First Free Family,
What an exciting year we had together! As you may remember, 2023 started as a very challenging year for me, with many health problems. I’m so thankful for the graciousness and helpfulness of our church, and especially our staff, in helping us through that time.
The year soon turned into a beautiful picture of God at work among us. Personally, we got to experience a sabbatical for the first time. This was so refreshing for my family and a great blessing to me as I continued to recover.
We tried something new last year with an annual focus called “Back Together.” Throughout the year, we read, listened, prayed, cared, served, and definitely ate together! At the end of the year, we were thrilled to see a 16% increase in in-person attendance. We all know that numbers don’t tell the whole story, but it’s a part of the story and a sign of health, especially in a post-COVID world where most churches are getting used to the new normal of lower numbers and lower giving.
Many of you invited your friends and neighbors to church and shared the gospel with them. Thank you for reaching out and sharing the love of Jesus with people who need him in their lives. It was a great privilege to be able to meet and talk with many of them personally.
We were incredibly blessed by your generous giving last year. Because you give, we were able to support missionaries all over the world, provide for ministries in the St. Louis area, make bigger investments in the next generation of young Christians at First Free, and continue to grow our groups, outreach, and other ministries at First Free.
My prayer for 2024 is that we as a church will build on the idea of “Back Together” to be even more committed and engaged with God’s mission for the church. With your help and by God’s grace, let’s make this year’s impact even greater than last year’s!
In Christ,
Adam Bowers
Senior Pastor
Thank you for the opportunity to serve First Free on the Elder Board this year!
Your 2024 Elder Board:
Adam Bowers, Senior Pastor
Rich Keffer, Vice Chair
Bill Peskorse
Michael Proctor, Chair
David Ren
Ben Thomas
Martin Truong
Todd Yeager
Joseph Zhang
We launched GriefShare, a group to support and encourage people who have lost loved ones.
The expanding team of volunteers on our funeral team welcomed and served multiple grieving families in 2024.
We will launch Stephen Ministries, a lay mentoring program providing guidance and support for people facing a wide variety of life challenges.
We’ve been able to up our social game, which has led to increased views and followers. We also added a staff member to help us create engaging video content.
We loved the response to the All In focus! We had a great time working on the videos and other projects associated with the launch.
We’re excited about using technology to connect with more people in our community!
We added the opportunity for cross-training and standby positions in order to be more proactive instead of reactive. Our volunteers now have the opportunity to be a “Five Star” volunteer (trained in five ministry areas)! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Having everything align for Kathy Atwater to come on board as the new Connections Coordinator in December was definitely our biggest blessing and God-sighting! We are also richly blessed to so often hear stories of our volunteers interacting with the congregation and seeing God unexpectedly working through their conversations.
We are so excited to see how Kathy is going to take the Connections Ministry to the next level in 2025!
Disappointing, but hopeful. Almost all of our major all-church events, concerts, etc. were either postponed or canceled altogether, so it was a difficult year for events. At the beginning of the year, we still had no idea when this would end or what it would look like for events following the pandemic. We are still not out of the woods, but I’m excited for events to hopefully return in 2022!
Highlights included the spring carnival with Kid Connection, the summer picnics when we were finally able to get back together in person, the Cookout for a Cause which provided 350 lbs of food to our ministry partner Circle of Concern, the Chosen Christmas Special, and closing out the year by bringing Cookies and Cocoa back for Christmas Eve!
I’m looking forward to the possibility of hosting concerts and large outside events once again! They are always such an exciting way to bring the church together, the community together, and they give us the opportunity to meet people who may never set foot in our building otherwise.
2024 brought about an expanded knowledge and understanding of our overall campus, especially through a condition assessment that was done this past fall. With this knowledge, we will be able to expand on how better to approach taking care of the resources God has blessed us with here at First Free.
One unexpected blessing in 2024 was seeing how putting our faith in God can accomplish things that go way beyond our ability to comprehend and do. The final resolution of restoring our facility following the water pipe break was something that could only be explained by God. We dealt with financial challenges with insurance, long negotiations with the restoration company, and an increasingly tight timeline to have full use of our space by Christmas Eve – and we made it! God’s hand was clearly in the process, and we are very grateful.
We have much to be thankful for in how God has been preparing us to enter into 2025, but the most exciting of all are the many resources, systems, and tools that have been put before us this past year that will help to make managing a facility our size much easier. Beyond the financials, being able to better organize and plan how we approach keeping the facility that God has blessed us with operating at peak performance is truly a blessing.
We reshuffled the deck, staffing-wise! In Kid Connection, we had four transitions (KC Friends, EE/Awana/Events, KC, Child Care Coordinator, KC Welcome Team), and in Student Ministry, we had two transitions (hired Tex Rule, saw Caleb Moser go, and hired Barret Moore). While we are still seeking a replacement for our EE and Child Care Coordinator, all other positions have been restaffed and improved through restaffing. Silas Rivera was promoted to a full-time role due to the continued growth and building of the Worship Arts Ministry in Student Ministry. We are so excited to see what God does through this team!
We’re also thrilled to report that Summit attendance has nearly doubled due to the freshman class and new students!In Student Ministry, we now have a 5-year veteran and a 15-year veteran leading our Junior and Senior High programs – what a blessing!
Our first KC Camp went phenomenally well, with over 160 children attending!We are so excited to see our Student Ministry thrive now that we are not only fully staffed but fully staffed WELL with two high-capacity Student Ministry Pastors.
We’re also looking forward to seeing our KC programming team lead continue to improve and create an even deeper leadership pipeline into the future.
Keep your eyes open for info on Parent Forums through KC and Student Ministry to better partner with and equip parents!
We launched a few new groups, held several new short-term summer study options, and hosted additional events for both men and women to help people connect.
We saw nearly 110 people “Embrace Community” and attend a group for the first time this year!
I hope to keep launching new groups to help connect all of the new people God continues to bring to First Free. To do this, we’ll need new leaders to step up, so I’m looking forward to hearing from you! 🙂
We have been seeing a lot of exciting growth in Kid Connection this past year! A few highlights: the implementation of KC Camp, an increase in teens serving in all of our areas, and 12 kiddos in staff childcare!
We have seen a great increase in engagement with both volunteers and families, which has been a huge blessing. We also had a few staff members unexpectedly leave, but have been blessed with a team of ladies who have stepped up to fill those holes in big ways!
We can’t wait for our 2nd week of KC Camp and all the blessings that come from that! We are also excited to host more consistent opportunities for our families to gather and engage with one another.
In 2024, our ministry grew by seeking God’s wisdom in reviewing systems and collaborating with ministry leaders to faithfully steward the resources He has entrusted to us. We worked to develop tools and tracking mechanisms that not only support responsible stewardship but also help advance the work of the Kingdom. Through these efforts, we’ve seen the Lord guide us in refining our practices to better serve His purposes.
One unexpected blessing was witnessing God’s powerful intervention in a challenging situation involving an insurance and vendor dispute. The church was caught in the middle of two parties unable to find common ground, and the financial burden seemed insurmountable. But through persistent prayer and a steadfast trust in the Lord, we saw His hand move mightily. God softened hardened hearts, brought about reconciliation, and miraculously cleared hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. It was a profound reminder of His sovereignty, provision, and glory at work among us.
I am excited to prayerfully lean into creating systems and support structures that further the Kingdom by equipping ministry leaders and the body of Christ. My heart is full of anticipation as we seek God’s guidance to cast a vision for the church’s future—one rooted in obedience to His will and a trust in what He is doing. I look forward to working alongside others in the church as we strive to be faithful stewards of His resources and co-laborers in advancing His Kingdom.
We began using targeted social media campaigns to invite immigrants to ESL, and we’ve seen many new students join our classes!
The response to our fall backpack program was so strong that we ran out of school supplies within a few hours! An amazing team of 35 volunteers served over 150 kids and about 90 adults (give or take a few; we missed counting!) and gave them a great start to the school year.
Getting the congregation excited about living on mission and passionate about serving – both locally and globally!
We sent our first short-term missions team to Athens, Greece, to serve with Kypseli Church and ReachGlobal. We connected with our ministry partners, built relationships, and served the community.
Dr. Abhi Sethia with Jirah Ministries in India spoke at First Free on July 7, sharing stories of the gospel spreading in oral cultures in India.
We are so excited about the On Mission Outreach Conference at First Free from March 7-9, featuring Dr. Michael Goheen, an internationally renowned speaker and missional theologian.
We were able to add 7 new volunteers to the Safety Ministry and 1 new volunteer team leader, and we were certified to conduct First Aid/CPR/AED and Active Shooter training for our staff and volunteers.
We were blessed this year with an influx of volunteers enabling us to provide a more robust safety team presence on both Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings.
We are looking forward to providing some really good training and certification opportunities to our staff and congregation.
God brought some awesome new volunteers to serve in technical ministry. We’re so thankful for our volunteer team and how God uses them to bless our church.
God opened a door for us to hire Scott Nelson, a long time First Free tech volunteer, into an AV Technician role. We’re so excited for Scott and all that he brings to our staff team!
We’re excited to tackle some big tech projects on campus, including updating sound systems in room 110 and the chapel and updating our internet and network systems.
We are so grateful for how God is working in our church in worship! We’ve seen the “Back Together” mindset continue as more and more people join us for worship Sundays in the auditorium. And we’ve seen an “All In,” passion for worship expressed in singing, serving, and celebrating all that God is doing.
With God’s help (and the excitement of our volunteers) we were able to reintroduce the choir this year! We had about 40 adults, teens, and students participate and lead at our Worship Together service in November. It was such a special Sunday of praising God across the generations.
We’re eager to continue to connect our worship on Sunday to the way we worship God throughout the week. We want our worship to impact everything – our priorities, our personal sense of mission, and the way we love our families and neighbors.
We baptized 28 people this year!
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