board and serve directly on family teams.
Companions in Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Holy Land
Several of Good Shepherd's ministries reach well beyond Vermont. People Helping People Global (PHPG) was founded in 2009 by Alex and Isabelle Tuck, members of Good Shepherd, and operates out of their home in Fairfax. The organization provides interest-free microloans to individuals, mostly in North and Central America, along with training and access to new markets. Loans are organized in groups of five to twenty; repayment, which runs from six to eighteen months, stays in the community to fund the next round of borrowers. Good Shepherd promotes PHPG through its annual Valentine's Day Brunch and the Brain Freezer 5K, and the church's giving page channels donations directly to the microlending program.
The Tuck family is also central to the Vermont-Haiti Project at Good Shepherd. Despagne Felix and his wife Polene, members of the congregation, run the École Vocational Jean Despagne Félix Elementary School and the Duchity Vocational Training Center in Haiti - schools that serve 198 students with six teachers and four teacher helpers. The church raises money to pay teachers and to provide each child with one meal a day; one dollar per child per day covers both the food and the cooks.
Pastoral leadership in this work extends to the Middle East. The church is part of a wider ELCA accompaniment of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and has voted at recent New England Synod assemblies to move from resolution to action on Palestinian human rights, including participation in boycotts and interfaith advocacy. The pastor has traveled to Washington, D.C. for the Interfaith Action for Palestine rally during Christians United for Israel's annual summit.
Fair Trade Coffee, Prayer Shawls, and the Care of Creation
Two smaller ministries round out the church's service. Equal Exchange, the fair-trade coffee company, supplies the certified organic coffee served at fellowship each Sunday, and the church stocks a small corner display of fairly traded coffee, tea, cocoa, olive oil, pasta, raisins, dates, and chocolate bars that members and visitors can purchase at near-wholesale cost. All proceeds support small farmers around the world.
The Prayer Shawl Ministry gathers knitters and crocheters, working either individually or together, to create shawls that are prayed over as they are made and then given away. Shawls are distributed for celebrations such as baptisms and the birth of a child, and for harder seasons - illness, grief, hardship. Anyone who knows someone in need of "a hug" can call the church office to request one.
In 2023 the church's Pastoral Council signed a Congregation's Covenant to Care for Creation, affirming God as the source, redeemer, and sustainer of all things and committing the congregation to earth-keeping practices in worship, education, buildings and grounds, and public ministry. The covenant is shared with Lutherans Restoring Creation, the grassroots network that inspired it.
The Pastor and the People
The Rev. Chelsea Page has served as pastor of Good Shepherd since 2024. A native of northern California, she was raised as a progressive Catholic, did lay ministry as a faith-based activist, and earned her BA in Peace and Conflict Studies at UC Berkeley before continuing at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge and Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. She was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 2019 and served as Associate Pastor at a UCC church in Salt Lake City and as Pastor at a historic ELCA Lutheran Church in Ogden, Utah. Pastor Chelsea, her spouse Pegasus, and their two children live locally.
Pastor Chelsea holds regular office hours: Mondays from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Uncommon Coffee in Essex Center, and Fridays from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Good Shepherd. The church's office is staffed remotely on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m.
The congregation's Pastor Emeritus, the Rev. Dr. Arnold Isidore Thomas, served Good Shepherd from 2017 until his retirement in 2023 and still returns to preach when Pastor Chelsea is away. Lay members frequently lead worship as well; Michael Hechmer is a regular preacher, and members lead music, lead services in the Celtic and Latin American traditions, and serve on teams for asylum sponsorship, the food shelf, and the immigration justice work.
Visiting Good Shepherd
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church is at 273 Vermont Route 15 in Jericho. Driving east on Route 15, the church is on the left, just past Ace Hardware; driving west, it is on the right, shortly after Browns Trace. The church is roughly twenty miles from Burlington via I-89 and Browns Trace, sixteen miles from Burlington via Route 15, and within easy reach of Essex Junction (eight and a half miles), Williston (twenty-one miles), Jeffersonville (fourteen miles), and Cambridge (eleven and a half miles via Route 15). Plenty of parking is available on site.
Worship is at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. Sunday School for children pre-K through sixth grade and Adult Forum for adults follow during the school year. Childcare is often available in the nursery for children under five. Communion is open to all; gluten-free wafers and grape juice are offered. After worship there is fellowship with certified organic fair-trade coffee, tea, and snacks, and the music program is, by the church's own description, "outstanding." Visitors of every background, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and stage of belief are explicitly welcomed.
Worship and sermon recordings are available on the church's YouTube channel, and donations can be made online through Vanco or PayPal in addition to checks mailed to the church's PO box.