Advocates for Love on Whitney Avenue
Spring Glen Church sits on Whitney Avenue in Hamden, Connecticut, between Temple Beth Sholom and the Korean Presbyterian Church, with Best Video Film & Cultural Center across the street and a parking lot entrance just north of the traffic circle. The brick sanctuary, built in 1957, hosts a 10am worship service every Sunday, livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube for an online congregation that stretches across at least ten states, five countries, and three continents, from Oklahoma and Texas to North Carolina and Maine, from Canada to England to South Africa.
The church describes itself with a single phrase that has shaped nearly every decision since 1997: Advocates for Love. Practitioners of Christ. Open & Affirming since 1997. The building is fully accessible, the rooftop is covered in solar panels, and the rainbow chairs in the sanctuary have become something of a signature. Spring Glen is a teaching church with a long partnership with Yale Divinity School and Andover Newton Seminary, a longtime supporter of refugee resettlement through its HARRT initiative, and a multi-generational community that takes its faith seriously without taking itself too seriously.
From a Milk House in 1929
Spring Glen Church first gathered in 1929 and was formally incorporated in 1930 as a non-denominational Protestant congregation that met in what had been a milk house in the Spring Glen neighborhood, then a community with explicitly segregated origins. Women served on the very first Council running the church. In the 1950s the congregation joined the newly formed United Church of Christ, and the current sanctuary was built in 1957 with a capital campaign under the theme "To the Greater Glory of God."
The church's prophetic witness runs deep. In 1953 the congregation hosted its first known Black preacher, the Rev. Amugbe Shodekeh of Sierra Leone. Two years later, in 1955, the Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto of Hiroshima, Japan, became the first Asian guest preacher. In 1961, as the Freedom Rides rolled through the South, then-member and Yale Chaplain John Maguire and former member and interim minister Rev. Gaylord Noyce joined them; the Rev. Buckner Coe preached a sermon titled "A New Creation" against the sin of segregation, calling out the resistance to integration not only in the South but in Spring Glen itself. In 1962, the then-Rev. Forrest Johnson, who would later become the church's Senior Pastor, was arrested on the Albany, Georgia courthouse steps while fasting and praying with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Johnson later became an active PFLAG member and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. Former Senior Pastor Buckner Coe marched in Selma in 1965.
The congregation ordained its first woman in 1980, the Rev. Llewellyn "Lelly" Parson Smith, who had also been the first female chaplain at Yale. The Rev. Sharon Watkins was ordained at Spring Glen in 1984, the first female Senior Pastor of the church, and would go on to become the first woman to head a mainline denomination as President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In 1974 the congregation helped resettle a family from Vietnam, an early chapter of a refugee ministry that has continued through HARRT for nearly fifty years.
Accessibility has been a long practice, not a late project. In 1969 the youth ran an Easter Egg Hunt specifically for people with handicaps. In 1974 earphones were installed in the front pews of the sanctuary to make worship more accessible. In 1992 an elevator, pew cutout, accessible bathrooms, and a ramp were added. In 1991 the church printed an affirmation of different abilities in its bulletin.
An Open and Affirming Journey
Spring Glen's Open and Affirming journey began in earnest in the 1980s and 1990s. Seminarian David Shull served from 1985 to 1987 and later made headlines as one of the first openly gay ministers in multiple congregations. On May 18, 1997, the congregation voted at its annual meeting, at four o'clock in the afternoon on Confirmation Sunday, to become officially Open & Affirming. The adopted covenant declares that "every person brings unique, god-given gifts that the Christian community can affirm," that "the church is in need of forgiveness whenever it fails to affirm the full humanity of any person or group," and that the congregation pledges to enable every person's full participation in membership, worship, fellowship, and leadership "regardless of such distinctions as race, gender, age, nationality, economic circumstance, physical ability, mental condition, or sexual orientation."
The first openly gay woman was ordained at Spring Glen in 2008, the Rev. Jennie Ott. The first openly gay Senior Pastor, the Rev. Jeffrey Crews, was called in 2011. The first openly transgender man on pastoral staff, Seminarian Pastoral Intern Spencer Law, joined in 2023. In 2017 the first openly transgender preacher, Chaplain Asher KolieBoi, preached; in 2018 Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes became the first Black clergy on staff; in 2021 Dawn Jefferson and JaQuan Beachem became the first Black openly LGBTQ+ Members-in-Discernment ordained. In 2022 Spring Glen began a partnership with Manantial de Gracia, the only Spanish-language Open & Affirming congregation in Connecticut.
Sunday Morning at 10am
A typical Sunday at Spring Glen begins long before the 10am worship hour. At 9am adults gather for a Lectionary Bible Study in the Fellowship Room and on Zoom, and an All Ages Pickup Choir rehearsal where anyone can arrive to learn that morning's music. Toddler Care opens at 9:45am in the Eden Room, where a paid Childcare Specialist is on hand for parents who would like a quieter option for their youngest children.
Worship starts at 10am. About fifteen minutes in, the pastor invites children forward for Children's Time, an engaging theological dialogue with the whole congregation. Pre-schoolers through fifth graders then depart for Sunday School while the rest of the service continues. On Communion Sundays, the first Sunday of each month, the children return to help bless the baptismal waters and the communion elements and to receive the sacrament with their families. The service includes the church's distinctive musical mix: a hearty pipe organ, a contemplative choir, rousing congregational hymns, secular rock turned sacred, European classical, African American spirituals, and modern praise.
The church describes its worship style as deliberately balanced: clergy-led and volunteer-run; scripturally Christ-centered with interfaith engagement; deep discipleship with hearty skepticism; joyful creativity with peaceful contemplation; and ancient truths with contemporary context. Following the service, the congregation gathers for a BYOMug Fellowship Hour at 11:15am. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month, with non-alcoholic grape juice and gluten-free crackers always available.
Outside the regular rhythm, the church offers Campfire Worship on the first Sundays from 4 to 6pm, with fellowship, discussion, worship, and S'mores Communion. Contemplative Prayer and Meditation meets on the third Tuesdays at 7pm for a mini silent retreat, and on the second and fourth Thursdays at 7pm for a time of prayer and sharing. The liturgical year is marked by an Advent Contemplative Prayer Service, Christmas Eve services at 4pm and 11pm, a Maundy Thursday Tenebrae, a Good Friday Stations of the Cross Labyrinth, an Easter Sunrise service, and an Easter Communion.
Kids Are the Now of the Church
Spring Glen operates as a child-inclusive congregation. Parents are encouraged not to stifle their children's energy in the pews; kids wiggle, disrupt, and explore. Children are invited forward to actively participate in both sacraments, help bless the communion elements, and learn the music of the church through the All Ages Pickup Choir. The theology is not watered down for kids, it is translated for them.
Sunday School registration is open year-round, with classes designed for different learning styles and needs. On first Sundays the children share a short one-room session, often with music and games. Most other Sundays they are divided into age-appropriate groups of roughly five to fifteen students. The paid Toddler Room teacher is in the Eden Room from 9:45 to 11:15am every Sunday. Children's Ministry is currently led by Moriah Felder, MDiv, who serves as Acting Children's Ministry Coordinator and also oversees Middle School Youth and Campfire Worship.
OASIS and the Confirmation Journey
Middle and high school youth participate in OASIS, a Multi-Church Youth Ministry that brings together Greater New Haven youth from several congregations. Its vision is "a sustainable and collaborative youth ministry that is essential for the spiritual health of our individual youth and our wider community," built around five categories: fellowship, worship, service, pilgrimage, and education.
The Confirmation Class is a hands-on experiential path: Confirm Your Baptism, Discover Your Identity, Discern Your Beliefs, Learn Your Tradition, Lead Your Community, and Own Your Faith. Each year on Youth Sunday a youth preacher delivers the sermon. In 2024 the sermon, by Squirrel Lanz, was a meditative conversation with God about queerness and holiness, opening with the line "I first met God on a Wednesday afternoon" and ending with the affirmation, "Being queer didn't make me a sinner. Being queer made me holy."
Adults of All Ages
Spring Glen runs a wide range of adult programming, organized around faith-based learning, connective fun and fellowship, spiritual growth, volunteer opportunities, and intergenerational mentorship. Among the recurring offerings are Morning Meditation on Wednesdays at 9:15am on Google Meet; Adult Choir and Handbell Choir rehearsals on Wednesdays at 6:30 and 7:30pm; Contemplative Prayer on the third Mondays at 7:30pm; Aging Well Together on the second Mondays at 4pm; the SAGE 65+ ministry under the Pastoral Consultant; Racial Justice Action & Study on the third Mondays at 4pm; Book Club on the second and fourth Tuesdays at 12:30pm, with three to six author interviews a year; Breakfast Fellowship on the second Thursdays at 7am; Chosen Family LGBTQIA+ Dinners on the third Fridays at 5pm; and Peer Support Groups on the first Wednesdays at 7:30pm for dementia caregivers and the last Wednesdays at 7:30pm for all caregivers.
There is also the Gen Y Millennial Ministries (GYMM), the Women's Retreat, the "Aging as a Spiritual Journey" group, Habitat Fashion Fundraisers, and Backyard Concerts. The Adult Choir, All Ages Pickup Choir, Handbell and Chime Choirs, and the PickUp Band keep the music going beyond Sunday morning.
HARRT: Resettling Refugees in Hamden
The Hamden Area Refugee Resettlement Taskforce, known as HARRT, is a partnership between a small group of Hamden-area volunteers and Spring Glen Church. Since its founding in the fall of 2021, when a small group of volunteers joined an IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services) Zoom meeting in response to the Afghan crisis, HARRT has co-sponsored four refugee families in conjunction with IRIS and is currently supporting two more, one from Afghanistan and one from Syria, totaling ten family members.
The work is hands-on: finding housing, arranging utilities, registering and advocating for children in school, setting up medical and dental appointments, enrolling adults in ESL classes, providing one-on-one tutoring, and arranging transportation. Spring Glen Church serves as HARRT's fiscal sponsor; checks made out to Spring Glen Church with "HARRT" in the memo line support the work, and donations can be made online through the church's giving page. The church's HARRT coordinator and core team of about a dozen volunteers have welcomed families from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, and other countries, helping them work toward self-sufficiency through English language learning, employment, and schooling.
Columbus House, Habitat, and the Wider Work
Spring Glen has cooked and served dinner at Columbus House, New Haven's shelter for people experiencing homelessness, for more than forty-five years. The congregation prepares and serves dinner once a month on the fourth Thursday, with a team shopping, cooking, and serving enough food for up to one hundred people. Each winter the church also serves as Abraham's Tent, an overflow shelter for twelve men from Columbus House, with volunteers cooking dinner, providing evening fellowship, and offering overnight assistance.
The church is a premier sponsor of the Sleeping Giant Build, Habitat for Humanity's Greater New Haven home-building initiative. Volunteers are regularly scheduled on Build Days. Service and Learning Training Trips (SaLT Trips) have taken groups to Boston, Washington DC, Appalachia, New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Oaxaca, Mexico. Food is collected every Sunday, with extra collections on Communion Sundays, for the Hamden Food Bank, Dunbar Davenport Elder Housing, and other partner organizations. Twice a year the church co-sponsors an Interfaith Blood Drive with Temple Beth Sholom. Working with the Town of Hamden Youth Services and Covenant to Care, the church donates backpacks, holiday gifts, spring baskets, and household items to families in need, and sponsors an apartment through Christian Community Action.
The church lists more than twenty partner organizations, including AIDS Project New Haven, Christian Community Action, City Seed, Clifford Beers, Domestic Violence Services, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, Dunbar Davenport Elder Housing, Fellowship Place, FISH, Habitat Sleeping Giant Build, Hamden Food Bank, Hamden Clergy Fuel Bank, Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, IRIS, Kiva, Rahma Relief Foundation, RIP Medical Debt, Simply Smiles, Columbus House, and Church World Service. Spring Glen is also a member of CONECT, a collective of more than thirty thousand people from churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and civic organizations in New Haven and Fairfield Counties that has organized around gun violence, health insurance rates, police reform, immigrant rights, and more.
The Work of Anti-Racism
Spring Glen's anti-racism ministry names the church's own history within the segregated Spring Glen neighborhood and identifies Freedom Riders, Selma marchers, and cellmates of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. among its forebears. The church has engaged in efforts ranging from the Civil Rights Movement to the Movement for Black Lives, including interracial partnerships, desegregating its pulpit, education reform, housing equity advocacy, and police accountability organizing. Internal work continues through ongoing studies and trainings, affinity groups for families of color, diversifying leadership and programming, and reclaiming historic partnerships. In 1967, in collaboration with Christian Community Action and other congregations, Spring Glen housed sixty parents and children displaced by unrest in a predominantly Black neighborhood of New Haven. In 1969 Spring Glen and Community Baptist partnered on an interracial Vacation Bible School.
Stewards of God's Creation
Spring Glen is a Certified Green Church through the Southern New England Conference's Green Congregation Challenge. With rooftop solar, the church's ministry is, as the sign on the roof says, "Powered by the Son and the Sun." EcoJustice is one of the church's six stated commitments and an ongoing area of education, advocacy, and reflection on creation care.
Accessibility Without Exception
The church has invested in physical accessibility for decades: an elevator, accessible bathrooms, a wheelchair-accessible pew, a ramp, accessible parking, door-opening buttons, and hearing assistance devices available in the narthex. The sanctuary received earphones in the front pews back in 1974 to make worship more accessible, and an accessibility elevator, pew cutout, bathrooms, and ramp were installed in 1992. The church describes itself as Dementia Friendly and Mental Health Friendly, and incorporates diverse learning and social needs in its programming. Auto-generated closed captioning is provided on the livestream. Communion offers non-alcoholic grape juice and gluten-free crackers, and gluten-free options are also available at fellowship hour.
Music, Theater Arts, and the Needle Arts
Music at Spring Glen is central. The Adult Choir, All Ages Pickup Choir, Handbell and Chime Choirs, and the PickUp Band share the musical work. The Theater Arts Ministry grew out of 1980s Deacons "Dinner Theater" fundraisers; a Theater Arts Ministry and Needle Arts circle round out the artistic life of the congregation. In March 2021 the church produced a virtual Godspell Sunday as a worship experience, and the church's YouTube channel includes sermon tapings, podcast author interviews, and the latest Sunday services.
The People Who Lead
The Senior Pastor is the Rev. Jack Perkins Davidson (he/him), a Colby College graduate in Music, World Religion, and Math who went on to Harvard Divinity School, where he took part in a special program examining the way religious studies and public education intersect in a pluralistic society. Before Spring Glen he served as Associate Minister of First Church in Redding, Connecticut.
The Director of Operations and Congregational Vitality is Karis Slattery, MDiv (she/they), who grew up in Philadelphia, was raised in the Mennonite and Catholic traditions, studied psychology, religious studies, and women's studies at Emmanuel College in Boston, worked in HIV/AIDS services and as a graphic designer, and graduated from Yale Divinity School and Andover Newton Seminary in 2020.
The Acting Children's Ministry Coordinator is Moriah Felder, MDiv (they/them), a Hampton University sociology graduate and 2019 Yale Divinity School graduate who served as a Youth Pastor for three years before joining the Spring Glen staff.
The Pastoral Consultant is the Rev. Mia J. Douglas (she/her), a former Director of Discipleship at Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford and former associate pastor at Faith Congregational Church in Hartford.
The Organist and Choir Director is Dr. Terese Gemme (she/her), a Massachusetts native with a Bachelor of Music from Anna Maria College, a Master of Music in Organ Performance from The Boston Conservatory, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.
Leda Zakarison (she/they), a second-year student at Yale Divinity School pursuing dual Master of Divinity and Master of Social Work degrees, joined as Seminarian Intern in September 2026 through the Andover Newton Seminary program at Yale.
The Rev. Clare Robert (she/her) recently retired as Chaplain and now serves as Pastor Emerita. Esther St Juste (she/her) serves as Childcare Specialist.
The lay-led council includes Moderator Pam Brownell, Steward for Membership Karen Giblin, Steward for Spiritual Life Michele Backus, Trustee Lucy Lucker, Treasurer Chuck Paul, and stewards across six ministry areas: Policy & Administration, Facilities & Sustainability, Spiritual Care, Community Care, Worship & Sacrament, Discipleship & Formation, and Justice & Witness.
A Teaching Church with a 2030 Plan
Spring Glen is a teaching church and a regular site for Divinity School Pastoral Internships in partnership with Andover Newton Seminary at Yale and the New Haven Association of the UCC. The congregation regularly supports multiple members in their discernment toward ordination. In January 2023 the church approved an ambitious Strategic Plan to propel the congregation toward its hundredth anniversary in 2029-2030, with the Launch Team's Proposed Staff & Volunteer Leadership Restructure approved at the May 2023 Annual Meeting. The plan emerged from the Reimagining Church program at Yale Divinity School and three years of church-wide discernment.
Visiting Spring Glen Church
Sunday worship is at 10am at 1825 Whitney Avenue, Hamden, CT 06517, with parking in the lot just north of the traffic circle. Dress is whatever feels right; you will see jeans and dresses in the same pew. The Order of Worship is available online, and a Google Meet Forum opens during the service for those who wish to follow along or participate remotely. The service is livestreamed on Facebook Live and YouTube, and auto-generated closed captioning is provided. Communion is celebrated the first Sunday of every month with non-alcoholic grape juice and gluten-free crackers available; everyone is welcome at the table. Children of all ages are welcome in worship; the toddler room opens at 9:45am, and children depart for Sunday School after Children's Time.
The church office can be reached at 203-288-3381 (option 1 for pastoral care emergencies, option 2 for immediate building access, option 3 for all other inquiries) or at SGC@SpringGlenChurch.org. Prayer requests and meal-train coordination can be sent to Prayer@SpringGlenChurch.org, and announcements for the weekly newsletter can be sent to Communications@SpringGlenChurch.org. The church is wheelchair accessible, with hearing assistance devices available in the narthex, gluten-free fellowship options, and a Memorial Garden for remembering loved ones. The building and grounds are available for use by non-profits and community groups aligned with the congregation's Open & Affirming values, and giving is available online or by mail to the church address.