About Christ Presbyterian Church Telluride
Our Aim
Christ Presbyterian Church’s Aim is to be a loving and accepting fellowship bound by our common faith in God, the beauty and wisdom of Word and Sacrament, the presence of God borne to us in Jesus our Christ, and the active life of the Spirit in all creation. We will gladly share our refuge with anyone seeking prayer, contemplation, music, spiritual growth, and truth. Together as followers of Jesus we will embrace our children, each other, our community, and the world with peace, joy, celebration, acceptance, and love.
Our Ministries
Our Mission team is committed to supporting our region and local community. We do that by collecting food for Telluride Angel Baskets on the first Sunday of each month. We also support the San Miguel Resource Center, a critical community of care for victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse. Every winter we collect winter wear for children, youth and adults, in partnership with the True North Youth Program.
Our children's ministry provides supportive, kind and fun Sunday school programming. The children are invited to join us in worship and then after the children's message, they are invited downstairs to the fellowship hall for Sunday school. Our program is designed for children ages 5 - 12.
Our Values
Inspired by God’s Spirit and seeking to follow Jesus, we share these core values:
Hospitality – We welcome others and embrace our differences.
Community – We are a loving and caring family of faith.
Compassion – We respond in love to the pain and need of others.
Joy – We celebrate the abundance of God’s gifts and grace in our lives.
Desire – We long for what God longs for in relationship with us and with all creation.
Beauty – We share in wonder at the beauty in all of nature and God’s presence in all of life.
Wisdom – We seek self-awareness and explore a diversity of views on our spiritual journey.
Justice – We seek to speak the truth in love to power and to resist persons, systems, and ideas that destroy.
Stewardship – We generously share our time, talents, and resources.
Our Pastor
Peter grew up in Wisconsin, where, at thirteen years old, after visiting a state park with excellent granite top rope routes, a life-long love for the mountains and outdoor adventure was born. That love took him to the Adirondacks for six summers during high school and college, where he worked as a hiking guide at Camp of The Woods. Today, Peter is an avid hiker/walker and enjoys the joys of skiing and mountain biking.
At seventeen years old, Peter had a spiritual experience that initiated his sense of call to become a pastor. After high school, Peter enrolled at Northland College on the shores of Lake Superior in Ashland, Wisconsin to pursue a degree in forestry and outdoor education. However, the call to ministry soon prevailed, and Peter transferred to Moody Bible Institute and double majored in New Testament and Theology. While at Moody, Peter was drawn to become a Presbyterian, and ultimately joined the Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, which took him under care and supported him through his three years at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree and received the Jagow award in excellence in preaching and the Maitland Award in New Testament Exegesis. During seminary, Peter served a year-long clinical pastoral care/chaplaincy residency at Trenton State Psychiatric Hospital, as well as a two-semester internship as a pastoral resident at Moorestown Presbyterian Church in Moorestown, New Jersey.
Since graduating from Princeton Seminary in 1999, Peter has served pastoral roles in Flint, Michigan. Waterloo, Iowa. Austin and San Antonio, Texas. Peter began his pastoral tenure with Christ Presbyterian Church Telluride on June 30, 2024.
In addition to being an avid reader, Peter is the author of multiple books and is widely known for his book of daily prayers, Centering Prayers such as Vol. 2 of Centering Prayers for Turbulent Times. Peter is a leading voice for the renewal of contemplative practices in the church. In recent years, Peter has also served as an Adjunct Faculty Member in Spiritual Formation Member at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. Peter and His wife Marcia are grateful to share life in community here in Telluride, and delight in their two grandchildren who live in Austin, TX and their beloved Bouvier dogs, Muna and Annie.
Our History
In the late 1800s, Telluride’s colorful, untamed mining settlement was in full swing. Church communities began to emerge. Christ Church began as a Congregational Church, which was the first church built here in 1889. Additional churches followed, including St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, a Methodist Church, a Christian Science Center and, later, other churches of varying denominations.
The Reverend George Wallace Belsey was the first known minister of what was to become today’s Christ Church. Two inevitable facts of life gave considerable occupation to a preacher at that time; marriage and death. There were probably 10 unmarried men for each unmarried woman in town. There were many hurried marriages, though few weddings and death took a goodly toll. The burials, in well-named Lone Pine Cemetery, were a big public event. The preacher would make a few remarks at the church, and after a brief service, a long cortege of buggies and riders would move slowly behind the hearse and a dance hall band, wailing a funeral dirge all the way to the cemetery.
The Belsey family stayed in Telluride through 1910, and shortly after they left, the church and community fell on hard times when the mining industry went bust. In 1938, the Presbyterians helped revive the Telluride church considerably, and records show that Paul E. Ferguson was the first Presbyterian pastor to be installed in our church on March 30, 1938.
In the 1960s, the old sanctuary burned to the ground. Because of the strong support of our local community and congregation members, caring individuals donated endless hours to help rebuild our church, which is now located at 434 W. Columbia Street in Telluride. At the time, a local women’s group; the lda Smith Missionary Society, held craft shows with proceeds donated to the cost of construction materials, and miners donated stone to encase the custom fireplace that still stands in the sanctuary.
Since the 60s the culture of Christ Church has changed with the wider community. Several successful pastorates have enhanced the connections between congregation and community. With three centuries of presence in Telluride, Christ Presbyterian Church is a vibrant, informed, and compassionate congregation ready to face the challenges of being church in the twenty-first century.
Our Garden & Labyrinth
Our Garden and Labyrinth are a special place of welcome to our community and anyone who is seeking a place to reflect, pray, and contemplate.
The courtyard area has seating areas made of large local and regional rocks that correspond to four directions with particularly nice and significant views, southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest. The beautiful gardens are lovingly maintained each year by members of our church, and through the back gateway you will find a beautiful open area and a terraced rose garden.
At the center of the courtyard is a free form labyrinth. The overall shape is that of a tree. At the entrance of the labyrinth is a piece of petrified wood that reminds one of creation, the beginning or our life and of our spiritual journey. At the center of the labyrinth is a round slice of black marble where one can see their reflection, a reminder of the center of our own being.
We are very grateful to our beloved founders, benefactors and care takers of the garden, especially Joe & Ellen Price and Budd Andrews.