A Neighborhood Congregation With a Century of Roots
St. Luke's Lutheran Church of Logan Square sits at 3325 West Wrightwood Avenue on the northwest side of Chicago, a 100-year-old building that has been home to a Lutheran congregation in the neighborhood for 125 years. In the fall of 2025 the church marked that milestone with a weekend of worship, a Saturday-night celebration at Revolution Brewing with Rev. Erik Christensen as the honored speaker, and a Reformation Sunday eucharist. The congregation describes itself in simple terms: rooted in its neighborhood and in relationships with one another, a mix of young and old, queer and straight, lifelong Lutherans and people with complicated spiritual pasts who have found this church a safe place to work that out on their own terms.
The church's welcome statement is also its clearest identity marker. It says the congregation strives to be radically welcoming, affirms all races, ethnicities, gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, and other diverse backgrounds, and names an ongoing journey toward antiracist and anti-oppression transformation as a lifelong spiritual practice. St. Luke's is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and a Reconciling in Christ congregation, a designation within the Lutheran tradition that publicly affirms LGBTQIA+ welcome.
Public Faith in Logan Square
St. Luke's describes its identity in the language of liberation theology, framing itself as a community that learns and reflects together about systemic sin, then takes meaningful action for justice and liberation. That work is visible in a long list of neighborhood partnerships. The congregation works for affordable and public housing with the Logan Square Ecumenical Alliance, partners with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association in solidarity with longtime residents, and works for a publicly funded mental health center through the Coalition to Save Our Mental Health Centers.
On issues of police brutality and racial justice, St. Luke's partners with The People's Lobby, SOUL, and the Chicago Community Bond Fund. The church also partners with Grace United Methodist Church to host community faith and justice events and to share space. An Antiracism Ministry and a Public Faith Team carry these commitments into ongoing programs, and the congregation regularly engages in action and reflection together.
Out in the neighborhood, that work takes the form of public witness. The Logan Square Ecumenical Alliance, a coalition St. Luke's helped found, gathers each year for Las Posadas with song, street theatre, and a march from the Eagle Monument to the church building, connecting the story of the Holy Family's search for shelter to the struggles of immigrant neighbors today. The Alliance also organizes an annual Palm Sunday march through the streets of Logan Square, with bilingual worship followed by a procession that proclaims Christ as the true king over every earthly political power.
Worship on Sunday Morning
Sunday morning worship gathers in person at 11:00 a.m. at 3325 West Wrightwood Ave. The service follows a Lutheran shape that has been the backbone of Christian worship for centuries: gathering, listening to God's Word, sharing a small meal of bread and wine or grape juice, and being sent out to love and serve the world. Holy Communion is offered every Sunday, and anyone who desires to encounter the real presence of God is welcome to come forward, whether or not they are a member or Lutheran.
Worship is intentionally traditional and contemporary at the same time. The congregation uses the ancient patterns, the creeds, and the Eucharist, and it also draws on contemporary words, songs, and prayers that reflect the many cultures and concerns that surround the neighborhood. Music is central. St. Luke's has a strong tradition of singing hymns in worship, and congregants are invited to join in singing when they feel comfortable. Guest artists and themed series draw on resources from A Sanctified Art, an arts collective whose work the church uses season by season.
The worship space is intimate and historic. Most seating is in pews, with sturdy wooden chairs (with no arms) and open spaces for wheelchairs or other mobility devices. A side chapel adjacent to the sanctuary offers a soft couch and rocking chair for infants and a quiet play area for children kindergarten-aged and younger; both require parental supervision. Bulletins and hymnals are provided for worshippers to follow along, and large-print bulletins are available on request. Restrooms include an all-gender option on the sanctuary level and men's and women's bathrooms on the lower level, with infant and toddler changing tables in both.
Accessibility and Visiting
Getting to St. Luke's is straightforward. The church is directly in front of the 82 Kimball-Homan bus stop and 0.3 miles from the Logan Square Blue Line Station, exiting to the southwest. Parking requires a short walk: the church does not have a parking lot, but free street parking is available on both sides of Kimball Avenue. Wrightwood Avenue parking is permit only, so visitors are encouraged to allow about ten minutes to park and find their way in.
Accessibility has shaped the church's design choices. The front doors require climbing two outside stairs, but a sidewalk-level lift provides access to both the sanctuary level and the lower fellowship hall. Twelve stairs lead up to the sanctuary from the front doors and twelve lead down to the fellowship hall, with the lift serving as an alternative. Pastor Erin welcomes visitors with particular accessibility needs to reach out in advance.
First-time visitors will not be asked to stand up and introduce themselves. Because the church is a small and growing community, people are greeted warmly when they walk in. Coffee hour, paused during the height of the pandemic, is gradually returning. Dress is whatever the visitor feels comfortable in; people arrive from all walks of life, and the church's gentle counsel is that God accepts each person as they are, not as they are dressed. No one is pressured to give money; offering is a chance to give from abundance, and online giving is available.
Children, Youth, and Intergenerational Faith
Children are not just welcome at St. Luke's; they are a defining part of how the congregation understands its life. The Children's Ministry nurtures children by including them in worship and giving them freedom to roam, listening to them, organizing regular intergenerational events, encouraging faith formation at home, and celebrating milestones like baptism, communion, and confirmation. Children of all ages are present in the pews, and the side chapel is there for families with infants and toddlers.
For older kids, a small group of middle and high school youth meets regularly to ask big questions, grow in faith, and serve in community. Sunday School is intergenerational in practice, with programming that spans ages. Faith formation is treated as something that takes place both inside the building and at home, and resources like the Spark Story Bible are part of the church's recommended family library.
Holy Week is one place where the intergenerational approach is most visible. The church publishes a guide to keeping Holy Week with children that walks families through Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday with foot washing at home, Good Friday with sensory stations and the Easter Story Egg, and an Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday celebration with an Easter Egg Hunt in partnership with Unity Park and Grace Church. The guide is gentle and theologically serious, encouraging parents to wonder with children about suffering and resurrection rather than offering pat answers.
Music and the Arts
Bev Jedynak has been the primary musician at St. Luke's since 2012 and was named Cantor in 2016, a role she describes as the leader of the church's song. She is committed to including everyone in music making, from the smallest toddler just beginning to demonstrate rhythmic skills to the most advanced musicians, and she brings more than two decades of prior experience as Cantor at Park View Lutheran Church and as minister of music at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of Chicago. Bev also sings with common pulse, a vocal ensemble and project of Chicago Artists for Action.
The arts are also woven into the building itself. Gallery Wrightwood is an anti-capitalist, artist-led community project hosted inside the 100-year-old church building. The gallery hosts art shows, workshops, and gatherings, with a focus on making art accessible to a diverse audience and showing human-made works that speak to urgent social issues. While the gallery is hosted through a progressive Christian church, its programming is not explicitly centered on the Christian faith, and it welcomes non-faith-based gatherings. A quilt show fills the sanctuary during Lent each year, and the church has also hosted artists in residence who preach and create for the season.
Beliefs and the Lutheran Tradition
St. Luke's is rooted in the theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The congregation's statement of faith quotes him directly: Martin Luther once wrote that faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, impossible not to be doing good things unceasingly. For St. Luke's, faith is a relationship that God's Holy Spirit creates, a relationship where God's promise of steadfast love and mercy in Jesus opens a person to bold trust in God and joyful, generous service to everyone they meet.
Faith does not, in this Lutheran reading, close minds to the world or hearts to others. The congregation continues to listen to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, to the witness of others, and to the ways God is active in the world. The church names itself a Reconciling in Christ congregation, an ELCA designation that publicly affirms LGBTQIA+ welcome and commitment. As a Reconciling in Christ church, St. Luke's publicly commits to the welcome of all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Justice and Community Work
Justice is not a separate program at St. Luke's; it is integrated into worship, study, and relationships. The Public Faith Team and the Antiracism Ministry coordinate ongoing work on affordable housing, mental health access, immigration rights, and racial justice. Partnerships with The People's Lobby, the Chicago Community Bond Fund, SOUL, and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association bring the church into campaigns for police accountability and tenant protections.
Reading together is part of that work. The church has hosted book events with authors like Dr. Marvin E. Wickware, Jr., Associate Professor of Church and Society and Ethics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, whose book Loving through Enmity: Healing the Broken Heart of Christian Antiracist Work was the focus of a January potluck and conversation. Other events have paired music, food, and conversation, from Latin Jazz Sundays to Lenten community suppers.
Direct service shows up in smaller ways too. During the December Las Posadas gathering, the church partners with The Parlor to host a Take a Coat, Give a Coat collection for neighbors who need winter wear. The annual Easter Egg Hunt with Unity Park is open to children across the neighborhood. Coffee hours after Sunday worship offer space for hospitality. And during Advent, the church invites members to share testimonies about fear and hope in worship, building community through the act of telling real stories.
Holy Week, Advent, and the Church Year
The church follows the rhythms of the Christian year carefully. Advent begins the final Sunday of November and focuses on themes like What Do You Fear? Insisting on Hope, with weekly focal scriptures that walk through Luke's story of the birth of Jesus in the time of Herod. Christmas Eve features two joint services with Grace Church at 4:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., an interactive intergenerational service with Holy Communion and candle lighting, followed by a quieter candlelight service.
Lent at St. Luke's begins on Ash Wednesday with both a daylong open space for prayer and ashes and a 7:00 p.m. ecumenical worship. Wednesdays in Lent feature a 6:30 p.m. Dinner Church with food and liturgy together, and Sundays bring coffee hour after the 11:00 a.m. service. Holy Week culminates in the Great Three Days: Maundy Thursday with foot washing and stripping of the altar, Good Friday with the ancient bidding prayer, and the Easter Vigil with lighting of the new fire, stories of salvation, and affirmation of baptism, followed by Easter Sunday's festive eucharist and celebratory potluck.
Pastor Erin Coleman Branchaud and Cantor Bev Jedynak
Pastor Erin Coleman Branchaud has served as pastor of St. Luke's since 2018. She is a graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where she focused on faith-based community organizing as a methodology for mission and discipleship. She brings a deep sense of call to work with God for transformative economic, racial, and gender justice and loves to tell stories and sing songs. Before moving to Chicago in 2014, she served as a Young Adults in Global Mission volunteer in Grand Bourg, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and worked in congregations and campus ministry in Nebraska. She is a member of common pulse vocal ensemble and a leader with the Faith Liberation Movement of The People's Lobby.
Cantor Bev Jedynak is the church's primary musician and has shaped St. Luke's sung life since 2012. She sees the cantor as the leader of the church's song, with a calling to include everyone in the music making. Outside of church, Bev provides investor relations and public relations services through her firm, Bevlyn Consulting, which she started in 2014.
Getting Involved
St. Luke's makes it easy to get involved at any level. Visitors can fill out a Get Connected form online to be in touch with the pastor about ways to participate, sign up to serve in worship, or pick up information about the church's ministries. A volunteer interest form for Gallery Wrightwood connects neighbors to the church's arts programming. The newsletter keeps subscribers informed of upcoming events each week.
Giving is available online through Church Center, and gifts are used both for the work of the congregation in Logan Square and shared with siblings in need across the ELCA and around the world. The church maintains a presence on Facebook, Twitter/X, and YouTube, where occasional panels and events are shared. Pastoral conversations with Pastor Erin are always available by email for those considering a first visit or exploring membership.