Well, you don't get to write a review of a shul too often, but I am a big fan and a member at Beth…read moreIsrael Center. Yes, they are on the conservative side of Conservative Judaism, and to fully participate, you need a working knowledge of liturgical Hebrew and traditional Jewish practice. However, they are extremely welcoming, and are just happy to have you participate, whatever your experience. Plus you learn a lot just by showing up. If you want to go to a synagogue where people really believe in what they are doing and do it with spirit and enthusiasm, this is your place. Plus they have something going on almost every day of the week.

The wife and I went to Beth Israel Center for the Kol Nidre service in Fall 2012. We had an invite…read morefrom friends, so took them up on the offer. Appearance: The synagogue is starting to look a little rundown, but we found out that they're in the middle of a $5,000,000 capital campaign to renovate the place. The preliminary drawings look GORGEOUS. Service: The wife grew up Conservative but has gone more Reform with time, and I grew up Reform and have gone less religious with time, so going to a Conservative service took us back more than few years to when we were much younger. I'd estimate that about 90% of the service was done in Hebrew, and the average age of the congregation was probably between 50 and 60. There were kids of a variety of ages, which was good to see, but they were not in the chapel portion of the building for most of the service (probably better for Kol Nidre, anyway). Anyway, the wife and I will most likely not go back -- not because of anything that Beth Israel Center did wrong, but because we really don't feel comfortable in Conservative services anymore.

Beautiful little country style church nestled into a historic residential neighborhood and filled…read morewith amazing people. Leading the church is a very charismatic 30 something female pastor and a 20 something female deacon. Trinity is known for it's welcoming attitude, it's brilliant and warm pastor, and for it's small 'like family' congregation. Come and join in. You won't regret it. Services are at 10 am on Sundays. Very small parking lot, expect to find a spot on the street. http://tumcmadison.org

I recently moved Madison from Chicago and was looking for a home church. I did some church shopping…read morewent to several other reconciling and welcoming church but found that Trinity UMC is where I wanted and needed to be. Not only are the welcoming and reconciling but also very friendly, loving, and progressive in my view. If you want to get lost in a crowd at a church this not the church for you...lol If you seek connections, community, conversation and participation then this is the church for you! So come join us on Sundays at 9:00A for Adult Sunday School and worship at 10:00A.

Great Church community! Mix of students and young professionals. Convenient sunday afternoon…read moreworship time (with free dinner served afterwards) Plenty of activities to get involved with and meet new people.

From the owner: worship, small groups, wellness, leadership, community, volunteer serviceread more

I use this chapel as a space to study and sometimes pray, and it really is a fantastic space for…read morethose activities. It's open to all students, and it is a great location with gorgeous stained glass. It even has some tables on the second floor rooftop that I look forward to using when the weather is nice! In between studying, this chapel has coffee, a pool table, and a laundry room for students to use. The sanctuary is also available for students to use the piano or pray. I can't speak to the religious services here, since I have not attend and do not identify with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

church bells are very loud and have no rhythm. puts me in a bad mood to wake up every sunday…read moremorning to such atrocities that ring for 5 minutes straight

This is beautiful Holy Redeemer Church, which was built in the 1860s and is the oldest extant…read moreCatholic church in Madison, and is today part of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Parish, which has four church building (the other churches of the parish are Saint Patrick Church on East Main Street, where the parish office currently is, Saint James Church off of Mills Street sort of behind Meriter Hospital where there is also a parish school, and Saint Joseph Church south of the beltline). Holy Redeemer Church has very thick fieldstone walls with rubble fill like a medieval castle, and looks quite picturesque near the intersection of West Johnson and State Street; the interior is also quite beautiful and traditional. A Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration prayer chapel is open daily on the lower level of Holy Redeemer Church, you enter through the parking lot side of the building and turn left. The focus of this chapel is the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, people come here to visit Jesus. Anyone may visit, rules are posted for maintaining the reverence of this place of silent personal prayer. At the time that I'm writing this Holy Redeemer Church is used 24 hours a day as the site of the Adoration Chapel, and there is one scheduled Mass per week, 8 am on Saturdays. That's not a Sunday Mass, all Sunday Masses are currently at St James or St Joseph Churches and complete information about Sunday and weekday daily Masses can be found on the Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish website, https://www.guadalupemadison.org/ . I go to Sunday Mass at St James and weekday Masses at St Patrick's, as well as Saturday morning at Holy Redeemer. There are Spanish as well as English Masses--the Spanish Masses are largely at St Joseph right now. Definitely check the parish website for up to date information. Normally confessions are heard before every Mass, which makes it so much easier to go to Confession. I live in the neighborhood and am a longtime parishioner. If you live on the Isthmus or Fitchburg you probably live in our parish's territory-- please come and worship with us. Saint Raphael's Church was Madison's first Catholic church, and became the Cathedral when the Catholic Diocese (bishopric) of Madison was formed in 1946, but it burnt down by arson in 2005 and a Stations of the Cross garden now stands on its site. Whereas Saint Raphael's had a predominately Irish congregation, Holy Redeemer was built by the German Catholic immigrants. High up in its front facade, amidst chunks of local sandstone-limestone there is a carved white marble plaque reading "Domus Dei et Porta Caeli," meaning House of God and Gate of Heaven in Latin. After the destruction of Saint Raphael's, the nearby downtown parishes of Holy Redeemer and Saint Patrick's merged under the name the Cathedral Parish of Saint Raphael, serving as the temporary seat of the Bishop of Madison. More recently a different Cathedral church was designated, which is Saint Bernard's on Atwood Avenue, and thus the downtown parish was no longer the "Cathedral Parish." Saint Bernard's is now the official "seat" of the bishop's leadership of the Church in southwest Wisconsin. A new diocese-wide parish reorganization clustered four different churches, Holy Redeemer, Saint Patrick's, Saint James, and Saint Joseph into the current Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. This name, a beloved Mexican title for Jesus' mother Mary, is fitting because today more than half of our parish's attendees are Hispanic. The latest reorganization was not due to any severe priest shortage; the larger cluster of churches is served by a team of several priests, most of them bilingual including our current main pastor Father Drew Olsen. In 2019 major restoration work was done to the exterior walls of the church, including replacing eroded local sandstone-limestone. In May of 2024 Holy Redeemer Church's wooden steeple caught fire after being struck by lightning. The building was saved thanks to the Madison Fire Department, this loss was covered by instance and a new metal-framed steeple, replicating the appearance of the original complete with a large clock, was installed in the fall of 2025. People in the neighborhood should join us for Mass at St James or Saint Joseph Church on Sundays. When or whether Sunday Mass will return to Holy Redeemer Church is unclear right now--I really think Mass needs to be available in the middle of downtown (though there is one at Saint Paul's on the University Campus, primarily intended for students) but the issue is that they wanted to consolidate people at St James for community building purposes. The Adoration Chapel at Holy Redeemer Church remains a real blessing to have in the neighborhood, that you can visit anytime.

This is not a place to go if you care about your physical health. I came there for the 9am Mass…read moreand most of the people around me were not wearing masks including a person who plopped down right beside me. I decided not to stick around to see how unsanitary the distribution of Communion would be. Even the man who appeared to be the head usher was maskless and coughing. Yuck and gross!