The Church on the Corner of Russell and Arthur
Lutheran Church of the Incarnation sits on the northwest corner of Russell Boulevard and Arthur Street in Davis, just west of Highway 113, with roots in the ELCA and a particular reputation for two things that don't always sit comfortably side by side: a traditional Word-and-Sacrament worship life on Sunday morning and a wide, sometimes unruly embrace on questions of welcome, justice, and care for the wider community. The congregation belongs to the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the building itself, recently renovated from floor to ceiling, anchors one corner of a college town better known for bikes, agriculture, and the Sacramento Valley's flat sunlight. People know LCI for the choir that sings most Sundays, for a kitchen table that is always set with food, and for a pastor whose taste in jazz, theology, and the San Francisco Giants has shaped as much afternoon conversation as it has Sunday sermon.
Sunday in the Sanctuary
The week at LCI flows toward a single fixed point: Sunday worship at 10:00 am in the Sanctuary. The service follows the classic Lutheran pattern of Word and Sacrament, with readings, preaching, hymns, prayer, and the celebration of Holy Communion most Sundays. A worship bulletin is available for visitors who want to follow along, and communion at LCI is open to all who believe in Jesus Christ. Visitors are not screened at the table; they are welcomed. The service is in English, though on Pentecost Sunday the congregation has made a tradition of reading a passage in many languages; anyone who speaks another language is welcome to step up. Services are livestreamed at the same 10:00 am hour on the church's YouTube channel for those who cannot attend in person, and the full archive of previous services lives there as well.
Adult Education meets at 9:00 am in the South Room, an hour before worship, and runs from mid-September through the end of May. The Sunday School gathering for children ages 3 through 5th grade begins at 10:10 am in the Sunday School building, starting from those same mid-September mornings and running through May; both the Sunday School and the youth group pause for a summer break. Junior High and Senior High youth meet in the Youth Room at 9:00 am on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sundays of the month. Coffee and fellowship follow the service, and on the third Sunday of each month LCI holds an all-church potluck at which newcomers are particularly welcome; a sign-up sheet for dishes sits in the narthex.
The visual environment of the sanctuary is itself a kind of ministry. After a capital campaign conducted in fall 2019, the Worship Committee and a Sanctuary Renovation Task Force oversaw the demolition of an entry wall, old carpet, and front platform, the grinding and treatment of the concrete floor, and a broader refresh that has shaped the room in which the congregation now gathers. The look is intentional: the Liturgical Arts and Environment subcommittee makes seasonal changes that bring meaning to the Word and Sacrament, from altar care to flower placement to the visual feel of the room at Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.
A Pastor with a Doctorate and a Guitar
Rev. Dr. Daniel Smith has been the pastor of Lutheran Church of the Incarnation since February of 2010. Born in 1973 in the Los Angeles area, raised in Oakland and then Davis, and a 1991 graduate of Davis High School, Pastor Dan - as the congregation knows him - studied Biochemistry and Cell Biology at UC San Diego, spent 1996-97 studying at the University of Hamburg where he became fluent in German, and after marrying his wife Nele entered Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. There he earned Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Systematic Theology degrees, writing his thesis on the theology of the cross in Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard. He was ordained in 2000 and served congregations in Orange County and San Carlos before coming home to Davis. He completed a Ph.D. in Systematic and Philosophical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley in 2013, with a dissertation on ecological ethics and the cross. Helping the church "go green" and live more sustainably with the planet is one of his stated passions. He is also a jazz lover, an avid reader, a jogger, a guitar player, a self-described sports nut, and the father of two sons.
Working alongside him are Lindsey Burns as Lay Youth and Family Minister and LuAnn Higgs as Church Musician. LuAnn is a lifelong religious musician whose professional credits include work as a singer, accompanist, choir director, and music director; she is also the Artistic Director of the Davis Youth Choir and the accompanist for the Davis Chorale, and she frequently collaborates as a pianist at UC Davis and California State University, Sacramento. The Director of Worship and Music, Jeff Schulz, leads the choir program and the seasonal planning of services.
Children, Youth, and First Communion
Christian Education is its own ministry at LCI, organized around age groups and the milestones of a Lutheran life. Sunday School serves children ages 3 through 6th grade in the Sunday School building at 10:10 am; older youth meet in the Youth Room at 9:00 am on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sundays; adults gather at 9:00 am in the South Room; and the Sunday School presents a Christmas Program each December, performed by children and adults from an original script written by members of the congregation.
First Communion follows a class called "A Place for You," open to children of any age and offered together with their parents. Families consult with Pastor Dan to choose the time; classes are usually held in the spring, and First Communion is celebrated around Easter. Confirmation runs as a two-year program for 7th and 8th graders, taught in partnership with Davis Lutheran Church. Pastor Dan leads the class with Lindsey Burns and a team of volunteer small-group leaders, and classes meet Sunday afternoons at LCI and at Davis Lutheran from September through May. After the two years - generally in 9th grade - students may choose to be confirmed on Reformation Sunday in October. Faith milestones along the way include Bibles presented to 4th graders and a recognition of high school graduates at the end of senior year.
Junior High and Senior High at LCI both meet Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10:15, with intentional Bible study and time for the social life that any parent of a teenager knows is half the point. The older youth have participated in retreats organized by the Sierra Pacific Synod - a fall retreat for 3rd through 8th graders and a spring retreat for high schoolers - and they serve the wider community through Davis Community Meals, the Winter Rotating Shelter, and Lutheran World Relief's hunger and poverty awareness efforts. LCI partners with Davis Lutheran Church, St. Martin's Episcopal Church, and Davis Community Church to host Mt. Cross Bible Camp's Day Camp, a week-long summer program serving children ages 3 through 18, with the four congregations taking turns organizing it each year.
Faith-Full Families and Pub Theology
For families with children ages 3 to 11, LCI hosts Faith-Full Families the first Friday of each month, October through April, from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. The evening includes a lesson, songs, crafts, and themed snacks, and is built around holidays like Halloween, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day - the way faith actually shows up in a kid's calendar.
For adults who would rather carry their theology into a brewery than a sanctuary, Pastor Dan hosts Pub Theology at Calicraft Brewing in the University Mall, usually beginning a new series each fall. The format is loose: food and drink are available, the topic for the evening is announced in advance, and conversation runs as long as people want to stay. Recent subjects have included practices of hope in anxious times and a special series at St. Martin's Episcopal Church on artificial intelligence.
The Choir and a Sanctuary, Refreshed
Music at LCI is, in the choir's own invitation, "a vehicle for the Holy Spirit." The choir rehearses on the 2nd and 4th Sunday mornings of each month, from 11:15 am to 12:15 pm in the Sanctuary, between Labor Day and Memorial Day. Rehearsals are open to anyone who wants to try, with no auditions and no experience required - just a desire to make music. During the summer the music ministry invites people to Instant Choir, meeting at 9:15 am on selected Sundays to learn a piece that will be sung later that morning at worship, again without auditions or commitment. In addition to the main choir, the bell choir has been a long-standing part of congregational life, and individual members also sing with the Davis Chorale and other local musical ensembles.
The space in which the choir sings was recently transformed. A capital campaign in 2019 funded the kind of renovation that is invisible until it is not: the carpet and front platform removed, the entry wall opened up, the concrete flooring ground and treated. The Worship Committee plans the liturgical seasons of the year, from Advent blues to Easter whites, and the Liturgical Arts and Environment subcommittee, led by Mary Stewart, shapes the visual world of the sanctuary to match. Prayer Ministry, with Marvie Paulson keeping the prayer list, is woven into the Sunday service itself: members are invited forward at communion to pray with and for those who have asked for prayer.
Stewardship as a Way of Life
Stewardship at LCI is taught, not just practiced. The Stewardship Committee frames the work in three disciplines: first-fruit giving, proportionate giving, and growth giving. First-fruit giving means making the offering to God the very first of household expenditures; proportionate giving means setting aside a consistent percentage of income so that the gift rises and falls with earnings; growth giving is the practice of starting where you are and moving toward where you and God would like you to be. The congregation currently shares 5.5% of its income with the ministries of the ELCA beyond LCI itself, and intends to keep raising that percentage toward a tithe.
The annual Stewardship Response campaign each fall distributes two packets - a Time and Abilities sheet and an Estimate of Giving card - so that members can reflect on the gifts they bring and the offerings they intend. The financial secretary, the stewardship chairperson, and the pastor are the only people with access to estimate-of-giving cards, and gifts can be adjusted at any time during the year. Giving electronically is available through the church's Donate page via PayPal, credit, or debit card, and the congregation encourages members to set up automatic monthly gifts as a way to live out first-fruit giving.
The theological frame is plain: stewardship is what happens after a person says "I believe." Everything done in the church - teaching the children, singing in the choir, serving at the food bank, sitting on Council - is a stewardship of one of those gifts. The stewardship team speaks of the work as the transformation of the heart through the Holy Spirit, of First Corinthians 12 ("there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit"), and of Martin Luther's insistence that what we have is given to "use, enjoy and share with others."
Social Justice Across the Street and Across the Border
Social justice is one of LCI's core values and a year-round ministry, not a one-Sunday emphasis. The Social Justice committee, currently coordinated by Ellen Kolarik and Jill Van Zanten, keeps a portfolio of local partnerships: serving unhoused neighbors in Davis and migrant agricultural workers in the Sacramento Valley, hands-on construction and landscaping help for organizations and individuals in need, and school-supply and Christmas-gift collections for children in underserved communities. The committee sponsors book studies and movie nights on topics the congregation has chosen in recent years - race and faith, indigenous approaches to Christian practice, the LGBTQ experience in the church, Christian nationalism, Israel and Palestine. LCI also participates in interfaith dialogues and projects through Celebration of Abraham, Heart of Davis, Interfaith Housing Justice-Davis, and the Yolo Interfaith Immigration Network, and supports a rotating slate of local organizations through its Monthly Ministry Partner program. Members are encouraged to sign up for ELCA Advocacy Alerts to follow the public-policy work of the wider church.
Pastor Dan has testified at the California State Capitol with CA Interfaith Power and Light for policies addressing climate, plastics, and clean drinking water, citing ELCA social statements and the Bible's call to be stewards of creation and advocates for those who struggle. The Annual Report to the congregation each year makes clear that social justice is not a department but a way of being the church outside its own walls.
The Belfry and UC Davis
Because Davis is a college town, the next generation is never far away. LCI supports the Lutheran-Episcopal Campus Ministry at The Belfry, located at 216 A Street, which serves students, staff, and faculty at UC Davis with fellowship, study, retreats, and worship. Council member Karen Slabaugh sits on The Belfry's board. The church also welcomes students directly through Pub Theology, treats the rhythms of the academic calendar - arrival in September, finals in December, May commencement - as part of its own calendar, and celebrates each year the young people who go off to college from the congregation's own high school graduates.
An Open Welcome and a Serious Safety Net
LCI describes itself as a Reconciling in Christ congregation. The Affirmation of Welcome that LCI has published extends to race, age, marital or economic status, physical or mental abilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, and personal history. The congregation acknowledges that human beings fall short in accepting people who differ from them, and treats that acknowledgment as a starting line rather than a destination.
On the more practical side, LCI operates under Child Safety Policies that are compliant with California law AB506. Training and policies are provided by Ministry Safe, a national organization focused on child safety in churches, and every employee and volunteer who works with children or minors is rigorously background-checked, takes child-abuse prevention training, and follows the congregation's Child Safety Policy. Sunday School registration, a waiver of liability, a medical treatment form, and a photo release waiver are all required forms, and the church does not post photos of minors online until a parent has signed the release. First Communion classes, confirmation classes, and the youth retreats led by the Sierra Pacific Synod all sit within this same careful network of safety, communication, and consent.
The life of the congregation is held together by a nine-member Church Council, elected by the members to staggered three-year terms, plus the pastor. Council meets on the second Tuesday of each month, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm in the LCI library, and meetings are open to any member or friend. Council agendas, monthly minutes going back to 2013, and annual reports going back to 2013 are all available from the church for review by any member, which is itself a small expression of the same transparency the budget process tries to embody.
On the door of the building and inside the liturgy, the words are the same ones the Lutheran tradition has used for five centuries: come in, be fed, go out and serve. The corner of Russell and Arthur is a fairly quiet place to do that, and a fairly good one.