Calvary Presbyterian - The Big Red Church

04/02/2026

This Week at Calvary... ⛪

Our annual tenebrae Maundy Thursday service will be at 6:30pm on Thursday, April 2, led by Aaron. We will share a simple meal of bread and soup followed by our Tenebrae service of shadows. Please join us for this moving and spiritual service (also available on Zoom).


We will meet for an Easter Sunrise gathering at Atwater Beach on Easter morning, Sunday, April 5. There will be coffee and fellowship, and a chance to see the world start anew :)


Our traditional Easter Worship service will follow on Sunday, April 5 at 10:30am, led by Carolyn! Our music will be led by Don, Aaron, and a special guest.

If you are interested, please bring spring flowers to decorate the sanctuary and make it beautiful for our high holy day! 💐 See you in the Sanctuary or on Zoom!

03/27/2026

This Week at Calvary... ⛪

Join us this week for Palm Sunday worship 🌿at 10:30am on Sunday, March 29, led by Carolyn! Our music will be led by Melissa and Aaron. See you in the Sanctuary or on Zoom!

Annual Meeting 🗓️

Calvary’s Annual Meeting will take place after worship on Sunday, March 29. Please join the Session and Committee chairs for our presentation on Calvary’s year in 2025, as well as leadership nominations for 2026 and beyond!

03/27/2026

Calvary Fellowship Events 👥


Friday, April 10 - Theology on Tour @ 6:00pm. Soul Survivor: Chapter 9. It will be at Tom and Nancy’s home!

April 24-26 - Wisconsin Classic Stage’s The Persians by Aeschylus. Our own Josh Pohja directs the world’s oldest surviving play as adapted by Robert Auletta. The story has been relocated to Iraq during the first Gulf War, asking American audiences to confront the human cost of conflict and to question inherited narratives of enemy and triumph. More information and tickets: https://wisconsinclassicstage.com/26%2F27-season

Monday, May 4 - The Eyes on Gaza Concert Series continues at 7pm in the Calvary Sanctuary, with the theme of “Resistance.” Join musicians Jane Han, Aaron Tindall-Schlicht, and others for an evening of music, presence, learning, perseverance, and love centered on the post-ceasefire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. This event is Pay What You Will, and all proceeds go directly to organizations and individuals on the ground in Gaza. More information: https://eyesongaza.weebly.com/

WHEN IS A CEASEFIRE NOT A CEASEFIRE?

02/27/2026

This Week at Calvary... ⛪

Join us this week for “Hygge Sunday” worship at 10:30am on Sunday, March 1, led by JP! Our music will be led by Jane and Sara. See you in the Sanctuary or on Zoom!

Milwaukee's Big Red Church

02/18/2026

The next Theology on Tour will be on Friday, 2/27 at 6:30pm. CAROLYN is hosting!

We'll be discussing the chapter on Dr. C. Everett Koop: Serpents and Doves in the Public Square in Phillip Yancey's book Soul Survivor!

Hope to see you there 😄

01/26/2026

Jesus was clear about this.

As followers of Christ, we cannot stay silent while our immigrant neighbors live in fear and face unjust treatment. Our faith calls us to protect the vulnerable, welcome the stranger, and stand with those who are harmed.

Today we affirm: our Calvary Church community is a sanctuary of dignity, compassion, and solidarity.
We denounce the cruel actions being carried out by ICE, and we stand firmly with our neighbors who are targeted.

We pray, we speak out, and we act—because love demands nothing less.
May we be a light in this moment and a refuge for all who seek safety.

Join us as we pray, and educate ourselves, and view all these terrible actions from the perspective of our neighbors who have been victimized.

Please take a moment to read the statement below, from Matt Moberg, Chaplain of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

And this great sermon from a church in MN: https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/2026/1/26/comforting-words-hurting-city

Then please "like" this post and follow it for updates about protests in the Milwaukee area that you can choose to attend :)
And help us by adding comments about events and actions that we can all take together, in the name of Christ, because we are stronger when we are together.

PCUSA Special Committee on Racism, Truth & Reconciliation

PCUSA Racial and Intercultural Justice Office

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

12/28/2025

Stewardship 2026 🎁

Have you missed the bus on returning your pledge for 2026 to the Church Office? That’s okay, we will still accept your pledge! Having a good idea of the amount of financial support we can expect from the congregation really does help leadership to construct a thoughtful, focused, and responsible budget for the coming year. Please use this link to tell the Session more about how you can give of yourself in 2026, and return your pledge today!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and soon we will face our annual Advent time of waiting for the light of Jesus to enter the world. Yet we at Calvary choose to continue to embrace a spirit of gratitude for all that God has blessed us with, the bounty of the harvest. Calvary is a community of...

12/12/2025

Gabriel’s Annunciation

For a moment I hesitated
on the threshold.
For the space of a breath
I paused,
unwilling to disturb her last ordinary moment,
knowing that the next step
would cleave her life:
that this day would slice her story
in two,
dividing all the days before
from all the ones to come.

The artists would later depict the scene:
Mary dazzled by the archangel,
her head bowed in humble assent,
awed by the messenger who condescended to leave paradise
to bestow such an honor upon a woman, and mortal.

Yet I tell you
it was I who was dazzled,
I who found myself agape
when I came upon her—
reading, at the loom, in the kitchen,
I cannot now recall;
only that the woman before me—
blessed and full of grace long before I called her so—
shimmered with how completely she inhabited herself,
inhabited the space around her,
inhabited the moment that hung between us.

I wanted to save her from what I had been sent to say.

Yet when the time came,
when I had stammered the invitation
(history would not record the sweat on my brow,
the pounding of my heart;
would not note that I said
Do not be afraid
to myself as much as to her)
it was she who saved me—
her first deliverance—
her Let it be

not just declaration to the Divine
but a word of solace,
of soothing,
of benediction

for the angel in the doorway
who would hesitate one last time—
just for the space
of a breath torn from his chest—
before wrenching himself away
from her radiant consent,
her beautiful and awful yes.

--Jan Richardson

12/11/2025

James Baldwin on love—

11/28/2025

Join us for Sunday worship, 10:30am
as we celebrate the start of advent.

https://bigred.church/

11/17/2025

Upcoming Social events 😀

Saturday, December 6 at 9:30am - Enjoy good Christmas decorations and good Calvary company at the Pfister for coffee or a hot morning beverage

Friday, December 12 at 6:30pm - Theology on Tour at Carolyn's house.

Friday, December 19 at 7pm - Calvary Night at All is Calm - We plan to attend this performance as a group, and will purchase tickets together. Please see Aaron if you are interested in attending on this night. If you are purchasing tickets to a different performance, please be sure to take advantage of the special 15% discount that Vanguard has extended to our congregation

Message on here if you need more details!!