Epiphany Lutheran Church is located in Denver's Washington Park neighborhood.  We are a congregation of around 190 folks, around half of whom gather for worship any given week of the year.  We've been here at Corona and Ohio since 1938, and a few have connections to the congregation that date even further back.  Many of us have been here just a few years.

Here is some basic information about us:

We're Christians.  That term can carry some baggage.  Christians are people who encounter God in Jesus and the activity of the Holy Spirit.  The Bible is a book of God's people.  In that book, we experience again and anew the ways in which God's people have encountered the divine. We believe the living word is not a book, but an encounter with scripture and the Spirit.  We view the Bible reverantly, seriously, thoughfully, and critically.

We're Lutherans.  Lutherans are Christians who understand the world and the church in the world through a particular way of being together.  Without going into a history of the 16th century Reformation, Lutherans are held by the experience that God's grace always comes to us freely.  We receive it just as we are and who we are.  In fact, Lutherans think human beings are never all good or all evil, but always some of both. We view humanity and all creation as beautiful, complex, broken, and beloved. Jesus is the one in whom we encounter God's goodness filling humanity.  We think this is radically liberating: You don't have to "get saved" by making a choice or invitation to God.  You don't have to be good enough.  God loves you and grace calls you to respond to that love with a life more and more reflective of that love. We especially and tangibly are embraced by grace when we encounter the living word together, are baptized and marked as God's own, and share the communion meal together.

(A lot of these ideas were [more eloquently and thoroughly] expressed by Martin Luther, a German monk who after many years of spiritual and personal turmoil, decided there had to be a better way to do church. One that didn't involve people paying money to get a better seat in the afterlife, among other things.  So he married a former nun, got in not a little bit of trouble with the powers-that-be, got kicked out of the church, and inspired a lot of people.  "Lutheran" was a derogatory term impressed upon those who found his proclamation compelling.  Here in the US and some other parts of the world, it stuck.  Go figure.)

We're the church.  Well, yes and no.  Anytime a few gather together in Jesus' name, you have the church.  The universal church is of all times and places, and when we gather, we're a part of that body that transcends culture, time, and space.  And because we believe God is graceful and a lot more mysterious and broad than we are, we believe that while we are the church, we are not the church alone.  We know, it's paradoxical. But so is life!

We don't have all the answers. There, it's out in the open.  We don't tell people what to do.  Together, we encounter the living God in Jesus.  And when we do that, around simple stuff like scripture, water, bread, and wine, God works through the gathering. We discover what we were born to do: Love God and love our neighbors. Sometimes we get comforted by what we find.  Sometimes we get challenged by it.

Here's a link to a site with some more reflection on all this: It's good stuff.  And of course, the best way to experience this kind of faith community is to spend some time with us. www.sharingfaith.org