On a quiet corner of Jefferson NE in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights, just across Copper Street from the Texaco station where it all began in 1947, Saint Timothy's Lutheran Church has spent more than seven decades welcoming neighbors, feeding the hungry, and making room at the table for everyone who walks through its doors. A Reconciling in Christ congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, St. Tim's lives by a short motto - Love, Serve, Explore - and by a long list of people who have put those words into practice, from the founding families who met in a gas station basement to the current generation partnering with refugee resettlement agencies and food pantries around the city.
Radical Welcome from the Front Door
Saint Timothy's is known first and foremost for the breadth of its welcome. The welcome statement at the front of the congregation's life lists longtime Lutherans, Christians from every tradition, people new to the faith, believers, non-believers, and questioning believers, along with everyone who has been marginalized for any reason. It names children in all their joyful noise, people of every racial identity, and LGBTQIA+ people of all gender identities, gender expressions, and sexual orientations. The statement closes with an explicit commitment to antiracism in the church, the community, and the world.
That welcome is lived out in practical ways on Sunday morning. Greeters stand near each entrance holding bulletins and pointing visitors toward the sanctuary. Two parking lots - one on the north side of the building on Jefferson, the other on the southern corner of Jefferson and Copper - keep the morning easier for newcomers. There is no dress code, and worshipers arrive in everything from jeans to business suits. Communion is open to all who wish to receive it, and those who prefer a blessing instead are invited to come forward as well. Both wine and grape juice are offered, with gluten-free, dairy-free wafers available. An ASL interpreter moves with the worship leaders throughout the service, and hearing aids are available in the lobby for anyone who asks. Restrooms include a single-user option with a changing table, and the building is set up so that children are welcomed in worship with activity areas in the sanctuary itself rather than separated out.
Sunday Morning at 9:30
The congregation gathers for worship every Sunday at 9:30 a.m. in the sanctuary, with Pastor Matt Powell presiding and the church's music program led by Music Director Trudy Evans. Each service runs about an hour. Worship is livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel for those who cannot attend in person, and a sermon archive is available there and on SoundCloud.
At 11:00 a.m. the building opens up for parallel learning. Adults gather in the Nazareth room for Adult Education, currently working through a video and discussion series that takes a careful, questioning look at the historical Jesus for today. The class also meets on Zoom for anyone who would rather join remotely. Children gather at the same hour for Godly Play Sunday School, a Montessori-based curriculum that uses storytelling and play to introduce young ones to the biblical story and the rhythms of the liturgical year.
Each week a small team of Prayer Leaders composes the Prayers of the People, written specifically for this congregation and this community rather than pulled from a stock resource. Other laypeople serve as Lectors, Worship Assistants, Healing Prayer ministers, ushers, and greeters; the church runs a sign-up sheet for anyone who would like to serve.
The Story of St. Tim's, from a Gas Station to a Sanctuary
The congregation's story begins in the years after the Second World War. The Rev. Leland Soker of St. Paul's Lutheran Church noticed that most of Albuquerque's growth was happening on the east side and recommended to the regional Synod that a new mission be planted in the Northeast Heights. St. Paul's agreed, and from that congregation came the nucleus of what would become Saint Timothy's. At the time, St. Paul's was part of the United Lutheran Church in America, one of the predecessor bodies of what is today the ELCA.
The Rev. Homer Berner arrived in August 1947 as the first pastor and mission developer. He found a small and determined group of people already meeting in the basement of a Texaco station on the northeast corner of Carlisle and Central. There were firsts of every kind in those early months, including the first congregational meeting, the first Christmas service, and the first celebration of Holy Communion. The congregation was formally organized on May 23, 1948.
On September 9, 1951, the congregation moved into its own building at the corner of Jefferson and Copper NE, where it remains today. On May 19, 1968, the congregation broke ground for the present sanctuary and community room, the heart of what is now the church campus. By the mid-1950s the church had grown to more than 1,100 members on the rolls, with peak Sunday School attendance reaching 345 in 1955. The congregation marked its 75th anniversary in 2023 with a picnic, archival photos, and a timeline displayed in the narthex; a fuller history of those years was written by congregant Dan Rader and is available to read.
Out of that growth came one of the church's most lasting gifts to Albuquerque. Under a pastor in those early decades, Pr. Scholl, the congregation began feeding the hungry in the neighborhood. Pr. Scholl eventually resigned to found two of the state's most important anti-hunger organizations - the Storehouse Food Pantry and the Roadrunner Food Bank - and St. Tim's has remained connected to that work through a long partnership with the Storehouse that continues today.
The church begins every gathering with a land acknowledgment, remembering that the building at Jefferson and Copper sits on the ancestral homelands of the Tiwa-speaking peoples of Sandia and Isleta, between Shiewhibak (Isleta Pueblo) and Tuf Shur Tia (Sandia Pueblo), and honoring those peoples as the original stewards of the place.
Beliefs, Mission, and Values
St. Timothy's mission statement names itself as a supportive community of believers committed to Christ who come together to nourish their beliefs, plant the seed of the Gospel, and reach out in joy to share their faith and blessings with their communities. Four guiding principles flow from that mission: there is one God, known through Jesus; living in relationship with God changes people; everyone is welcome and needed; and the church invites others to experience God's love within the community.
The values that frame the congregation's life are rooted in faith and the Lutheran confessional tradition. Forgiveness and reconciliation begin with God's mercy and flow outward in speech, action, and relationships. Each person is created in God's image, so the church works to uphold dignity, compassion, and justice for all. Inclusion and diversity are celebrated rather than treated as a barrier to unity, and the church commits itself to challenging dynamics of power and privilege that exclude women, people of color, minority ethnic groups, people with disabilities, those living in poverty or at the margins, and the LGBTQ community. Courage and openness to change come from trusting God to make the church a living, daring community willing to take risks. And faithful stewardship is understood as holding carefully what God has entrusted, with accountability to God, to one another, and to those the church serves.
The congregation lives within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has publicly declared itself a Reconciling in Christ denomination, and St. Tim's is one of the ELCA congregations that has gone through the additional RIC designation process. That process is about more than welcoming LGBTQ people; the church's RIC team frames it as two questions: How has the church hurt people, and how do we fix it? Work on those questions at St. Tim's has included explicit conversation about the ELCA's 2019 Declaration to People of African Descent and ongoing conversations about race, power, and privilege.
Prayer Ministries that Center the Week
Prayer is one of the deepest rhythms of the congregation. The most unusual offering is Triad Prayer, a small-group practice introduced by a former pastor from the book Unbinding the Gospel. Groups of three sit in silence for two minutes, ask God to surface one thing they would like the others to pray about, share those requests in turn, and then pray out loud or in silence for one another. What is said in the group stays in the group. The practice now closes the Wednesday evening Prayer Gathering and the Tuesday book study, and many in the congregation have found it to be among the most cherished parts of parish life.
Healing Prayer is offered once a month at stations set up in the back of the church, usually on the third or fourth Sunday of the month. Trained prayer ministers sit with anyone who comes; everything shared is confidential. The Healing Prayer team understands the healing as God's work, with laypeople simply serving as conduits for the Holy Spirit.
The Prayer Chain, coordinated by Beth Neer, is a network of twenty-six members who receive emailed prayer requests and pray individually for each one. Anyone can ask to have a request placed on the chain through a member or through the church office, and the requests stay within the chain itself. Beyond these programs, the Prayers of the People are written each week by a rotating group of Prayer Leaders who compose intercessions specifically for this community.
Adults Learning Together
Adult Education meets at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings and is also offered on Zoom for those joining from home. Recent curricula have included Saving Jesus Redux, a twelve-episode conversation with biblical scholars about Jesus in the twenty-first century, and other series built around books of the Bible such as Job. Each session typically includes a short read-ahead and a set of questions, and no prior knowledge of the Bible is required. The class is open to anyone who shows up.
The Book Club meets roughly once a month in member homes, rotating through fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and poetry. Past selections have ranged from Kenneth Wheeler's US: The Resurrection of American Terror, an ELCA pastor's confrontation with American white supremacy, to Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain, to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. Hosts and book nominations rotate, and the conversation is open to skeptics and believers alike.
The Healing Prayer team also serves as one of the congregation's quieter learning communities, sharing formation in the basics of spiritual accompaniment.
Children, Youth, and Families
Godly Play Sunday School meets at 11:00 a.m. on Sundays, parallel to the adult class. Children gather in their own space to hear the stories of the biblical tradition told with materials that invite wonder and response. The model takes seriously the idea that even the youngest members of the community are full participants in the life of the church.
Youth ministry is organized around the rhythms of the wider church year, including intergenerational gatherings during Advent and Lent, participation in Holy Week services, and shared meals. The Altar Guild welcomes youth and adults who want to learn the work behind the chancel and the sacraments. During Lent the church has used the SALT Project's "Love Builds Up" family challenge as a way of helping households mark the season together at home.
A long-running tradition at the church is the homemade communion bread used at worship. A small group of bakers prepares loaves that the congregation shares at the table, and the recipe has been passed along to anyone who wants to contribute. Families often bake together as a way of sharing in the work of worship beyond the sanctuary.
Music and the Arts
Music Director Trudy Evans leads the church's music ministry, supporting a choir and instrumentalists who shape each Sunday's worship. The congregation draws on a broad range of musical textures, with piano, choir, organ, and other instruments serving both classic liturgical settings and contemporary song. Evans, who came to the congregation with more than three decades of experience at the piano and at the voice, has spoken about her work with the choir as one of the deepest expressions of community she knows.
Worship through the church year uses the strengths of that program. Lent brings reflective midweek services with choir, organ, and extended silence. Advent gatherings partner with neighboring St. Paul Lutheran Church for midweek worship with Holden Evening Prayer, soup suppers, and shared study. Christmas Eve includes a candlelight service at 6:30 p.m. with communion, followed by a chocolate-and-cookies reception in the Community Room. Easter brings brass, timpani, and special choral music at the 9:30 a.m. festival service, along with an Easter brunch and egg hunt for the children.
Community Partners and Outreach
St. Tim's has long treated outreach not as a program at the edge of congregational life but as the natural outflow of its identity in Christ. The Community Partners ministry gathers around four cornerstone relationships and several hands-on projects.
Storehouse New Mexico. The congregation's deepest historical tie runs to the Storehouse Food Pantry, founded by one of St. Tim's early pastors. The Storehouse now distributes free groceries to about 50,000 people a year across New Mexico, without regard to race, faith, age, gender, or disability. Members of the congregation volunteer regularly and contribute financially.
Family Promise of Albuquerque. Family Promise works to keep families experiencing or at risk of homelessness housed and stable in the long term. Volunteers from St. Tim's contribute to shelter, case management, and stabilization services alongside Family Promise's own staff.
Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains (LFSRM). The LFSRM Refugee and Asylee Programs help newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers establish self-sufficiency in their first year in the United States, with intensive casework, language instruction, and integration support. St. Tim's is one of many congregations in the synod that accompanies this work.
Umoja Abq. Umoja Abq is an independent 501(c)(3) that was established at St. Timothy's in 2019. Its mission is to empower refugee women through education while honoring their cultural values. Programs include driver's manual classes, English as a Second Language classes for pre-literate adults, and family health classes and activities, with interpreters supporting learning in each woman's first language. St. Tim's provides classroom and office space, volunteers, and a welcoming environment for the program.
Lunch bags and clothing for the community. Each week the congregation prepares lunch bags that are distributed at the office entry of the church, set out for unhoused neighbors and anyone who needs them. The church also collects clothing for the same purpose. Donations of food and other supplies are always welcome.
Members are encouraged to volunteer through any of these projects, and the church maintains an interest form on its home page that connects newcomers with a group matching their interests and time.
The Liturgical Year at St. Tim's
The congregation observes the seasons of the church year deeply. Ash Wednesday is marked both by a traditional 6:00 p.m. worship with imposition of ashes and by "Ashes to Go" in the south parking lot, where Pastor Matt and volunteers offer ashes, scripture, and prayer to anyone who walks or drives up between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and again from 4 to 6 p.m. The Mardi Gras pancake supper a few days earlier includes a courtyard burning of the previous year's Palm Sunday branches, making the ashes that will be used throughout the season.
Lent includes five Thursday evenings of brief worship in the sanctuary followed by a soup supper in the Community Room, often in conversation with neighboring St. Paul Lutheran Church. Holy Week is anchored by a Maundy Thursday service with foot washing or another expression of the new commandment and a celebration of Holy Communion, a prayer vigil that runs through the night into Good Friday, and Good Friday worship built around the Passion according to John. The Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday complete the Triduum, with Easter Sunday followed by brunch and an Easter egg hunt for the children.
Advent brings a series of Wednesday or Thursday midweek gatherings, again in partnership with St. Paul Lutheran Church, with supper and study. Christmas Eve includes the candlelight service described above, with the church's signature hot chocolate and cookies afterward. The CrossLight, the congregation's monthly newsletter, carries the calendar forward across each season, and the church's online calendar at sttimsabq@gmail.com reflects all events.
Music, the Building, and Sensory Access
The present building, with its sanctuary and the adjoining Community Room, was completed in the late 1960s and continues to serve the congregation in a variety of ways. The sanctuary holds the principal Sunday worship, weddings, funerals, and the seasonal services described above. The Community Room hosts the soup suppers of Lent and Advent, the Mardi Gras pancake dinner, the post-Christmas Eve reception, the welcome gatherings for new ministry staff and interns, and various fellowship events throughout the year.
The building is intentionally set up for accessibility. The ASL interpreter for Sunday worship is a regular part of the service and moves with the presider throughout the chancel. Hearing aids are available in the lobby for anyone who would like to use one. Two sets of multi-user restrooms with individual stalls sit near the south entrance by the fellowship hall, and a single-user restroom with a changing table is near the adult education room.
Pastoral Leadership and Interns
The congregation is led by Pastor Matt Powell, who oversees the preaching, teaching, and pastoral care of the parish. The Music Director is Trudy Evans, who shapes the choir and instrumental music program and supports the work of the organist and other musicians. The church office is staffed by Joshua, the Office Administrator. Members of the Church Council include Council President Karla Eickhoff, Vice President Nathan White, and Secretary Greg Noth. A Pastoral Intern, John Emery, serves a year of formation alongside the pastor and other ministry leaders, participating fully in worship leadership and being welcomed into the rhythms of congregational life.
Getting Involved at St. Tim's
For anyone who would like to connect more deeply, the church maintains an interest form on its home page that links newcomers with a group matching their interests and time. Active congregational activities include Adult Education, the Altar Guild, the Choir, the Sewing Group, Sunday School, Women's Ministries, the Book Club, the ROMEO Men's Breakfast Group, the Healing Prayer ministry, the Prayer Chain, Triad Prayer, the Prayer Leaders team, and Youth Ministry. Special seasonal projects include the SALT Project family challenges of Lent, the homemade communion bread ministry, the Thanksgiving baskets for neighbors in need, the Advent giving tree, and the church's outreach to refugee families through Umoja Abq and Lutheran Family Services.
Giving is supported through a PayPal donate button linked from the church's home page. The CrossLight newsletter, archived back to August 2025 and continuing through 2026, carries detailed stories about each of these ministries, along with a calendar of upcoming events and reflections from the pastor and members. Newcomers are invited to fill out an interest form at any time, and the church's staff and lay leaders are happy to talk in person on Sunday morning or through the office during the week.
More than seven decades after that first Christmas service in a gas station basement, Saint Timothy's continues to be a place where the welcome is wide, the questions are taken seriously, and the work of loving one's neighbor shows up in concrete acts throughout the city. The congregation gathers on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. at 211 Jefferson NE in Albuquerque, with livestream, Adult Education, Godly Play Sunday School, and a deep bench of music, prayer, and outreach ministries waiting for anyone who would like to join in.