At the corner of 124th Street and Cold Spring Road, where New Berlin meets Hales Corners, Greenfield and West Allis, Resurrection Lutheran Church has spent more than half a century building a diverse family of faith. Founded in 1967, RLC is known for its emphatic welcome, worship that blends classic and modern music, and ministry that reaches well beyond its sanctuary. It belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America through the Greater Milwaukee Synod and is a Reconciling in Christ congregation.
A Family at the Crossroads
RLC's family stretches from couples and singles to parents, children, grandparents and other multigenerational households. That mix is not incidental to the church's identity. The congregation describes itself as a diverse family atmosphere centered on Christian celebration and fellowship, and it insists that people should be able to bring their real lives into the room without leaving their identities at the door.
Its physical setting reinforces that outward-facing character. RLC sits at a literal crossroads where four communities meet, and its ministries are built around relationships with nearby congregations, schools, food providers, theater artists, addiction-recovery programs and partners in Tanzania. Pastor Matthew Short describes the central aim simply: the good news celebrated on Sunday morning should be translated into the everyday life of the whole community. For RLC, worship, belonging and service are not separate departments. They are ways of sharing grace together.
Sunday Worship: Classic Music and Everyday Life
Every Sunday at 10:00 AM, RLC gathers for worship in person and online. The service generally lasts about 60 minutes and follows a traditional pattern while remaining open to new directions in format, music and dance. The result is described by those in the congregation as sacred and mellow rather than rigid or performative.
- Classic and modern music
- Two or three Bible readings
- A sermon that connects faith to everyday life
- A time for children
- Prayers
- Holy Communion every week
Music is an important part of the service, with the congregation drawing from both traditional and more modern repertoire. The sermon is intended to make faith relevant to daily experience, while the readings, prayers and Communion retain a clear Christian worship structure. The sanctuary can also be rearranged to suit different seasons and ministry needs, allowing the room to change along with the congregation's work.
First-time guests can expect a friendly hello. Someone greets people in the lobby and is available to answer questions and help newcomers feel at home. Dress is casual: most people wear everyday clothes, including T-shirts and jeans, and some wear Green Bay Packers gear, while others dress up. A visitor can be comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt just as easily as in a suit.
Children are welcome without apology. RLC includes a time for kids within worship, and its members describe children as part of the family whose energy and movement are genuinely welcome. The church's overall approach to a first visit is personal, relaxed and focused on helping people participate rather than asking them to perform.
A Reconciling in Christ Community
RLC's welcome is explicit. Its Reconciling in Christ commitment holds that the Gospel is God's gift to all people, shared unconditionally without regard to sexual orientation, gender identity, racial or ethnic background, physical or mental ability, socioeconomic or family status, gender or age. The congregation publicly affirms full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people and states that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, their partners and their families are welcome. It also understands reconciliation as a call to healing and wholeness in society, not only a greeting spoken at the door.
That conviction shapes the congregation's purpose in three connected movements:
- Celebrate God's love.
- Grow a love for Jesus.
- Share that love.
Its vision is to become a community where God's love and people's lives connect. The values that guide the work are concrete: embrace each person as they are, cultivate a joyful culture, give voice to the voiceless, empower one another through unique gifts, and nurture the earth and the whole human family.
For RLC, diversity means more than variety in the room. The congregation defines inclusion as involvement and empowerment, recognizing inherent worth and dignity while sustaining belonging, respect, and the sharing of talents, beliefs and backgrounds. Holy Communion is offered every week regardless of church or denominational affiliation. Christ is the host of the meal, and everyone is welcome as a guest.
Learning Together and Growing Across the Generations
Learning at RLC takes several forms. Weekly Bible study is offered on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 PM through Zoom and on Thursday mornings at 10:00 AM in person. Online resources for deeper learning include the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, a Greek interlinear Bible and a Hebrew interlinear Bible. These tools support a congregation that wants rigorous Scripture study alongside worship, conversation and service.
Learning Together is RLC's intergenerational education ministry. It brings people of different ages together for conversation, learning and faith formation rather than separating children, parents and grandparents into entirely distinct programs. The approach reflects the congregation's family identity and the conviction that Christian faith should be discussed across generations, including with people who bring difficult questions and honest doubts.
Children have a visible place in the life of the church. They participate in worship, have a time for kids during the service, and are invited into intergenerational gatherings. The annual No Rehearsal Christmas Program has welcomed children of all ages to participate, often bringing family members and costumes into worship. Youth programs, school-supply efforts and other activities connect the congregation with younger people in the surrounding area, while family picnics, meals and worship keep multiple generations together.
Music and spiritual formation also cross generational lines. A choir contributes to worship, Julie Johnson coordinates worship music and Steph Albert also serves in worship music. The congregation uses a spiritual gifts inventory to help people recognize their interests, abilities and ways of serving, while a prayer chain provides another way for people to remain connected in prayer. These ministries make room for worship, reflection, service and fellowship to reinforce one another.
Pastor Matthew Short and a Church in Motion
Pastor Matthew Short joined Resurrection in January 2025. Raised in Arizona, he brings a conviction that churches and community leaders must work together for the good of everyone, even when they come from different religious traditions or institutional traditions. His focus is making sure the good news celebrated on Sunday is translated into everyday community life. He wants joy, hope and the unbounded love of God to reach people regardless of their church background, and he describes RLC's Reconciling in Christ identity and ministry partnerships as central to his work.
That outward movement has taken the form of RLC Connections, the congregation's current name for its Adventures in Renewal team. Its process follows a deliberate rhythm: listen, try, reflect and share. The group listens for where God is already active, experiments with forms of ministry, considers what it learns and then brings those lessons back to the congregation. Questions guiding the work include who God is trying to reach through RLC's ministries, how God might be present during the week, how people can be helped through past hurts or doubts, and how those who feel alienated or alone might find a place of belonging.
Several community experiments have grown from this way of listening. Coffee and Conversation has gathered people in a local coffee shop, while Suds and Stories of Faith has brought conversation into a neighborhood pub. A Community Pet Blessing has welcomed animals and their people, and Rooted in Love has offered gentle, beginner-friendly yoga with a brief spiritual message. Outdoor worship has brought the congregation into its grounds, while food-truck evenings, community picnics and other gatherings have created informal places for neighbors to meet RLC people. Some experiments happen inside the church; others begin in businesses, parks and other places where residents already gather.
Love in Action: Ministry Beyond the Sanctuary
RLC's Love in Action Team is built to respond quickly, compassionately and faithfully when urgent needs arise. Grounded in the ELCA Baptismal Covenant, the team follows several principles: respond with love rather than fear, center the most vulnerable, act with humility and partnership, practice nonviolence and de-escalation, remain accountable to congregational leadership and build long-term solidarity. Rather than creating a separate set of isolated programs, the team focuses on strengthening relationships and connecting people with trusted resources. It has gathered information about hunger, immigration and LGBTQIA+ support, explored food-delivery options through local pantries, and researched mental-health resources in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties.
Local hunger is a recurring expression of the church's outward ministry. RLC has supported the New Berlin Food Pantry with cereal and soup drives, holiday bake-goods drives and other donations. Members have volunteered with Hunger Task Force to assemble stock boxes for families in need. They have also prepared bag lunches for Street Angels, a mobile outreach ministry serving people experiencing homelessness in Milwaukee County. These practical efforts stand alongside the prayer chain and other forms of support within RLC's family.
Education is another area of connection. RLC has collected school supplies for Journeys Lutheran School, a faith-based school in Hales Corners serving children with emotional or developmental challenges who have struggled in traditional educational settings. Congregants also volunteer there on the third Thursday of each month. The relationship has included direct support for students and teachers while allowing RLC to listen to the needs of the school and the families it serves.
Community life continues through meals, games and shared traditions. RLC has hosted food-truck and music evenings, outdoor worship and community picnics, along with social gatherings and a dartball league. Its participation in the Outreach for Hope Ride, Run and Walk raises funds for ministries serving low-income communities, and the team has made it possible for people who cannot ride conventional bicycles to participate on adaptive bikes. These activities create relationships across the congregation and its neighbors while directing energy toward concrete needs.
Partnerships That Cross Borders
RLC's oldest international relationship is with the Kikwe and Karangai parishes in Usa River, Tanzania. The partnership has lasted for many years and has included gatherings in both the United States and Tanzania, work to provide fresh drinking water, and support for education where resources are scarce. The relationship has expanded beyond occasional projects to shared mission, pastoral connection and prayer with the Dioceses of Meru. RLC also supports the broader Mt Meru Coffee Project, which offers Tanzanian coffee for purchase and connects buyers with the farmers and families behind the coffee.
Reformation Lutheran Church in Milwaukee has been another relational mission partner since the 1990s. The two congregations have celebrated God's abundance together, gathered for important events and shared faith-and-fellowship dinners. Their continuing connection demonstrates RLC's belief that partnership should be relational, allowing congregations to learn from one another rather than treating mission partners only as organizations receiving support.
Outreach for Hope, a ministry of the Greater Milwaukee Synod, connects RLC with life-giving ministry partners in low-income communities. Its work addresses daily needs while also serving as a center of transformation and hope in neighborhoods. RLC supports this wider network through fundraising, volunteer activity and sustained relationships, extending its own mission beyond the congregation's immediate setting.
Community action partners add more local connections. Divine Intervention serves people experiencing homelessness with meals, shelter, job-placement counseling, housing assistance and help furnishing permanent homes. Serenity Inns provides a residential program addressing men's physical, emotional and spiritual health as they rebuild lives free from addiction. Kith & Kin Theater Collective creates theater and conversation shaped by transparency, advocacy, collaboration and compassion. Together with the New Berlin Food Pantry and Journeys Lutheran School, these relationships show how RLC understands outreach as shared work rather than a collection of disconnected charities.
RLC has also been candid about the tensions within its mission relationships. The congregation states plainly that LGBTQIA+ people in Tanzania can experience discrimination, persecution and violence. It does not present continued partnership as agreement with every harmful belief. Instead, it argues that love can sometimes require remaining in relationship while honestly naming injustice, listening, and opening deeper conversations about inclusion and transformation.
Flexible Space for a Changing Ministry
RLC's sanctuary is intentionally flexible. It can be rearranged for different seasons, services and forms of gathering, while an established music program supports both classic and modern worship. The church has also explored dance and changes in service format within its traditional pattern. This flexibility reflects the wider conviction that ministry should adapt to the people and places it seeks to serve rather than require every encounter to fit one fixed arrangement.
The congregation's grounds carry meaning as well. RLC maintains a community garden and a memory garden cared for by volunteers, and outdoor worship has become an important way to gather. Discussions about the property have focused on how it can support ministry and community through gathering places, walking paths, contemplative spaces and outdoor areas for worship. The guiding question is not simply how to make the building larger or newer, but how the land entrusted to RLC can serve the congregation and those beyond it. The building and grounds therefore function as shared ministry space, supporting worship, education, food events, conversation, music, service and fellowship.
Joining the RLC Family
A first visit can be simple. Sunday worship begins at 10:00 AM at 12400 West Cold Spring Road in New Berlin. The church sits at the corner of 124th Street and Cold Spring Road, within the crossroads of New Berlin, Hales Corners, Greenfield and West Allis. A greeter will be in the lobby, children are welcome, casual clothing is entirely appropriate, and Holy Communion is part of the service.
- Worship: Sundays at 10:00 AM, in person and through the weekly livestream
- Recordings: Recorded worship services are available for viewing
- Visitor details: Practical expectations for worship, children, clothing and arrival are covered in RLC's visitor information
- Contact: The church office is reachable at 262-786-8880 and is closed Friday through Monday
- Giving: Congregational giving is available through the church's secure online giving
For those joining from home, the same Sunday service carries its blend of classic and modern music, Bible readings, an everyday-life sermon, prayers, a time for children and Holy Communion. The people of RLC make a point of greeting visitors, and the church's family language extends to anyone seeking worship, fellowship or a place to connect faith with everyday life.
A Welcoming Church With Room to Move
At RLC, welcome is not a preliminary greeting. It is a Reconciling in Christ conviction, a description of the congregation's diverse family and a practical approach to ministry. It appears in the weekly Communion table, the mix of classic and modern music, the children included in worship, the questions asked in Bible study and the relationships built with people across four communities and beyond them.
Resurrection Lutheran Church combines a settled identity with a willingness to keep moving. Its history since 1967, its campus ministry, intergenerational learning and community partnerships all point in the same direction: celebrate God's love, grow in love for Jesus and share that love in the places where people live. The people, practices and partnerships of RLC continue to make that shared life visible in New Berlin and at the crossroads of 124th Street and Cold Spring Road.