A Welcoming ELCA Home on Cottage Grove Road
Messiah Lutheran Church sits on Cottage Grove Road on Madison's east side, where it has grown into a community of more than 2,000 people drawn from Lutheran, Catholic, UCC, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, and other backgrounds. The congregation is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the South-Central Synod of Wisconsin, and in January 2024 it adopted a formal welcome statement and received the Reconciling in Christ designation through ReconcilingWorks. The welcome statement names every person as a beloved child of God, respected and accepted across sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, race, ability, culture, and economic status, and commits the congregation to standing against prejudice toward the LGBTQIA+ community, advocating for anti-racism and indigenous respect, and working for environmental justice and anti-trafficking.
The congregation's mission is short and direct: "We are a community called by God to be the heart and hands of Jesus to our neighborhood, our city and the world." What makes Messiah distinctive is the breadth of activity that flows from that mission. Justice, outreach, formation, and intergenerational care are not separate wings of the church; they share a calendar, a leadership table, and a teaching ministry that follows the lectionary from Genesis to Paul's letters.
Worship on Saturday Evening and Twice on Sunday
Messiah gathers for worship three times each weekend. The Saturday service begins at 5:00 pm, with a simpler early Sunday service at 8:15 am and a fuller late service at 10:30 am. The Saturday and Sunday 8:15 am services draw on the same Lutheran liturgical tradition as the late service but often with smaller ensembles; the late Sunday service is the congregation's largest weekly gathering, with music from the Senior Choir and the musicians listed on the church's music staff. The weekend bulletins, lectionary readings, and the music lists for each service are made available to worshipers ahead of time.
Worship follows the Revised Common Lectionary, the three-year cycle of readings that takes a community through each of the four Gospels. The current lectionary year focuses on Matthew's Gospel, written for a Hebrew audience to show Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah whose kingdom is found in service and justice. Past sermon archives remain available through the Vimeo folders for the prior lectionary years, covering Mark and portions of John, and Luke's Gospel of parables and the poor.
Services are livestreamed on Vimeo, and the livestream page also hosts the most recent sermon archive. The video team is led by the Coordinator of Media and Technology and supported by a team of volunteer Streaming Ministers. A staffed nursery is available during the early and late Sunday services for children from six weeks through six years, and activity bags are kept near the coat rack in the Gathering Space for children who stay in the sanctuary with their families.
Children, Sunday School, and Family Faith Milestones
Children's Ministry at Messiah is built around three rhythms: Sunday School during the school year, special faith milestone celebrations, and overnight summer camp. Sunday School welcomes children from age three through fourth grade, runs from 9:15 to 10:20 am between the two Sunday services, and follows the academic calendar from late September into early May. Children are grouped by age and progress through nearly eighty different Bible stories, from Genesis to Paul's letters, using read-alouds, discussion, hands-on activities, and creative play. The curriculum also follows the lectionary, reinforcing the same texts the pastors preach about in worship and adding lessons for Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.
At 9:15 am each Sunday, the Children's Choir gathers to rehearse before the rest of Sunday School begins at 9:30 am. The choir sings during worship services throughout the year and at the annual Christmas Program in December, when the Sunday School students act out the story of the Nativity for the whole congregation and everyone gathers afterward for cake and a Birthday Party for Jesus, along with a collection of baby items for a local food pantry.
Two faith milestones are marked in elementary years. Second graders who wish to take their first communion receive special instruction and celebrate with their families at a late-April service; the church's teaching is that all are welcome at the table, and parents decide the right time for their child. Third graders are invited to receive a Bible of their own and to learn how to navigate it during Bible Blessing weekend each fall. Older children who have not yet taken part in either milestone are welcome to join the instruction or receive a Bible. Other family traditions include Trunk or Treat in late October, with trunks, treat stations, and pizza in the parking lot, and the summer camp season at Sugar Creek Bible Camp, where the Associate Pastor leads a week of overnight camp each summer for ages five through eighteen, with programs ranging from two to five nights.
Youth on Wednesday Nights
Messiah's youth ministry is built around a single weekly gathering called YOW, or Youth on Wednesday Nights, which runs from 6:00 to 8:00 pm during the school year. Pre-Confirmation students in fifth and sixth grades meet from 6:00 to 6:45 pm, and Confirmation students in seventh through ninth grades meet from 7:00 to 7:45 pm. A family dinner is served at 6:00 pm, and most weeks also include small and large group discussion, activity nights, field trips, and service projects. Lessons rotate between in-person and online formats, with Zoom invitations provided for the online weeks.
Annual rhythms include a fall retreat, a winter mini-retreat, a confirmation retreat, an intergenerational mission trip each summer, and confirmation celebrated during a 5:00 pm service in May. In recent years the youth have heard from speakers on the experience of homelessness in Madison, assembled care kits for a local men's shelter, made crosses with hopeful messages, and learned about programs from partner organizations working with people experiencing housing instability.
High school youth in tenth through twelfth grade have their own gathering called Sunday Suppers, held on the last Sunday of each month from 6:30 to 7:45 pm. The format pairs a waffle bar dinner with an activity and a short faith discussion. Each spring, the graduating high school seniors are honored with a prayer shawl made by the Prayer Shawl Ministry, presented during worship as a reminder that the congregation goes with them. The Joan E. Shropshire Education Grant Fund, established in memory of a long-time member, provides a one-time educational assistance grant each year for students pursuing higher education from an accredited college, university, or technical school; applications are administered by the Messiah Executive Committee of the church council.
Adult Education, Bible Study, and Lutheran Heritage
Adults who arrive at Messiah can find a steady rhythm of formation between the two Sunday services, throughout the week, and across the church year. Adult Education Forums are held from 9:20 to 10:20 am each Sunday in the Social Hall and feature a mix of sermon-text discussions, topical series, and book studies. Recent forums have explored the Easter lectionary, Christian nationalism, and a three-part series on soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, led by the Coordinator of Adult Ministry.
On Wednesday mornings at 7:00 am, a Bible Study meets in the lower-level Meeting Room to walk through a Gospel at a time, currently the Gospel of Luke. A women's Thursday morning book study meets at 10:00 am in a downstairs classroom and rotates through titles such as Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton and Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris. The Justice for a New Day course, offered through the Nehemiah Center and supported with scholarship funds from the Racial Justice Team, runs on Monday evenings in the fall and examines the history, policies, and human impact of incarceration in America.
For those curious about Lutheran identity, Messiah offers a four-part series on Martin Luther, the Reformation, and Lutheran heritage, with sessions on Luther's life, the 95 Theses, the Augsburg Confession and the Small and Large Catechisms, and what it means to live as a Lutheran today. The series draws on the same material the Adult Education team uses during a year-long "Moments with Marty" focus, which walks through the Book of Concord, the ten documents that summarize Lutheran belief, from the three ecumenical creeds to the Formula of Concord. Lutheran teaching at Messiah is summed up in Martin Luther's description of faith as "a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that believers would stake their lives on it a thousand times."
Senior Adult Ministry and the SAM Family
Senior Adult Ministry, known across the congregation as SAM, is designed for people aged fifty-five and older and operates as a community within a community. The SAM season runs from September through May with monthly potlucks on the last Wednesday of the month, beginning at noon with announcements and ending by 1:30 pm, and held in the Social Hall on the lower level beneath the sanctuary. Members bring a dish to pass and a donation for The Empty Table, which benefits the Extended Hands Pantry.
Outside the potluck table, SAM organizes a busy calendar of its own. Fifteen SAM members volunteer every other Monday afternoon at Second Harvest Food Bank in Madison, signing in at 12:15 pm and packaging bulk donations into family-size portions until the 3:30 pm shift ends. The SAM Virtual Apple Pie Sale is held each fall and has raised more than twenty-five thousand dollars in a single year, with proceeds matched by the Gundlach Family Fund and directed to Second Harvest and to a partner congregation in need. The annual Senior Choir and other Messiah choirs have received SAM support, and SAM members also contribute a truckload of items each December to the Extended Hands Pantry.
Spring and fall bring a popular hike series led by two long-time members, with destinations that include Governor Nelson State Park, the UW Arboretum, and McCarthy Park, often ending with a picnic. Two bus trips are scheduled each year on a fifty-six-passenger Kobussen motor coach, with past trips including a narrated lunch cruise on the Wisconsin River, a wine tasting at Wollersheim Winery, and a Christmas-themed outing in Coloma.
Justice Ministry as a Way of Life
Justice Ministry at Messiah is the umbrella for five teams that work together on the immediate needs of the wider community and on the longer-range causes behind those needs. The framing is direct: feeding someone who is hungry and working to address why they are hungry belong to the same calling. Each team meets on its own schedule, runs its own educational programming, and reports back to the wider congregation through the weekly news and the monthly newsletter.
Community Outreach Team
The Community Outreach Team gathers about three times a year to coordinate collections, fundraisers, and ongoing drives that respond to immediate needs. Monthly focus collections rotate through the year, with named drives for Goodman Thanksgiving Baskets, the Mountain of Food drive, back-to-school backpacks, the Dignity at School collection, the Virtual Pies for Second Harvest, and Christmas collections for The Road Home, YWCA, Triangle Ministry, East Side Community/Truax, and the Madison Area Jail Ministry. The team also staffs ongoing bins for St. Stephen's Food Pantry, The Road Home, and Just Dane's Circles of Support program, which provides a support system for individuals leaving prison, and runs the annual Fall Craft and Bake Sale in November, with proceeds going to local charities and a gift basket cash-and-carry sale that has become one of the team's signature events.
Alongside the team sits the annual Messiah/Gunderson Funeral Home Blood Drive, an Adopt-a-School partnership with Kennedy Elementary School that includes lunchroom and playground volunteering, a Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring option, and Give Families a Lift, a campaign that has funded van transportation for students living at the family shelter on Milwaukee Street. Members also support the Madison neighborhood school Elvehjem Elementary, just across Cottage Grove Road, with backpacks, school supplies, winter gear, and snacks for the school's walking school bus program.
Green Team
The Green Team calls the congregation to make one change in their life for the earth and has put that call into practice on the church's own property. In May 2025, Messiah dedicated a 121-panel solar array on its roof, supported by grants from Solar for Good and MadiSUN; the array is projected to generate 85,000 kWh per year and save the congregation roughly $9,000 a year in electric bills, freeing that amount for community programs. A 1,600-square-foot native prairie was planted on the north end of the property the same month, designed to strengthen root systems, reduce parking-lot runoff, and provide habitat for pollinators. Glass communion cups returned to the table in May 2025 in place of single-use plastic, and Boomerang Bags, sewn from donated cloth and given away to encourage reusable shopping, have been a long-running project. The group has produced more than 2,000 bags, given them to food pantries, Lutheran camps, Synod Assembly, and Pride Fest, and is now in regular conversation with five other congregations interested in starting their own groups. The team has also organized tours of the Dane County landfill and a recycling education evening with Madison recycling staff.
At the heart of the Green Team's work is a formal Congregational Care of Creation Covenant and a Land Acknowledgement that names the land traditionally known as De Jope, the four-lakes homeland of the Ho-Chunk people and eleven other First Nations, and commits Messiah to the work of healing and justice with local indigenous communities.
Human Trafficking Awareness Team
The Human Trafficking Awareness Team began in 2023 with an information night that brought in detectives from the Madison Police Department and the Dane County Sheriff's Office, along with representatives of Project Respect, United Madison Christian Givers, and Pierre Outreach Safe House. The team has since organized site visits to Project 16:49 in Janesville, hosted speakers from Safe Harbor, Briarpatch, and POSSH, and joined state legislative efforts to expand Wisconsin's Internet Crimes Against Children task force, including a public awareness campaign and four new staff positions. The team maintains a regularly updated Google document of current legislation and a calendar of statewide bills and hearings.
Partner organizations include Safe Harbor, which supports more than four hundred children and families each year who have been victims of abuse or crime, Briarpatch Youth Services, which serves about two thousand youth a year across Dane County and operates a 24-hour help line, and Pierre Outreach Safe House, founded by Jevon Diming to walk alongside girls and young women of color affected by generational trauma. Messiah has donated furniture for Briarpatch's family room and has directed year-end surplus funds to POSSH, including support for the organization's emerging Wellness Lab for Women and Girls.
Racial Justice Team
The Racial Justice Team is active in MOSES, Madison Organizing in Strength, Equality and Solidarity, and in the South-Central Synod of Wisconsin's racial equity programs. The team hosts book studies, maintains a lending library of racial justice titles in the Meeting Room on the lower level, and curates the Messiah Racial Justice Facebook page. In 2024 and 2025, the team organized a Guns to Gardens safe gun disposal event at St. Paul AME Church in partnership with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and RAWtools, resulting in 26 guns removed from the community in the first event; a second event is being hosted at Messiah. A second Action Circle through the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship on Protecting Children from Gun Violence is offered each spring, and the team maintains a regularly updated guide to contacting state and federal representatives on issues of concern.
Reconciling in Christ Team
The Reconciling in Christ team, supported by Pastor Dan, helps the congregation live into the welcome statement adopted in January 2024. The team hosts an annual RIC weekend each January, leads book studies on the intersection of the LGBTQIA+ community and the Lutheran Church, and supports wider community events including the First Annual Pride Parade at Glacial Drumlin Middle School in Cottage Grove. Messiah's RIC journey is documented in a 1,600-square-foot prairie, glass communion cups, and the long-running Boomerang Bags effort, alongside the formal reconciliation of the church's welcome with its practices.
Care Ministries and Prayer Shawls
Care at Messiah is organized around three teams. The Visitation Ministry Team has more than thirty-five members who make monthly visits to people in the congregation who cannot make it to church, bringing conversation, devotion, treats, communion, and prayer; the team gathers once a year for a morning retreat and workshop. The New Member Visitation Team visits each new member at home with a welcome bag and answers questions about groups and activities around the church. The Prayer Shawl Ministry meets once a month to knit and crochet shawls that are given to the newly baptized, to high school seniors at their recognition service, to those served by the Visitation Ministry, and to people outside the congregation going through challenging times; recent recipients include Elizabeth House, Triangle Community Ministry, Breast Cancer Recovery Retreats, and Agrace Hospice.
Weekend Ministries and the Volunteers Who Make Them Work
Messiah's weekend services depend on more than a hundred volunteers across seven ministries. Greeters are the first contact for people walking into the sanctuary and are trained to be living representatives of the congregation's mission statement. Ushers promote a sense of welcome, distribute materials, and are trained to respond to medical situations. Lectors proclaim the readings alongside the preacher. Communion Ministers distribute Holy Communion. Altar Ministers prepare the altar and communion for each of the three weekend services and for special services at Ash Wednesday, the Wednesdays of Lent, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas; the team also sets up baptisms and faith milestone services. Hospitality Ministers set up and clean up Sunday morning coffee and treats and host Love, Laughter and Libations, a wine-and-cheese social that follows the Saturday service on the second Saturday of each month. Streaming Ministers run the cameras for the Vimeo livestream, an important connection for homebound members and people who cannot attend in person. Each ministry has its own handbook, and the Coordinator of Worship and Music supports all of them.
Community Meals and Direct Service
Two regular meal ministries anchor Messiah's direct service to neighbors. Members prepare a meal for twelve people, including a main course, side dishes, and dessert, and bring it to the church, where it is delivered to Healing House, Madison's first shelter for people preparing for or recovering from a medical procedure, childbirth, or hospitalization, and to the Triangle Community Ministry, which serves more than three hundred residents in the Triangle Neighborhood, most of whom live with chronic mental, emotional, physical, or developmental disabilities. Members also volunteer at St. Stephen's Food Pantry and at Habitat for Humanity's ReStore donation processing and construction sites. The annual Messiah/Gunderson Funeral Home Blood Drive is held each spring with a goal of forty-six units.
Small Groups, Fellowship, and Lifelong Connection
For adults who want to deepen friendships and faith in a smaller circle, Messiah offers a long list of groups that meet on their own schedules throughout the year. Breadbreakers is an adult fellowship that rotates hosts through the year, with each household providing a main dish and the rest of the group filling in appetizers, salads, sides, or desserts; the format is flexible enough for singles, couples, snowbirds, and anyone who wants to show up. The Ladies Lunch Bunch meets on the second Wednesday of each month at a local restaurant, with a special in-house gathering each February for Valentine's Day, and a rotating collection for a different social ministry. The Women's Conversation Group meets on the third Thursday of each month from 10:30 am to noon for informal conversation on practical ways to live out faith. Love, Laughter and Libations follows the Saturday service on the second Saturday of each month with cheese, crackers, and drinks.
For men, the Men's Breakfast Group gathers weekly for breakfast, prayer, and fellowship. Divine Yoga is offered three times a year in late winter, fall, and Advent on Tuesday evenings, with a free-will offering directed to a charity chosen by the participants. The Boomerang Bag group meets on the third Tuesday of each month to sew reusable shopping bags from donated cloth. The Dignity Project workshop meets on the second Saturday of each month to sew washable menstrual pads and matching underwear, called sani-panties, for distribution through Little Dresses for Africa so that girls in partner communities can stay in school; the project has sent more than seventeen thousand pads and three thousand six hundred pairs of underwear. A Women's Winter Retreat at the Inn at Fort Wilderness in Rhinelander is held in partnership with the women of St. Luke's Lutheran in Middleton.
Music and Worship Arts
Music at Messiah is led by the Coordinator of Worship and Music and a team of staff musicians. The Senior Choir rehearses on Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm in the Community Room and sings for the late Sunday service and for festival services throughout the church year. The Children's Choir rehearses at the start of Sunday School each week and sings in worship and at the Christmas Program. Music lists for each weekend service are prepared in advance and shared alongside the bulletin.
Visiting Messiah: What to Know Before You Arrive
The church is at 5202 Cottage Grove Road on Madison's east side, with the office open Tuesday through Thursday from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm and on Friday from 8:00 am to noon; the office is closed on Mondays, though phones and email are monitored. Saturday worship begins at 5:00 pm, Sunday worship at 8:15 am and 10:30 am. The staffed nursery is open during the two Sunday services for children from six weeks through six years, with the nursery located in the lower-level Education wing. A Welcome Statement is read at the front of every service, an adult education hour fills the time between services, and a staffed kiosk in the Gathering Space is the place to sign up for everything from adult forums to a meal slot at Healing House.
The pastors are Jeff Vanden Heuvel, who serves as Lead Pastor, and Dan O'Brien, who serves as Associate Pastor and oversees much of the youth, family, and justice work. A team of ministry coordinators carries the rest of the work: Brittany Rusch for Children and Family Ministry, Teresa Palumbo for Youth and Family Ministry, Pastor Renee Kiel for Adult Ministry, Keith Schlesinger for Senior Adult Ministry, Clyde Nyhus for Worship and Music, and Clark Kellogg for Media and Technology. Christina Techendorf and Kalli Selchert staff the nursery. The Messiah community is large and active, but the doors are open, the welcome is on paper and in practice, and the people who walk through them quickly find a place to belong and a place to serve.