A Liberal Congregation on Harriet Avenue
Judson Memorial Baptist Church sits at the corner of 41st and Harriet in the Kingfield neighborhood of southwest Minneapolis, where it has been a gathering place for more than a century. The congregation describes itself as a thriving, liberal American Baptist community whose motto - Bring Your Hopes. Bring Your Doubts. Feed Your Soul - sets the tone for everything that happens inside and outside the building. Members include lifelong Baptists alongside Lutherans, Catholics, Buddhists, Southern Baptists, agnostics, and people still deciding what they believe; the common thread is a desire for community and an openness to growing and learning together.
The church is open and affirming of its LGBTQIA+ siblings, welcomes people regardless of age, gender identity, gender expression, health, race, sexual identity, ability, religious or ethnic background, or economic circumstance, and has built a public life around racial and climate justice, reparations, and neighborhood service. Sunday worship begins at 9:30 a.m. in the sanctuary, is livestreamed on YouTube, and is followed by a parade of small groups, choirs, classes, and community events that fill the rest of the week.
What to Expect on Sunday Morning
Anyone is welcome to walk in as a guest on Sunday morning. Dress however you like; the pastor wears bow ties, but most people arrive in comfortable clothing from casual to athleisure. The service blends prayer, music, scripture, sermon, and community reflection in a relaxed atmosphere. Worshipers sing the Lord's Prayer using Parker Palmer's version rather than reciting it, and tissues sit in every pew for the days when the music moves people to tears. Laughter is encouraged, and the church describes its coffee as the best in the Midwest (except on the days someone accidentally brings decaf).
About twice a month a member of the community offers a five to seven minute Personal Reflection. Topics have ranged from why a person prays and why a person does not believe in God to birding, grief, and unexpected corners of spiritual life. A prayer-intentions paper is set out for anyone who wants to write down what is on their heart. Communion is observed on the first Sunday of every month, and the table is open to all.
After the Lord's Prayer, children are invited to join Jessica downstairs for their own time, and any child who prefers to stay in the sanctuary is welcome to do so. Anyone who arrives at the door by bike, bus, car, or on foot and finds they cannot come in that day is told that test runs are perfectly fine; the livestream offers another way in.
A Building That Generates Its Own Power
The building at 41st and Harriet is more than a worship space; it is a community anchor that has been retrofitted for the climate era. Judson has committed to being a zero-waste community and has invested in a rooftop solar array that produces about 70,000 kilowatt-hours of clean electricity a year. The sanctuary organ, played by organist Jim Wentink, and the choir under music director John De Haan still fill the room each week, while the rest of the building - the Ann Judson Room, the library, the Fellowship Hall, the kitchen, and the outdoor gardens - hums with meetings, rehearsals, and neighborhood events.
An elevator serves all levels of the building; visitors enter by way of the red arcade door on Harriet Avenue, next to the playground. From Monday through Saturday the call button at the arcade door lets visitors into the building. The Kingfield neighborhood can also paddle in by canoe to reach the church, alongside walkers, bikers, bus riders, and drivers.
A Hundred and Fifteen Years on the Corner
Judson's history goes back to 1909, when it began as an extension of Calvary Baptist Church with the construction of the Judson Memorial Chapel at 38th and Harriet. As that part of Minneapolis grew, so did the congregation; on November 16, 1909, Judson Church was formally incorporated and a new building was planned at its present location. The cornerstone was laid on March 21, 1915, and the current sanctuary was added in 1927.
The early congregation set a vision for Judson to be a neighborhood religious, social, and recreation center. Over more than a century the church has lived that vision by opening its doors to musical concerts, art shows, book launches, lectures, yoga classes, writing groups, painting groups, theater groups, and opera companies, and by hosting scout troops and neighborhood festivals. At various points in its history the building has housed a community counseling center, hosted the Judson Street Fest, and supported a playground. Today it continues to do the same work in updated forms, offering office and kitchen space for TRUST Meals on Wheels, hosting the Judson Preschool, and providing gathering space for neighborhood events such as Kingfield's Empty Bowls.
Judson has also hosted the Plowline concert series and similar community programming in its sanctuary. Future plans for deepening that history have included a Judson History Series and an online history of the congregation's outward focus.
The People Who Lead and Serve
Pastor Travis Norvell has served Judson since July 2012. A West Virginia native and graduate of Marshall University and Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (the school of Martin Luther King, Jr.), he previously pastored churches in West Virginia, Rhode Island, and New Orleans, and also teaches as an adjunct faculty member at United Seminary of the Twin Cities. In 2022 Judson Press published his book Church on the Move: A Practical Guide for Ministry in the Community, and in 2024 he received the Judson Press Ministry Award. His writing has appeared in The Christian Century, Sojourners, the Star Tribune, and MinnPost, and during Minneapolis winters his bicycle commute reports air on Minnesota Public Radio with Cathy Wurzer.
John De Haan has been Judson's Director of Music since 2006. A tenor with a Master of Music in Voice Performance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a tenured Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Minnesota, he previously served as Director of Music at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Mounds View. He sang opera full time in Europe from 1985 to 1995, where he met his wife Jane.
Jim Wentink has been organist at Judson since 2001. A Bemidji State graduate in vocal music with an organ minor, he began playing at age three on an Emenee chord organ and went on to study with Paul Manz and David Cherwien. Before Judson he spent twelve years as organist at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Mounds View.
Carolyn Kolovitz serves as Spiritual Formation Director. A spiritual director and retreat facilitator at Loyola Spirituality Center, she leads workshops on spiritually guiding children and teens and on spiritual grandparenting. She has a master's degree in women's studies and is close to finishing a master's in theology at St. Catherine's.
Elizebeth Brazeal is a resident musician and a student of John De Haan who joined the staff in 2023 after graduating from Simpson College in 2021. Polly Schrom, a longtime member who sings in the choir, coordinates worship after retiring from forty years of nonprofit work and is now studying at Luther Seminary's School of Lay Ministry. Theresa Stansbury and Joe Harris joined the choir in the fall of 2025. Eileen McLaughlin has been part of the Judson community for over twenty-five years and joined the office staff in April 2012 as office manager, the person to reach for most questions and visitor needs.
The Choir, the Coffee, and the Rhythm of the Week
Judson's midweek calendar is anchored by choir rehearsals on Wednesday evenings from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. in the sanctuary. Rehearsals are open to newcomers with no audition required. A morning Women's Group gathers at the church, a Mahjongg group plays in the Ann Judson Room, and small study circles such as Spiritual Voyagers meet on Zoom to think through topics like finding joy in stressful times.
Carolyn Kolovitz leads a monthly online Welcoming Prayer session on the first Monday of each month. The half-hour gathering centers on the Welcoming Prayer practice of consenting to the Spirit's presence in physical and emotional reactions to daily life, opens with a Rumi poem, and leaves space for participant reflection. Carolyn also facilitates Sabbatical and other renewal programming at the church.
The Racial Justice Team meets virtually on the second Monday of each month, the Climate Justice Team on the fourth Thursday, and the Judson Queer Alliance, the Property Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Council all keep their own regular rhythms. Monthly calendars keep all of these gatherings visible to members and friends.
A Welcoming and Affirming Community
Judson's welcome is more than language. The church is a Welcoming and Affirming congregation of its LGBTQIA+ siblings, and the Judson Queer Alliance (JQA) keeps that posture active. JQA has sponsored booths at the Twin Cities and Golden Valley Pride Festivals, supported Judson youth in leading information sessions about gender and sexuality, hosted Our Whole Lives classes for young people, and promoted the use of gender pronouns by Judson families.
Congregational life makes room for any number of voices. Personal Reflections bring lay members to the front of the sanctuary to talk about prayer, doubt, art, birding, grief, or whatever is on their heart. Artist Sundays invite painters, sculptors, quilters, knitters, photographers, poets, musicians, bakers, and other makers to display their work in and around the sanctuary during the Sunday service. The JPS Pot Luck Dinner brings the preschool community together several times a year. A weekly Friday email called Judson Connections carries Sunday details, event news, and Travis's Welcome Wednesday videos to anyone who signs up.
Racial Justice, Reparations, and the Land
Racial justice is one of the central commitments of the congregation. The Racial Justice Team has spent several years studying, teaching, and putting money where its vows are. In May of 2024 the congregation voted to add a line item of one thousand dollars to the annual budget for reparations, with a pledge to learn together before distributing the funds. Four after-worship sessions walked the congregation through the history of American Baptist complicity in slavery, Minnesota state history on the land where Judson sits, and the meaning of reparations as land and labor theft. A Sacred Sites Tour led by Jim Bear Jacobs of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation took fifty Judson members and friends to St. Peter's Church in Mendota Heights, Fort Snelling State Park, and Pilot Knob Hill, gathering around a deeper history of the Dakota people and the first concentration camps in the United States.
Judson's reparations fund has been distributed in two directions. On May 6, 2025 the fund was given to the Minneapolis American Indian Center, which serves 4,400 American Indians from forty-three tribes and celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2025. On May 2, 2025 a second gift from a rock-opera workshop was given to the We Win Institute, which serves Black children and youth. Whenever the Judson choir or congregation sings or performs an African American spiritual, a Spiritual Royalties collection is taken for the choral program at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, the oldest historically Black college to begin offering courses in the South.
Moral Mondays have become a weekly fixture of public witness. Every Monday at 4:30 p.m. about thirty-five Judson members, neighbors, and friends gather at 40th and Lyndale Avenue to sing, hold signs, and stand a vigil for what the church describes as a return to decency, humanity, and morality in national government. A potluck dinner back at the fellowship hall often follows.
A new iteration of the congregation's Land Acknowledgement was adopted after months of research, learning, and revision. The statement names Mini Sota Makoce - Land where the Waters Reflect the Sky - as the ancestral home of the Dakhóta Wahpekute people and remembers the forced removal of the Wahpekute through relocation, warfare, execution, imprisonment, starvation, disease, and forced assimilation. It commits Judson to standing with Dakhóta, Anishinaabe, and other Indigenous neighbors and to learning from them. The acknowledgement is read aloud during Sunday worship on Communion Sunday and before every public event in the sanctuary.
Climate Justice and Creation Care
The Environmental and Climate Justice Team meets on the fourth Thursday of every month to plan educational events and to advocate for stewardship policies at the local, state, and national level. Judson is a certified Climate Justice Congregation through Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light, a faith-based organization that co-creates a just and sustainable world by building transformative climate leadership. The church's zero-waste pledge and rooftop solar array are the most visible fruit of that work; the gardens and grounds that members tend on work days are a smaller, daily one.
Neighbors at the Table: Meals on Wheels, Starfish, Joyce, and Shapan
For decades Judson has housed the TRUST Meals on Wheels office and kitchen in its building. The program delivers nutritious meals five days a week to seniors age sixty and older who cannot prepare their own meals, and Judson members regularly join the roster of volunteer drivers.
Starfish Ministries is a partnership begun in January 2011 between Judson and Bethlehem Lutheran Church to help families facing short-term emergency financial needs. Requests typically involve rent, transportation, utilities, or food; the monthly budget is usually exhausted within days, but the ministry keeps going. Gifts to Starfish can be made through Judson's giving page.
Judson is also a supporting congregation of the Joyce Uptown Food Shelf, a 501(c)(3) organization that distributes food to neighbors in need across uptown Minneapolis, and helps sustain the Shapan Orphanage on the Myanmar-China border, a home for forty-four children that receives no government funding. Members also participate in One Great Hour of Sharing, the American Baptist relief and development offering promoted each year in May and June.
Another long-running partnership is with Trust Incorporated, a non-profit formed in 1970 by eight south Minneapolis congregations, now nineteen congregations strong, that unites and mobilizes the community to serve and empower neighbors. Judson members serve on TRUST boards, help with programming, and welcome the close collaboration as part of their neighborhood vocation.
Judson Preschool and the Wider Building
The Judson Preschool has long shared the building, and its parent community overlaps with the congregation. The preschool's board meets at the church, and the Preschool Society hosts a regular potluck dinner in the Fellowship Hall. Office hours at the church are Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Governance and the American Baptist Family
Judson follows a congregational model of governance. The local congregation owns the property, the church council is responsible for legal and financial matters, and the congregation chooses its own pastors and officers. That autonomy comes with freedom: Judson is a member of American Baptist Churches USA, and its specific membership is with the American Baptist Churches of the Rochester/Genesee Region in Rochester, New York, reflecting the historic reach of the Rochester-based agencies of the American Baptist family.
Setting up a recurring financial gift is straightforward through the online giving page, with options for pledges, general giving, Starfish Ministries, the Joyce Uptown Food Shelf, En Via, Shapan, memorials, or other undesignated gifts. Stock donations are also accepted by arrangement with the office.
Staying in Touch
The calendar is rich and visible through the online monthly calendar, with Sunday worship, choir rehearsals, Racial Justice Team meetings, Climate Justice meetings, choir rehearsals, Mahjongg, Women's Group, and a long list of community events. Visitors are warmly received. Sunday worship begins at 9:30 a.m., the livestream is available on YouTube, the office number is 612-822-0649, and the Getting Here page has practical directions for walkers, bikers, bus riders, drivers, and canoeists alike.
The congregation's enduring posture is hospitable, generous, and outward-facing. From a Sunday morning invitation to bring one's hopes and doubts to the rooftop solar array and the weekly protest at 40th and Lyndale, Judson Memorial Baptist Church lives out the early vision of being a neighborhood religious, social, and recreation center, and continues to invite the wider community into that life.