First Presbyterian Church of Valparaiso sits on the north side of Valparaiso, Indiana, in a single-story building at 3401 N Valparaiso Street that the congregation has occupied since 1973. The motto that frames everything the church does is short and direct: "We Are the Church: Inclusive, Courageous, Unshaken in Christ." Members describe a place where all people are welcomed, where children are seen and heard, and where worship draws on everything a congregation can offer, from the centuries-old sound of a pipe organ to the thump of a djembe and the soaring line of an electric guitar. Sunday worship is held as a single 10:00 AM service, with a livestream that reaches those who prefer to join from home.
Worship on Sundays at 10:00 AM
The congregation gathers for one combined Sunday service at 10:00 AM in the Sanctuary, and the same service is broadcast live so anyone can participate from wherever they are. The service typically runs about an hour and includes Scripture, prayer, hymns, a sermon, and music led by choirs and instrumentalists. Greeters are stationed to help first-time visitors find their way in, and free on-site parking is available at the building.
The Lord's Supper, called Holy Communion, is celebrated on the first Sunday of each month. Everyone who longs to commune with Christ and his people is invited to the table, regardless of denominational background. Members who worship online are welcome to prepare simple bread and juice at home to participate along with the gathered congregation.
An online pew pad lets worshippers in the pews and at home sign in and share prayer requests before the service begins. Recent Sunday services, along with music anthems, Christian education sessions, story time for children, and short midweek devotionals, are archived on a dedicated YouTube channel and can be watched any time.
Music that Bridges Generations: The Justice Jukebox
Music is one of the most distinctive features of life at First Presbyterian. "Do you love the sound of a pipe organ, shaking the rafters? What about the sparkling of a bell choir ringing through the air, or harmonious voices singing a beautiful song of praise? Or the thump of a djembe, or maybe an electric guitar soaring above a rock band? Well, we do it all." That description from the church's own music page captures the intentional range of the program. Hymn tunes that have been sung for generations sit alongside songs written in the last few years, and the guiding principle is simple: "if it speaks truth, it has a place in our worship."
Rhonda Clark directs the bell choir. The chancel choir, instrumentalists, a djembe player, and a rhythm section support the congregation's singing and offer anthems each week. Technical Director Jeffrey Whitney, a pianist and keyboardist who also plays bass and trumpet, serves as the go-to person for both music and tech and joined the Presbytery of Wabash Valley as Creative Technology Specialist in 2024.
One continuing worship series, called the Justice Jukebox, brings pop hits, hymns, modern praise music, and spirituals into conversation with Scripture. The series takes its cue from a simple question: "What do Marvin Gaye, the prophet Amos, and Jesus have in common?" The answer, the church says, is that "they all spoke truth to power, called out injustice, and stirred hearts to take action." Justice Jukebox services weave those songs with the Good News and invite worshippers to think about how to live, love, and serve better.
Faith Formation for Children
Children are at the center of Sunday morning life at First Presbyterian. The phrase that captures the philosophy is direct: "At First Pres we believe that children should be seen and heard." Three distinct offerings make that real.
Godly Play is the church's main Sunday morning curriculum for children from preschool through fifth grade, meeting at 9:00 AM. The approach creates meaning through story, wonder, and play. Each Sunday, a teacher tells a Bible story using Godly Play characters, set pieces, and props, and then the children recreate and retell the same story using the same storytelling elements. The result is a fun, interactive, and immersive experience in which the stories stick because the children have made them their own. Godly Play classes are supplemented with at-home practices that individuals or families can engage throughout the week.
The Pray Ground sits at the front of the Sanctuary and is open to children ages three and up during the main worship service. A teacher leads the children through quiet, creative activities - coloring, Play-Doh, and other items that relate to that morning's message. The Pray Ground teaches church etiquette and the value of active participation, and it keeps even the youngest worshippers present for the whole service. Director of Faith Formation Trish Lawson introduced the Pray Ground after joining the staff, as a way to make clear that "all children of God are seen and heard."
The Nursery is open Sunday mornings from 8:45 to 11:45 AM and serves newborns through age three, along with any older child who simply needs a break. The nursery is coordinated by Dana Hanson, who holds a bachelor's degree in early childhood development with a minor in special education and is CPR certified.
On Wednesdays and during the summer, additional programs round out the formation year. The P.I.T. Crew (Presbys in Training) bridges younger children into the older youth group, and Vacation Bible Camp is offered each year, with online registration and scholarships available for those who need them.
Youth: The Presbys
Middle and high school students gather as the Presbys on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 7:30 PM in Room 100. The group is co-led by Commissioned Student Pastor Stephen Howell and Trish Lawson and is described as "an open invitation for all youth from 6th to 12th grade to come together, have fun, share a meal, build relationships and deepen your knowledge of and relationship with God." After dinner, the group dives into thought-provoking discussion, plays games, and plans upcoming activities. The Presbys describe themselves as "an open and affirming group and are always looking for new members."
Mission is woven into the Presby year. At Christmas, the youth shop for a local Angel Tree. A recent pizza night turned into a shopping trip for residents of Lifecare Nursing Home, the School for Children, and Lakeshore Paws. All of the mission work is funded by the youth's own year-long fundraising efforts.
Older youth are also folded into Sunday morning Christian education. Sixth and seventh graders meet as Pre-Confirmation, eighth graders go through Confirmation, and Senior High students gather in their own group. Adult Education classes - including Bible and book studies led by the pastors - run at the same time, so families can learn together and then meet for the 10:00 AM service.
Adult Discipleship and Small Groups
Small groups meet at various times throughout the week for Scripture study, prayer, and fellowship. The church describes its small group ministry as "intentional faith development" where members "try to expose ourselves to different ideas and perspectives, meet new friends and grow in Christ," with the welcome extended to "all ages and newcomers."
- Monday Night Book Buds meets Mondays at 6:00 PM in Room 101. Members take turns recommending books to read and study on spiritually-related topics, ranging from Marcus Borg's "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time" and Richard Rohr's "The Universal Christ" to more recent titles like John Green's "Everything is Tuberculosis" and Colby Martin's "Un Clobber."
- Men's Tuesday Noon Bible Study gathers Tuesdays at noon in Room 101 and is open to new and returning members. The group has been working through "The Bible for Dummies," reading biblical history to gain a better understanding of each book, chapter, and verse, and using study Bibles to stimulate additional discussion.
- Faithful Friends is a women's Bible study that meets Wednesdays at 10:00 AM in Room 101. The group is built around a love of God's word and of one another and is always open to new and returning attendees.
- Disciples Bible Study meets Wednesdays at 2:00 PM in Room 101. All are welcome.
- The Comfort Stitchers meet Thursdays at 10:00 AM to knit and crochet prayer shawls. Each shawl is dedicated by the prayers of the congregation and given to those who are ill or grieving or who simply need to feel warmed and encouraged by the love of God and the church family. Newcomers are always welcome.
Women at the Well, the women's ministry of the church, takes its name from the Biblical account of Jesus's encounter with the woman at the well. The group offers day retreats twice a year, each with a theme designed for Christian women seeking fellowship, inspiration, a bit of learning, and fun.
The church also participates in the Great Banquet, a retreat movement many members have taken part in over the years, and offers adult retreats throughout the year. Members are encouraged to consult the church calendar for the next offering.
What We Believe
First Presbyterian is rooted in Scripture and the Reformed tradition. Through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, members trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone they worship and serve.
The congregation confesses that God meets them in free and undeserved favor in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived, died, and rose for us so that we might belong to God and serve Christ in the world. Following Jesus, Presbyterians are engaged in the world and in seeking thoughtful solutions to the challenges of the time. As Christ's disciples, called to ministry in his name, they seek to continue his mission of teaching the truth, feeding the hungry, healing the broken, and welcoming strangers. God sends the Holy Spirit to dwell within, giving energy, intelligence, imagination, and love to be Christ's faithful disciples.
Five core values shape the life of the congregation: the Lordship of Jesus Christ, Bible-centered preaching and teaching, prayer as the first response rather than the last resort, evangelism and world missions, and the family of God in which every person has a place to belong and a purpose to serve. The congregation belongs to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), worshipping alongside more than two million members in roughly 10,000 Presbyterian congregations across the country.
A Matthew 25 Church
First Presbyterian has committed to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Matthew 25 vision, an invitation issued by the 222nd and 223rd General Assemblies (2016 and 2018) for congregations to act boldly and compassionately in response to Matthew 25:31-46. The church's commitment takes three concrete shapes:
- Building congregational vitality by challenging people to deepen their faith and become actively and joyfully engaged with their community and the world.
- Dismantling structural racism by advocating and acting to break down the systems, practices, and thinking that underlie discrimination, bias, prejudice, and oppression of people of color.
- Eradicating systemic poverty by working to change laws, policies, plans, and structures that perpetuate economic exploitation of people who are poor.
The Matthew 25 vision shapes worship, learning, and community action in Valparaiso and beyond, and the church is intentional about weaving that calling into everything from Sunday sermons to the budget.
Covenant Network of Presbyterians
In the fall of 2024, First Presbyterian joined the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, a PC(USA) organization that works for an equity "still not fully realized for LGBTQIA+ people in church and society." The network's work is organized around three verbs: engaging the church to invite all of God's children into safe and welcoming congregational spaces of affirmation, healing, dignity, and purpose; educating the church to expand its welcome of LGBTQIA+ people, to affirm their gifts for ordained office, and to uphold marriage equality; and equipping the church to bear witness to justice through advocacy and activism at the international, national, and local levels, speaking a prophetic word in anxious and divided times. The Covenant Network calls the church to bear a unified witness to generous hospitality and faithful justice.
The Sharing Table Project
The Sharing Table Project is a church-wide vision and capital effort that began officially on March 11, 2023, when about fifty members met in Fellowship Hall on a Saturday morning. Working together, members and youth identified the congregation's strengths, built a vision for what they want people to say about First Presbyterian twenty-five years from now, and named four priorities to receive funding and resources: care for facilities, outreach and communication, funding the mission plan, and growing community partnerships and faith formation and learning programs.
Against an original funding target of $600,000, members pledged an "astounding $790,508" to the Sharing Table Project with three-year commitments due July 31, 2026. By December 2025, more than 88 percent of pledged funds had been received, and investments have been made in each prioritized area. The project continues to support a growing, vibrant congregation living into its vision.
The Resale Shop and Local Outreach
The Presbyterian Church Resale Shop, located at 65 Franklin Street in Valparaiso, has been part of the church's outreach since it began as the Resale Room in October 1942. After expenses, the proceeds from donated goods are shared with local nonprofits and partner ministries in the church and community. Generous donations from the community supply the showroom with clothing for all ages, puzzles, toys, children's books, purses, jewelry, shoes, craft items, home decor, housewares, antiques, and collectibles.
Surplus items are shared with neighboring nonprofits, local animal shelters, Angels Wrapped in Love, and Porter Aging & Community Services. The shop honors vouchers for free clothing vetted by the Township Trustee, The Caring Place, and Raindrops Rising. Unusable clothing, shoes, and fabric are sold to a Chicago-based textile recycler. The showroom does not accommodate donations of furniture, televisions, computers, screens, large appliances, or most books.
Since January 2025, donations have enabled the shop to contribute more than $48,000 to a long list of local partners, including the Caring Place, Brother's Keeper, Builder of Men, Dressed for School, the Family and Youth Services Bureau, Gabriel's Horn, Jacob's Ladder, Healing with a Human Connection, Hilltop House Soup Dinner, Project Neighbors, St. Agnes Day Services, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Sojourner Truth House, VNA Hospice, VNA Meals on Wheels, the Valparaiso Women's Association, Harbor NWI, Raindrops Rising, the Christian Food Pantry, and the Hilltop Food Pantry. A team of more than thirty volunteers sorts, cleans, prices, stores, and displays donations and assists customers at the sales counter each week.
Environmental Ministry
The church maintains an active Environmental Ministry that begins with the building itself. A real-time solar energy kiosk in the lobby shows the production from the church's solar array, a project that became a tangible expression of caring for God's creation. Members give separately to the Environmental Ministry through the church's online giving portal, and the ministry fits within the larger commitment to Matthew 25 work and to being stewards of the world they have been given.
Presbyterian Preschool
First Presbyterian hosts the Presbyterian Preschool, an early childhood program that operates from the church's campus. The preschool is also supported by the church's giving, and the congregation provides scholarships to many families who need a little help. The preschool operates as its own organization with its own registration, and families can connect through the preschool's own page on the church's website.
From Downtown Beginnings to Valparaiso Street
The congregation's roots in Valparaiso go back more than a century before the present building. The original First Presbyterian Church stood at the southwest corner of Jefferson Street and Franklin Street, where a new church building was constructed in 1881 to serve a growing congregation in the heart of Valparaiso. That downtown structure was later razed, and the site eventually became a parking lot.
The lot has even earlier history. It was once the home of Dr. Seneca Ball, who in 1837 built a small schoolhouse behind his residence, the first in Center Township. Miss Eldred, sister of Mrs. Phebe (Eldred) Starr, was the first teacher, followed by Harry E. Ball and Sylvester W. Smith. After the building ceased to be used for school, Dr. Ball used it for wood storage. In 1916, during Indiana's centennial year, the Porter County Historical Society installed a marker on the northwest corner of the property to commemorate the township's first school, and the marker was dedicated on September 27, 1916.
In 1973 the congregation moved to its current home at 3401 N Valparaiso Street and has since completed numerous renovations to accommodate its growing life together. Planned gifts over the years have helped make that possible: a beautiful outdoor worship and gathering pavilion that allowed worship during a global pandemic, a children's playground for children of members and preschool children, a chancel suite of handcrafted furniture for communal worship, sanctuary chairs that replaced worn pews, hand bells that created a new music ministry, and the equipment that made the livestream possible. A fully paid-off mortgage has freed operating dollars for mission and other essentials.
Stewardship, Giving, and Planned Gifts
Generous giving is a regular rhythm of life at First Presbyterian. The annual stewardship campaign is described as "an act of gratitude and a commitment to God's vision of a more loving, just, and hopeful world," and pledges ensure that "children are nurtured, adults grow in faith through discipleship and relationships with one another, God's name is praised through word and song, those who hunger are fed, the hopeless receive hope and the world we were gifted receives care." Members can give online through the church's Realm portal, where they can direct gifts to the general operations fund, the stewardship pledge, the second mile offering, local missions, global missions, youth ministries, music ministries, memorials, the Environmental Ministry, or the Capital Fund. Checks can also be mailed to the church office.
A Planned Giving program walks members through legacy gifts, including bequests through wills, transfers of appreciated investments or IRA funds, life insurance and charitable trusts, and donations of real estate. The church's Endowment, invested with the Porter County Community Foundation, has returned nearly $100,000 in partial earnings to the congregation since 2016 and supports scholarships, mission and ministry projects, music ministry, and operating expenses.
The Staff
Rev. Kim Adams serves as Senior Pastor and Head of Staff. A cradle Presbyterian originally from New London, Pennsylvania, who also spent formative years in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and Tarpon Springs, Florida, she joined the staff in September 2019. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology with a minor in art history from the University of South Florida and a Master of Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary. Prior to coming to Valparaiso she served churches in Bloomington, Indiana; Bradenton, Florida; and Chicago, Illinois. She is a contributor to Growing in God's Love: A Story Bible and the companion curriculum, and recently completed a three-year term on the Presbyterian Association of Musicians Executive Board.
Stephen Howell serves as Commissioned Student Pastor. Raised in the Methodist tradition and shaped from a young age by faithful family leadership, Stephen is a student at Lexington Theological Seminary preparing for pastoral ministry. He and his wife Joanna have two sons.
Nancy Becker serves as Parish Associate, contributing regular reflections and pastoral writing to the congregation's life.
Trish Lawson serves as Director of Faith Formation. She joined the staff in the spring of 2023 after years as an active member of the Faith Formation ministry and as an Elder from 2020 to 2023. She introduced the Pray Ground and brought the Godly Play curriculum to the church's program in the fall of 2024.
Jeffrey Whitney serves as Technical Director and brings more than twenty-five years of experience in music and worship ministry. In 2024 he joined the Presbytery of Wabash Valley as Creative Technology Specialist, assisting member churches with their tech and music needs.
Rhonda Clark serves as Bell Choir Director. A long-time member who previously served as Children's Choral Director for twenty-four years, she leads the hand bell ministry that was launched by an undesignated planned gift.
Welcome
First Presbyterian Church of Valparaiso gathers each Sunday at 10:00 AM at 3401 N Valparaiso Street, in a building that has welcomed new generations since 1973. Worship is also livestreamed for those who prefer to join from home. Free on-site parking is available, and greeters help newcomers find their way to the Sanctuary, the nursery, the Pray Ground, or the classrooms. The congregation's promise is simple: all are welcome, all belong, and every voice has a place in the song.