Inclusive, Intergenerational, In Community
Tucked into the Linden Hills neighborhood on the southwest side of Minneapolis, Lake Harriet United Methodist Church has gathered Methodists at 4901 Chowen Avenue South since 1948. The congregation itself goes back much farther, organized in 1907 by a small band of families holding Sunday school in their Linden Hills cottages, and the church celebrated its centennial a decade and a half ago. The mission statement gathers the congregation's identity into three words: Inclusive, Intergenerational, and In Community. The full sentence reads, "Walking together the words and ways of Jesus. We welcome all God's children whatever their race, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, ethnicity, marital status, physical or mental ability. Following Christ's example, we open our hearts, minds, and doors to welcome all." The phrase "no matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here" is the congregation's greeting, and the congregation has earned a place in the Reconciling Ministries Network for its commitment to the full participation of LGBTQ+ people in the life and leadership of the United Methodist Church.
Sunday Worship at 9:30
Onsite worship at Lake Harriet UMC happens at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. The single Sunday service gathers the entire congregation in the sanctuary, with a blended style that draws on the Sanctuary Choir, the Festival Bells handbell choir, the contemporary Shout Band, the children's music groups, and a roster of lay readers and communion servers. The lead pastor is the Rev. Karen Bruins. Holy Communion is served on the first Sunday of every month, a Sunday the church also marks as an All Ages Worship Service in which families help lead different elements of worship and the children's choirs often share music. The congregation practices an open table: "In the United Methodist Church, we serve communion at an open table. Everyone is invited!" On the rare fifth Sunday of a month, Healing Prayers are offered.
The building is fully accessible, with space for wheelchairs and walkers. A T-Coil hearing assistance loop runs throughout the sanctuary; people who use hearing aids with a telephone setting can simply switch to the T position, and a member of the sound team is on hand at the back of the sanctuary to help. Lay readers, communion stewards, greeters, ushers, and a tech crew that runs slides, livestream, and sound all share the work of the morning.
A Livestream that Spans the World
Online worship is a defining piece of Lake Harriet's ministry. The church livestreams its 9:30 a.m. service, and the YouTube channel hosts both the live broadcast and a deep archive of past services. The congregation quotes John Wesley's "the world is my parish" to explain the scope: "People from across the metro area and beyond the state of Minnesota participate in online worship either during the livestream, or later when it is more convenient for them. Online worship will likely be our largest worship service carrying forward and we pray it will continue to grow." A digital welcome form invites online guests to introduce themselves, a prayer request form is available, and a weekly e-newsletter keeps the broader community connected to sermon series, classes, and outreach news.
Worshiping with Children
Children are a visible and welcome part of worship at Lake Harriet. The church's stated philosophy is plain: "At Lake Harriet UMC, we believe that all children should be in worship, being their noisy, wiggly, amazing selves. Children should be seen, heard, and celebrated as the body of Christ and the present of the church." Worship bulletins, activity sheets, coloring pages, and fidget toys are available as families enter, and the Wesley Room - a small space attached to the sanctuary with a one-way view, audio of the service, rocking chairs, and a children's library - is always open for parents who need a quieter moment with a baby or toddler. A regular part of the service called the Rainbow Chat invites children (and anyone else) to come up front for a short, accessible reflection on the morning's message.
For families with children six months to three years, a professionally staffed nursery opens at 9:00 a.m. with a beeper paging system so parents can step in if needed. Parents, Babies, and Jams, a gathering for children four and under, meets before the service during the school year at 9:00 a.m. with a few songs and free play; nursery staff then walk the children over to the nursery when worship is ready to begin. On the first Sunday of every month the nursery welcomes children up through age five.
Milestone Ministries
A defining piece of the children's ministry is the Milestone program. From age three through fifth grade, every child celebrates one milestone event each year. Together with their parents, children mark their faith journey with a Welcome to the World gathering for new babies, a Welcome to Godly Play at age three, an I Can Prayer lesson at four, a Touch and See My Church sanctuary tour in kindergarten, a Touch the Water exploration of baptism in first grade, a Taste the Bread introduction to communion in second grade, the gift of their own Deep Blue CEB Bible in third grade, a Heart of a Servant mission project in fourth and fifth grade, and a Bridging to Youth ceremony as they move into sixth grade. Twice a year, the church hosts a Milestone Fair that gathers every milestone in one place, so families who missed a step earlier can still mark it later.
Music That Spans Generations
Music is woven into almost every hour at Lake Harriet UMC, and the program is run by Director of Music Ministries Jungjoo Park and Bells Choir Director Thomas Johanson. Five regular ensembles rehearse from September through May. Children in kindergarten through fifth grade can sing in the LH Children's Choir on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m., and the Prime Chimers handbell choir welcomes fourth graders and up in the same time slot. By Faith, a youth worship band for sixth graders and older, rehearses on Sunday mornings from 10:45 to 11:30 a.m. and leads worship on rotation. Adults and older youth sing in the Sanctuary Choir on Wednesdays from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., performing every other Sunday from September through Pentecost Sunday. Festival Bells, the intergenerational handbell choir, rehearses on Wednesdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. and welcomes new ringers even if they do not read music. The Shout Band, an intergenerational contemporary ensemble, leads worship every other Sunday and invites musicians with a heart for contemporary Christian music to join. Seasonal groups round out the calendar: a Christmas Eve Orchestra, Christmas and Easter choirs, an all-men's ensemble, and summer musicians.
Children, Youth, and Family Ministries
Jenny Brelje serves as the Director of Children, Youth, and Families. After worship, Pre-K through third graders gather in the Godly Play room from 10:45 to 11:30 a.m. Godly Play is a hands-on storytelling practice in which children hear a story, respond to wondering questions, and share a small feast they help prepare and serve. On the first Sunday of the month, Pre-K through fifth grade meet together for One Room Kid Min, exploring special topics that highlight the diversity of God's world.
Fourth and fifth graders attend Bible Black Belts at the same hour, learning to read and use the Bible, making connections between the Old and New Testaments, and forming friendships. The summer program for both groups includes Vacation Bible Camp (a free week called Snowball Mountain Challenge in 2026 for children who are four and toilet trained through entering fifth grade), one-day FUN Days, a field trip to Stages Theater, and themed Sunday enrichment.
Middle and high schoolers are not separated from the main service on Sunday mornings. Instead, the church encourages them to worship with their families, with a bulletin designed for sixth through eighth graders to help them follow the service. A youth room is open for those who want a place to hang out. The flagship youth gathering is Youth Night on Wednesdays from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. for sixth through twelfth graders, with a rotating monthly rhythm: first Wednesday is worship, second Wednesday dives into hard topics in Scripture, third Wednesday is homework and game night, and fourth Wednesday is a service learning opportunity. Confirmation is offered each year to high schoolers in grade nine and up, a yearlong exploration of what it means to be a member of the church.
Every summer the senior high youth travel to the Appalachian Service Project, a week of home repair and relationship-building in central Appalachia that Lake Harriet youth have joined for more than thirty years. Middle schoolers in grades seven through nine are eligible for STORM Camp, a Minnesota mission trip hosted at The Grove United Methodist Church in Woodbury. Scholarships are available for both trips.
Wednesday Night Rhythm
Wednesday evenings have become a signature rhythm at the church. At 5:00 p.m. the Wednesday Night Suppers open the evening with a family-style community dinner. Meals are served from 5:00 to 5:45 p.m. The cost is $12 per person with a family cap of $36, and children under three eat free. Families register and pay for one week or several at a time, with reservations due by Monday noon so the right amount of food can be ordered. From 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. the children's choir and the Prime Chimers rehearse, the Festival Bells rehearse from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Youth Night runs from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., and the Sanctuary Choir closes the night from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. The supper is both a convenience for busy families and a place to sit down with people you might otherwise only wave to in the narthex.
Adult Learning and Spiritual Enrichment (ALSET)
The Adult Learning and Spiritual Enrichment Team, chaired by Stacey Edwards, gathers the church's adult education under a single roof. A current Sunday morning class, held on Zoom from 11:00 a.m. to noon, is the Science and Religion Book Study, which in the fall is reading 2084 and the AI Revolution by Oxford mathematician John Lennox, led by Chris Dozier and Paul Glewwe. J is for Justice is a 52-week study of We Cry Justice that meets on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and on Zoom, facilitated by Julie Konrardy. A seasonal three-week Bible Study: Jeremiah meets on Thursdays from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. with Pastor Karen, exploring the same Scriptures that show up in the fall sermon series.
On the first Sunday of the month, adults can join Godly Play for Adults in the Godly Play room from 10:45 to 11:30 a.m., hearing a story, responding to wondering questions, and spending time in creative work - the same practice the children use, taken up by the grown-ups.
For those seeking a quieter practice, the church partners with Saint Catherine University to offer Be Still: Exploring Contemplative Practices, a nine-session series held on Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. The sessions are taught by Amy Campbell, a certified Spiritual Director who has served in Catholic parishes and at the Loyola Center for Spirituality in St. Paul. Together the group practices centering prayer, Lectio Divina, the Labyrinth, and other Christian contemplative traditions. Each session stands on its own, so newcomers can drop in. Child care is available for infants through age five when families register ahead of time.
Connection Groups and Small Group Life
Small group life is woven into the congregation's strategic priorities. Beyond the Nest is a new potluck group for parents launching young adults, meeting on the second Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. Unleavened Bread, a monthly Bible reading and journaling group led by Jungjoo Park, meets on the third Sunday of each month from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the Fireside Room, with the tagline "one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Groovy Grandparents gathers on the third Wednesday of each month from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. The Men's Forum meets on Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m. in the Wesley Room, a confidential conversation space founded in 2023 for men to talk about work, family, aging, faith, and the wider world. The Women's Group meets on Mondays at 1:00 p.m. on Zoom. A Knitting and Crafting Group drops in on Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m. YAC - Young Adults Connect - is a bi-monthly hangout for people aged 22 to 32, with bowling nights and other gatherings on the calendar. Volunteer Coordinator Lorrie Sandelin welcomes new ideas and helps newcomers find a fit.
A Theater Ministry Open to All
Lake Harriet Players is the church's community theater ministry, founded in 2001 with a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The company mounts two intergenerational productions a year, one in the spring and one in the fall, drawing on titles that have included Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hello, Dolly!, The Wizard of Oz, Godspell, A Year with Frog and Toad, Annie, and Seussical. The group's values: "All are invited to see our show with no admission cost. We honor our Creator through the honoring of everyone's creative gifts. We practice wild hospitality. We have no stars and everyone is a star." Anyone can audition, regardless of experience, and the rehearsal room is intentionally intergenerational.
Outreach Beyond the Church Walls
Outreach is a thread that has run through the congregation since its earliest days, when the members of the first church on 44th and Upton ran fund-raising campaigns through a depression and two world wars to keep their mission work going. Today the church supports an unusually broad portfolio of community partnerships.
Joyce Uptown Foodshelf is the church's spotlight ministry. Lake Harriet UMC has owned the Joyce House building at 3041 Fremont Avenue South since 2012 and is a long-term financial and administrative partner, contributing more than 10 percent of the food shelf's operating budget in 2022. The food shelf has grown rapidly since 2019, with its budget up 164 percent, hours doubled, and food output tripled. The church runs paper bag and diaper drives, provides printing and meeting space, and supports more than 200 monthly volunteers.
Every Meal is a partnership with a local organization that started in 2010 when staff at Sheridan Elementary in Minneapolis discovered students were stealing and hoarding food on Fridays. The church now supports 40 children at Lyndale Community School, placing bags of food directly into lockers so that students have meals for the weekend. Two volunteers are needed most Friday mornings for about 90 minutes of work, and a $25 monthly gift covers one child.
On the first Monday of every month, a group from the church packs meals at Feed My Starving Children, a program that ships specially formulated food to children in more than fifty countries. The church is a member of Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative, working alongside other congregations for affordable housing, and supports the Dignity Center at Hennepin Avenue UMC, where people working on stability meet with a single advocate to set and reach goals. Mission giving also flows through the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, the Rental Relief Fund for local families facing housing crises, and DHH Operation, a weekly food box ministry. The church's Racial and Housing Justice work is led by a task force that has signed on to the Minnesota Methodists statement.
United Women in Faith
United Women in Faith (formerly United Methodist Women) is a long-standing part of Lake Harriet's life. The UWF Book Club meets on the first Thursday of every month at 7:00 p.m., on Zoom from November through March and in person from April through October. Recent and upcoming titles include How to Read a Book by Monica Wood, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler, and Little Women. A Fall Women's Retreat, a December Bake and Soup Sale, a June Garden Party, and a one-day Mission U Too event at Saint John's University round out the year. UWF also gives financial support to missionaries through the Minnesota United Methodist Foundation, the Joyce Uptown Foodshelf, the LHUM Preschool, the church's youth mission trips, and Emma Norton Services, a trauma-informed organization that provides housing and recovery services for women, individuals, and families who have experienced homelessness.
Lake Harriet UM Preschool
The Lake Harriet UM Preschool has been an outreach of the church since 1953. It is housed in the church's education wing and is now in its 70th year, offering preschool, toddler, and infant care with a sliding-fee scale. The preschool's mission is to supplement the home and to provide an atmosphere where children are loved, understood, and accepted as they are, regardless of race, creed, or religious affiliation. The preschool is a separately led program under Director Buffy Ess and Assistant Director Julia Birdsell, and it shares space with the church's children and youth ministry. A major capital campaign, the Welcoming Children Initiative, was approved by an overwhelming Church Conference vote in 2023 to renovate and expand the education wing so that the program can offer a fully accredited child care center with updated HVAC, plumbing, sprinklers, bathrooms, and a sidewalk on Beard Avenue. The renovations were on track for the program to expand to a larger facility in the fall, with a goal of supporting more young families in the neighborhood through high quality child care with scholarships for those who need them.
Care for the Earth
Lake Harriet UMC is committed to being a good steward of the planet. The church has installed solar panels on its roof, planted a rain garden to reduce storm water run-off, avidly recycles and compostes, and upgraded its building systems for greater energy efficiency. The UMC Social Principles on the Natural World, quoted in the church's materials, read: "All creation is the Lord's, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it."
The Building and Accessibility
The current church home at 4901 Chowen Avenue South was built in 1948 under the leadership of Henry Lewis and his co-minister, Howard Huntzicker, after the post-war flood of young families moving west of Lake Harriet. The sanctuary was designed with accessibility in mind: the building and sanctuary are fully accessible, a hearing loop covers the sanctuary, ramps allow wheelchairs and walkers, and the Wesley Room, Susanna Wesley Room, and one-way glass into the sanctuary let parents of babies and small children continue to follow the service. The Fireside Room, Wesley Room, Godly Play room, and education wing host classes, small groups, and the preschool. The parking lot hosts a Trunk or Treat in the fall and welcomes community theater audiences in the spring and fall. The church is also a Safe Sanctuaries congregation, following the United Methodist policy for protecting children, youth, and vulnerable adults, with screening and training for every volunteer and employee who works with minors.
A Story Rooted in Linden Hills
The church's own centennial history, Like a Tree: The Story of Lake Harriet United Methodist Church, describes the congregation as a tree whose trunk connects its members, its roots unseen but holding it steady. In 1904 a group of Methodist families in Linden Hills began meeting informally in one another's cottages. By 1906 they were holding Sunday school classes, and on September 9, 1907, thirty-five members organized as Lake Harriet Church with the Reverend Christopher Harper McCrea as pastor. They built a frame and metal-lathe church at 44th and Upton, and they outgrew it just as they had outgrown the first cottage meetings. After the Second World War, when young families pushed west toward 50th Street, the congregation bought the lot at 49th and Chowen and built the church that still stands. The history is told as a story of steady giving - through a depression, two world wars, and decades of building campaigns - and of an outward-facing mission. The church's self-description, written at the centennial, is that it is "known for outstanding lay leaders and a willingness to give our time and money to support the church and its ministry. Our theatre and music ministries are strong. We have an outstanding preschool. We are warm and welcoming to all."
Getting Connected
The church office is open Tuesday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and can be reached at 612-926-7645 or at Church@LakeHarrietUMC.org. The Lake Harriet Players, the preschool, and the food shelf each have their own email addresses and social media. Newcomers who want to learn more about membership can sign up for "A Taste of Lake Harriet," a class offered a few times a year, by emailing Pastor Karen. The Digital Welcome Form, the prayer request form, the online giving page, and a calendar of every event are available. Lake Harriet UMC is a congregation of the United Methodist Church, part of the Minnesota Annual Conference, and a member of the Reconciling Ministries Network.