Downtown Evanston, on the Corner of Lake and Sherman
Immanuel Lutheran Church has stood at 616 Lake Street in downtown Evanston for generations. The building sits at the corner of Lake and Sherman Avenue, directly across from the Evanston Holiday Inn, two short blocks south of the CTA Purple Line's Dempster Street station, and a short walk from the Metra Davis Street stop. Northwestern University's campus, Clark Street Beach on Lake Michigan, and the city's restaurants, shops, and public square are close enough to walk to from the front door. The congregation belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America through its Metropolitan Chicago Synod, is a member of the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches, and calls itself a Reconciling in Christ congregation, an explicit welcome to people of every age and size, color and culture, every sexual orientation and gender identity, socio-economic status and marital status, every ability and challenge.
The congregation has summed up its identity in a single phrase, "Faith that Feeds." Faith feeds and nurtures the spirit, the church teaches, and a fed faith then goes out to feed people in the many ways they hunger, both physically and spiritually. Immanuel's work inside the building and its ministry out in Evanston grow from that idea. The motto is captured in the church's own threefold description: "We worship God. We work for justice. We build community. We welcome all."
Worship at 10:30 on Sundays
The Sunday service is the center of life at Immanuel. Worship begins at 10:30 a.m. in the sanctuary, with a prelude that often starts ten minutes earlier at 10:20 a.m. Every Sunday service is also offered through Zoom, so members and friends can participate from home. The liturgy follows the lectionary and moves through the seasons of the church year. Each week includes the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Lord's Supper, with communion open to all who are present.
Worship is intentionally intergenerational. Children are welcome to participate fully, including at the communion table, and a "joyful noise" is not a problem. A baby room with a changing table and a crib with clean sheets is set aside for parents who need to slip out for a bit. After the service the congregation gathers in Fellowship Hall for coffee hour, the easiest way to learn what is happening in the life of the church and to meet people. The casual dress and the open welcome of the morning shape how newcomers experience Immanuel for the first time.
Pastor Mark Sloss, who has served Immanuel since March of 2021, preaches a scripture-based message each Sunday and welcomes visitors warmly. He and his wife Susan moved to Evanston from congregations in Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida. Pastor Mark is a trained Spiritual Director and has served as a Conflict Management consultant to other congregations. He says of his call at Immanuel, "I'm excited about serving as Immanuel's pastor, a place that welcomes all into a worshiping community that nurtures spirituality, and seeks justice for the downtrodden and oppressed."
Music at Immanuel: Tracker Organ, Choir, and the Organ Scholar Award
If worship is the center, music is one of Immanuel's most distinctive offerings. The sanctuary is anchored by a tracker organ designed by the Illinois organ builder Kurt Roderer exclusively for Immanuel and installed in 1981. Greg Hummel, who served as Immanuel's Principal Organist from 1971 until his retirement in 2022 and is now Organist Emeritus, has described the instrument as one whose mechanical action lets a solo line be rendered more expressively, which is why Bach fugues sound so articulate on it, and whose voice marries into the worship space in a way that supports a wide repertory and full-throated congregational singing. Patricia Radosavljevic joined Immanuel as Organist in September 2026, coming from Carter-Westminster United Presbyterian Church in Skokie where she served from 1993 to 2026 as organist and director of its Chancel, Children's, and Handbell Choirs. She earned her Bachelor of Music in organ from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, serves on the board of the North Shore Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and is described by the church as "dedicated to spreading the word of God through music." Laurie Stivers serves as Associate Organist alongside Patricia.
Music Director James "Jimmy" Morehead, who has led the program since 2017, also serves as Artistic Director of the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus and Co-Artistic Director of VOX3 Collective. Under his direction the choir sings a broad repertoire, some of it a cappella, and rehearses on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 p.m. from September through May. Congregational singing is a particular strength at Immanuel; members of the congregation describe singing with harmony parts, sometimes unaccompanied in four-part harmony, as a rare and treasured part of the worship life. As one member put it, "a congregation that can sing a cappella in 4-part harmony is pretty amazing."
The annual Immanuel Organ Scholar Award, funded through the Immanuel Church Music Outreach Endowment, recognizes the next generation of organists and church musicians. Two awards, one for an undergraduate and one for a graduate student, are given each year following a judged audition at the church, with a cash prize, a medallion, and a full concert performance on Immanuel's Roderer tracker organ as the reward. The competition is open to students enrolled in any undergraduate or graduate degree program who are endorsed by organ or church music faculty at an accredited school. Past winners include Jonathan Rudy, who went on to win the 2014 AGO NYACOP First Prize and Audience Prize, Paula Maust, now on the faculty of the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins, and Ross Updegraff, the 2002 inaugural winner. The annual organ scholar recital and an additional concert series are open to the wider Evanston community.
Children in the Worship Life
Children are full members of the congregation at Immanuel. They participate in worship, including at the communion table, and dedicated spaces are set aside for the times they need to step away: a baby room with a changing table and a crib with clean sheets. Three children's bulletins are prepared for each Sunday, a pre-reader edition, a reader edition, and a "Kids Celebrate" edition that walks children through the readings at their own level. Sunday School meets on Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. for families who want a structured learning hour before worship. The church also runs Jesus and Pizza, a Sunday-evening gathering that begins at 5 p.m., watches an episode of The Chosen together over homemade pizza and ice cream, and offers a relaxed entry point for older children and youth.
Sunday-Morning Class: Feeding Our Faith
An adult discussion class meets in Fellowship Hall every Sunday from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. under the name "Feeding Our Faith." Sessions combine short videos and lively conversation, with a 360-degree Owl Labs camera that lets remote participants see and hear the in-person group. The class is offered both in person and on Zoom and is open to anyone who wants to drop in.
The class has built its recent schedule around books and ideas that engage the present moment. A fall 2025 series worked through Parker Palmer's Healing the Heart of Democracy, and a longer arc has spent time with Brian McLaren's Life After Doom, a book that engages ecological overshoot, economic injustice, and the increasing likelihood of civilizational collapse. In early 2026 the class turned to a TEDx talk on faith and doubt by Greg Tonkinson and a talk by Lanecia Rouse on embracing the in-between of life. September 2026 sessions focused on Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which addresses the safeguarding of the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. Earlier series have featured Black voices in public theology, including talks by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Rev. Reginald Wayne Sharpe Jr., Rev. Olu Brown, and the Rev. Canon Kelly Brown Douglas, as well as Cole Arthur Riley on radical resilience and Sister Theresa Sullivan on the difference between being a savior and being a servant.
Tuesday Bible Study and Group Spiritual Direction
On Tuesday afternoons at 2:00 p.m. the church gathers for an Adult Bible Study and Spiritual Growth conversation in Fellowship Hall and on Zoom. The hour runs from 2:00 to 2:50 p.m. in conversation around the lectionary readings for the upcoming Sunday, then closes with a brief time of prayer at 3:00 p.m. for thanksgivings, sorrows, and personal and communal needs. Bring a Bible in any version, in print or on a phone.
Pastor Mark Sloss and Kit McCarthy, both trained Spiritual Directors, also facilitate Group Spiritual Direction sessions in groups of three or four people. Groups meet either in person or via Zoom, or some combination, and new participants are welcomed each fall. The format invites deep listening to one another's experience of God, silence for the Spirit's promptings, and a willingness to share one's faith journey with others. During Advent and Lent, the church adds a Wednesday evening prayer service at 7:00 p.m. in the sanctuary, an additional rhythm of worship in the middle of the week.
The Evanston Community Indoor Farmers' Market
Immanuel has organized the Evanston Community Indoor Farmers' Market every winter since 2002, hosting it in Fellowship Hall from late November through April. The market runs from 8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of the month through the season. Vendors offer locally grown greens and vegetables, fish, eggs, meats, cheeses, and dry goods, with a focus on small farmers and producers who need a winter revenue stream. Regular vendors include Nichols Farm & Orchard, Mint Creek Farm, River Valley Ranch, Jacobsen Family Farms, Lake Breeze Organics, Cocina Azteca, El Molcajete Sauces, Smits Farms, Gast Farms, and many others.
The market is structured around giving. Every dollar the church receives from kitchen, pantry, and vendor space donations goes to hunger-based organizations. More than $30,000 has been given away in recent years to groups such as the Evanston Community Fridge, Hillside Food Pantry, Soup-at-Six, Curt's Cafe, the YWCA Women's Shelter, Evanston Interfaith Action, and ELCA World Hunger. Shoppers can pick up free postcards and free stamps at the market and mail them to legislators on issues that range from climate justice and care for creation to affordable healthcare and family farms, working from the priorities of the ELCA Advocacy Office. The advocacy table has helped generate more than 1,200 cards mailed to state and federal leaders.
Quilts for Lutheran World Relief
For more than two decades the Immanuel Quilters have made beautiful, hand-made quilts from one hundred percent donated fabric and sent them around the world through Lutheran World Relief. Quilters meet twice a month on the first and third Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. to noon, in both daytime and evening groups, and the church recently crossed the threshold of two hundred quilts in a single year. A quilt blessing is woven into Sunday worship each spring before the quilts are shipped, and the quilts are blessed again as they travel to refugee camps and places of poverty and need. No special skill is required to join, only cotton fabric, money for batting, or time. As the church puts it, "if this is the only blanket they have, it should be as beautiful, colorful, durable, and artistic as we can make it."
Working for Justice, Walking an Anti-Racism Path
Immanuel is explicit about its commitments. "Immanuel Lutheran Church is a Reconciling in Christ congregation," the congregation states, "and we welcome people of every age and size, color and culture, every sexual orientation and gender identity, socio-economic status and marital status, every ability and challenge. We welcome believers and questioners, and questioning believers." The church commits itself to the work of anti-racism, social and economic justice, and environmental care, and the Anti-Racism Committee has hosted an extended program of book discussions, movie screenings, and presentations over several years.
Recent presentations have included a Japanese-American family's experience of World War II internment camps told by Parish Administrator Jane Kaihatsu; Todd Maxman on equity and justice at New Trier High School; a documentary screening of A Binding Truth about a Charlotte high school's desegregation case; and a discussion of Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th on mass incarceration. Earlier series covered a Christian case for reparations, the legacy of Howard Thurman, and ELCA's repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery. In 2023 Immanuel hosted the Interfaith Action overnight shelter in its building.
The church's work for justice reaches beyond its walls through the Farmers' Market postcard ministry and through its year-round advocacy table. Immanuel follows the tenets of ELCA Advocacy, working for peacemaking, hospitality to strangers, care for creation, and concern for people living in poverty and struggling with hunger and disease.
Weddings, Funerals, and Baptisms
Immanuel marks the milestones of a life in the context of Christian worship. Baptism is offered to infants, children, youth, and adults, and Pastor Mark will walk a family through the steps and preparation involved. The church practices baptism of all ages because, as the congregation describes it, "through water and the word of promise, God seals us and marks us with the cross of Christ, clothing us in Christ."
Funerals are open to members and non-members alike. The service gathers the community for worship, gives thanks for the life of the loved one, shares in Communion as "a foretaste of the feast to come," and commits the person to the keeping of a loving God.
Weddings are celebrated with full inclusion. Couples do not need to be members of the church, and no barriers are placed on the genders of those being married. Because marriage is taken to be a serious undertaking before God and an act of Christian worship, every couple spends a time of preparation with the pastor across several weeks and meets with the organist before the day. The bright sanctuary seats up to 225 people and is equipped with livestreaming equipment and a full music program.
The Building, the Solar Roof, and Accessibility
Immanuel's building is fully ADA-compliant, with an elevator just inside the courtyard door that faces Sherman Avenue and access to all floors, the sanctuary, and the kitchen. The building also has ADA-compliant restrooms, a gender-neutral restroom, and a large outdoor parking lot on the south side of the church. A solar panel array was installed on the flat Fellowship Hall roof in the fall of 2024, and the church tracks its energy production through a public kiosk.
Inside, the church offers its space to community groups in harmony with its mission. Fellowship Hall seats up to 172 people with folding tables or 369 chairs only, and is equipped with a theatrical stage, a sound system, wireless microphones, a 50-inch television monitor, and livestreaming capabilities. The full commercial kitchen has a Certified Kitchen Manager on call. A large classroom, a choir and music rehearsal space, a children's nursery and playroom, a meditation room, and a youth activity room with ping-pong and pool tables are available to outside groups as well. Past and present users include the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus, the Haitian Community Organization, North Shore Squares, the Wilmette Band, the Chicago Trombone Holiday Concert, weekly Tai-Chi classes, the Upstagers Senior Theater, Thin Ice Children's Theater, and the Interfaith Action overnight shelter.
Staff and Leadership
Pastor Mark Sloss, who has served Immanuel since March 2021, is supported by Music Director James "Jimmy" Morehead, Organist Patricia Radosavljevic, Associate Organist Laurie Stivers, and Organist Emeritus Greg Hummel. Parish Administrator Jane Kaihatsu, a third-generation Japanese-American who has served Immanuel since 2018, keeps the office running Tuesday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., with Mondays and Fridays handled remotely. The church office can be reached at 847-864-4464, and Pastor Mark at pastor@immanuelevanston.org. Pastoral emergencies are handled through 224-269-1093.
The church's musical outreach extends through the Organ Scholar Award, its concert series, and the Music Outreach Endowment. Its physical outreach runs through the Farmers' Market, the Quilters, the anti-racism work, and the postcard advocacy ministry. All of it circles back to the church's motto, Faith that Feeds.