In Search of Growth
In Colorado Springs, the people of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church strive to make Christ known through care, creativity, and communion.
“It’s all about conspiring with God,” said the Rev. Matt Holcombe, rector of St. Michael’s. “Jesus didn’t come down for kingdom maintenance. Jesus came for kingdom-building.”
This spirit of kingdom-building permeates what St. Michael’s does, Holcombe said. “In fact, it’s right there in our mission statement, that we would be a church to make Christ known within and beyond our walls.”
Yet for St. Michael’s, the work of making Christ known within the walls of the church begins before people step through the door. “Community engagement is really important to us,” Holcombe said. “Although St. Michael’s is physically on a dead-end road, we try to be a source of life within the community.”
St. Michael’s has a partnership with the Royal Gorge Philharmonic Orchestra of Cañon City, offering its space for free community concerts. Since the COVID pandemic, St. Michael’s also has put on an ever-growing public Christmas light display.
“Looking for ways to be a light in the darkness, in the fall of 2020 we decided to put out 40,000 Christmas lights on the back of our church, not knowing what would happen,” Holcombe said. The result was 2,000 people visiting the church property. By 2023, the display had grown to 100,000 lights, 4,000 visitors passing through the church, and over 4,000 cans of donated food for the poor.
Once inquirers are brought into the life of the parish, St. Michael’s makes Christ known within the church through teaching and fellowship. “We work hard to cultivate a welcoming atmosphere,” Holcombe said. “Once someone asks for a nametag, they typically receive a loaf of bread within a week. This is just one way we try to embody Jesus’ command to love one another at St. Michael’s.”
Since 2019, the church’s average Sunday attendance has grown by over 180, now regularly surpassing 345 congregants. St. Michael’s has also added over 218 members in the last three years. “What’s really amazing is that over half of these new members were not Episcopalian before joining our church,” Holcombe said. In 2023, St. Michael’s welcomed over 76 new members, now making the parish the second-largest in the Episcopal Church in Colorado.
Another way St. Michael’s stresses teaching is through presentations focused on its copy of the Saint John’s Bible, a handwritten and illuminated text produced through a collaboration between Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and Welsh calligrapher Donald Jackson, the first commission of its kind in 600 years.
“This fall marks our one-year anniversary with the Saint John’s Bible,” Holcombe said. “This is an important way for all of us to engage with the beauty of Scripture and, as Episcopalians, a unique way to emphasize one leg of the three-legged stool.” So far, Saint John’s Bible docents have offered over 75 unique experiences for small groups to engage with the text.
In addition to fellowship and learning, St. Michael’s is deeply committed to service. “Need in our community continues to increase,” Holcombe said. St. Michael’s offers over 60 ministries for parishioners to serve greater Colorado Springs. From installing showers in the church for community members to partnering with Laundry Love so that unhoused people can have clean clothes, St. Michael’s embodies the Christian love of neighbor. “We are also proud to have started a special outreach endowment,” Holcombe said. “Through that we hope to serve our community for years to come.”
St. Michael’s also offers the services of David Galvan, a first aid mental health trainer in residence. “Coming out of the pandemic, we saw the issue of mental health come to the surface across our community,” Holcombe said.
Creation care is also an important issue at St. Michael’s. In the last three years, the church has switched to LED bulbs, installed water-bottle filling stations, and converted most of its property to xeriscaping. “Being in and around so much natural beauty here in Colorado Springs, people naturally care to preserve it,” Holcombe said.
Weston Curnow, a recent Kansas University graduate, is a student at Duke Divinity School, preparing for ordination in the Diocese of Kansas.