I continue to intermittently go back to my research and writing about the history of St. Luke's UMC, and I feel pretty good about the first dozen years plus, encompassing the founding minister and his successor, taking the story to mid-1995. Between the text and some photos, that coverage takes up 70 pages.
I have interviewed two retired pastors in some depth and multiple times, plus a retired president of Iliff School of Theology who attended St. Luke's for that period and who seems to know pretty much everyone in the Rocky Mountain Conference. He and his wife happened to host the bishop about ten days ago and they were discussing St. Luke's and he happened to mention my little history project. So, to be brief, the bishop now has a copy of those 70 pages, though I haven't heard anything specific back from her at this point.
Interestingly, the closer I get to when Kathleen and I arrived at the church in 2002, the harder the task seems to be. There are quite a few people around who were members in the 1990s, which means there are many more sources and many more opportunities for eventual readers to disagree with my take or even my facts. Two things are certain: churches are not very good at keeping clear records, and it doesn't help that most documents were not electronic in the 1990s.
I have had at least five people promise me copies of printed church newsletters and other documents, but digging through file cabinets and boxes does not seem to make it to the top of their to-do lists. I occasionally will send a reminder text or a quick conversation with them, but I hate to be a pain.
I also hate the idea that this history project will just never quite get done. I would love to wrap up the story through 2003 or so (when the third senior pastor left) in the first half of 2026. I would guess that the "book" will be well over 130 pages by then, with nearly a quarter century of various church drama and events and growth and challenges still to come.
It remains to be seen whether I will "rest from my labors" with those first couple decades or not. Never say never, I suppose. But my goal is to produce a printed, hardcover book in the next year.
People being, well, people, I assume that as soon as I publish something there will be all sorts of people sending me corrections or questioning how I missed something or otherwise suddenly being full of information.
I'll be sure to call it a first edition.
Last Thursday I interviewed a woman who is now the chaplain at CU Hospital in Highlands Ranch about her time as youth director at the church from about 1996-2001. Her perspective is that Columbine, which occurred in April, 1999, was pivotal for the church, something I had not really considered in any depth. Two of the slain students had connections to the church and I have some anecdotes about how the church responded and tried to help the community through the shock and pain and, let's face it, questions about how God might figure into the tragedy.
She was still emotional describing that week, where she opened the youth room the night of April 20 and 40 young people gathered to talk and grieve and cry and question. The church seemed like a safe space for those kids, I assume, though up until that very day most would have testified that their high school was a safe space.
We know that is not the case now, but I do remember that day, watching from City High in Iowa City on a little black and white TV we had in the journalism lab area. Watching such tragedies on TV is a near-weekly event these days as society seems to increasingly turn to violence when people feel aggrieved or angry or entitled or whatever. It was shocking in the extreme in 1999.
I certainly would have been a teacher thinking "that could never happen here" back then. In fact, I made it a point to not obsess over Columbine. That interview brought a lot of things back, but also reminded me that proximity to such murders makes a difference.
That means I will be investing some hours in researching and finding some of those then-students (and their parents) who are now in their 40s to talk.
And maybe I will find a way to find some meaning from the sad and chaotic experiences of the time.
Turns out that writing a history is about far more than raw facts or about the church itself. The research and writing is more about me and about trying to see patterns and meaning and truth.
I will try to return to my history project in this blog from time to time. It helps me process, I guess.
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