Nick Forster's Hippy Bluegrass Church is back at eTown Hall on Nov 22

The Hot Rize member and longtime eTown host leads another Sunday-morning service of music and stories at the converted church on Spruce Street.

Some Boulder Sundays start with a hike. Once a month, a few hundred people start theirs in an old church on Spruce Street, with a banjo instead of a sermon.

Nick Forster's Hippy Bluegrass Church returns to eTown Hall on Sunday, Nov 22, at 10:30 a.m. Tickets are $20 through Humanitix. The date was announced Oct 19, and it lands on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, which makes it an easy outing with visiting family in tow.

If you have not been, the format is simple and a little hard to describe. eTown's own listings call it a monthly, all-ages morning gathering of music, poetry and storytelling, with doors at 10 a.m. and the program starting at 10:30. Forster began hosting these monthly "services" at eTown Hall in 2019, and the listings name four tenets for the congregation: forgiveness, compassion, integrity and humor. Nobody is checking your theology at the door.

Forster is about as Boulder a musician as there is. eTown describes him as a member of the Hall of Fame bluegrass band Hot Rize and as the longtime host of eTown itself, the radio show he has led for more than three decades, per eTown's event pages. The organization marked its 35th anniversary this spring, and eTown's about page frames the whole operation as music, ideas and community on the radio. Hippy Bluegrass Church is the community part with the microphones turned toward the room.

The room is the reason it works. eTown Hall at 1535 Spruce St. began as a church: the Boulder Church of the Nazarene bought the lot at 16th and Spruce in 1918, according to eTown's history, and Westword dates the building to 1922. eTown renovated it and opened it to the community in 2012 as a venue and recording facility, and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame describes it as a solar-powered, zero-carbon space; Westword reported that even the bar, cafe and recording studio run almost entirely on solar. A Sunday-morning gathering of songs and stories in a former sanctuary is, in other words, close to what the building was made for.

What to know: this is a morning show, so the usual concert instincts do not apply. Doors open half an hour before the 10:30 start, and the earlier you are in, the better your seat. It is all ages, so it doubles as a good first live-music outing for kids. And past services have sold out the hall, so buying ahead is smarter than walking up; check the eTown events calendar for anything else on the schedule.

Afterward, downtown is a short walk away for brunch, and you will still have most of the day ahead of you. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

Sources: January 25, 2026 - Nick Forster's Hippy Bluegrass Church (eTown) (etown.org); April 26, 2026 - Nick Forster's Hippy Bluegrass Church (eTown) (etown.org); About eTown (etown.org); eTown Hall review (Westword) (westword.com); eTown - Colorado Music Hall of Fame (cmhof.org); Humanitix - November 22, 2026 Nick Forster's Hippy Bluegrass Church (events.humanitix.com)