Before dedicating the site of the Colorado Springs Colorado Temple for construction on Saturday, Sept. 12, Elder Karl D. Hirst paused for a minute of silent reflection. He asked attendees to offer a “personal dedicatory prayer” and consider what it means for each of them to “dedicate” themselves to God.
“What’s your personal direction, your statement of intended greater holiness to the Lord? How can you more fully realize your divinely directed identity as a child of God?” asked Elder Hirst, a General Authority Seventy and member of the Church’s United States Central Area presidency.
After the moment of reflection and subsequent dedicatory prayer on the site, ground was broken for what will become Colorado’s fourth house of the Lord of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, located in the state’s second-largest city.
Photos and information of the groundbreaking — which was also livestreamed — were published Sept. 12 on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
In his remarks at the groundbreaking, Elder Hirst reveled in the beauty of Colorado Springs and explained that “a temple here will bring an even more transcendent beauty to this area.”
That’s not just because of the exquisite outward appearance, he added, but because of how temple patrons can come closer to Jesus Christ inside and become more like Him through covenants.
“The temple is a place of spiritual guidance, peace, hope and revelation. Those who do temple work are blessed in all aspects of their lives,” Elder Hirst said. “Their work in the temple will strengthen them and refine them spiritually. This careful preparation and this spiritual refinement make us better neighbors, friends and citizens.”
Elder Hirst noted that the site dedication at a groundbreaking happens before the temple is even completed. Similarly, “today’s dedication brings an invitation to you and to me to dedicate ourselves to God in today’s condition, not at some future date when everything will be prepared and ready.”
In his dedicatory prayer on the site and construction process, Elder Hirst pleaded, “Please bless us, as the ground is cleared and dug out, that we might also be cleansed and made ready, with greater place for Jesus Christ as our foundation and our chief cornerstone.”
About the Colorado Springs temple, Church in Colorado
On Sept. 11, 1960 — 66 years and one day before today’s groundbreaking — the Colorado Springs Colorado Stake was created.
The Colorado Springs temple is planned as a single-story building of approximately 45,000 square feet. It will be constructed on an 18.6-acre site on the south corner of Flying Horse Club Drive and Barossa Valley Road in north Colorado Springs, Colorado. A meetinghouse and accompanying utility building will also share the grounds.
On Oct. 1, 2023, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced this house of the Lord of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was one of 20 temple sites he announced in the October 2023 general conference.
Colorado is home to three operating temples: the Denver Colorado Temple (dedicated in 1986), Fort Collins Colorado Temple (in 2016) and Grand Junction Colorado Temple (in 2025).
After the Colorado Springs temple is built and dedicated, it will become the state’s fourth.
Colorado’s first stake, the San Luis Stake, was established in 1883. The state’s first mission, the Colorado Mission, was formed just over a decade later, in 1896.
In 1911, the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square performed in Colorado. In the early 1980s, the first released-time seminary program east of the Rocky Mountains was established in Colorado Springs.
Colorado now has nearly 150,000 Latter-day Saints in 315 wards and branches.
