A Christ-Centered Community in the Heart of Kirkwood
Greentree Community Church sits at 100 Kirkwood Place in Kirkwood, Missouri, a few blocks from the Kirkwood Farmers' Market and the Station Plaza garages. On Sunday mornings, members and visitors arrive from across St. Louis County for two services that draw on a long heritage in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) while staying rooted in the rhythms of their neighborhood. Lead Pastor Dr. Matt Miller and a sizable staff and volunteer team welcome newcomers at the door with the church's signature motto in mind: Love Jesus and Love All Peoples in Joyful Community.
Greentree's vision is more than a tagline. It is the lens through which every program, budget and ministry is evaluated. The leadership describes the church as existing to know Jesus Christ deeply, serve Him with joy, and make Him known to others, and they imagine a community where every person discovers their calling, where diverse backgrounds unite in worship, and where the Gospel's power brings healing and hope to the city. Whether in Sunday gatherings, Community Groups, or outreach on the streets of Kirkwood, the vision is the same: to love Jesus, love all peoples, and live in joyful community.
Sunday Mornings at 100 Kirkwood Place
Sunday is the anchor of the week at Greentree. Two services are held each Sunday morning, both in English and blended in style, weaving timeless hymns with contemporary worship songs.
At 9:00 AM, the first service opens with a full hour of Sunday School for every age. Babies through 5th grade check in at one of four stations (one upstairs in the Atrium and three downstairs at the Welcome Desk) and head to nine graded classrooms, with the back entrance open for parents using the lower parking lot. Students in grades 6 through 12 gather in the downstairs Student Room for their own teaching time, while classes for adults (including long-running groups led by Dr. Bob Yarbrough and topical studies through books such as Romans and Jeremiah) meet across the building. This 9:00 AM service is also the one that is livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook for those joining from home.
At 10:30 AM, all ages come together in the sanctuary for a unified worship service. There are no classes offered at this hour, and families sit together. A few Sundays a year are designated Family Worship days, when children's programming steps aside so the whole congregation worships together, though nursery care for the youngest children is still available. Visitors are invited to grab coffee from the welcome area, drop their children off at their age-appropriate programs, and slip into a service that aims to feel relaxed and genuine.
For those driving in, Greentree offers its own parking lots and notes that public parking is also available within two blocks, including the Station Plaza garages. One neighborly request: the church asks that visitors avoid parking on Taylor Avenue behind the building so that Unity Baptist Church next door has room for its own congregation.
A Theological Home in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church
Greentree identifies with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a body that holds to historic Reformed theology. The church's statement of faith affirms that all Scripture is self-attesting Truth, requiring unreserved submission, and that the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments are a complete and unified witness to God's redemptive acts in Jesus Christ. It confesses one God, eternally existing in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and gives the EPC's Essentials of Our Faith as the summary of what the church teaches.
Those essentials include the doctrines of Christ's virgin birth, atoning death, and bodily resurrection; the saving work of the Holy Spirit who draws sinners to Christ and indwells believers; salvation by grace through faith alone; the unity of the Church as the body of Christ; the personal, visible, bodily return of Jesus; and the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. Greentree points to the Westminster Confession of Faith for a fuller exposition of these beliefs. The church's own summary of its spirit is the old saying: In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.
Five core values shape how the vision is lived out: Wholehearted Devotion, Transformative Discipleship, Intentional Community, Restorative Mission, and Earnest Prayer. Together they describe a congregation that wants its identity in Christ, its study of Scripture, its relationships with one another, its service to neighbors, and its prayer life to be more than slogans.
Family Ministry from Nursery to Senior High
Few things at Greentree are as intentional as the church's partnership with parents. The Children's Ministry, led by Director Beth Bohlmann and Associate Director Tammy Higgins, runs a structured Sunday School with classes for every stage, including newborns and toddlers, younger and middle preschool, pre-K, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd & 3rd grade combined, and 4th & 5th grade combined. Every leader is background-checked, and the program emphasizes both Biblical teaching and a lot of fun.
On Wednesdays during the school year, 2nd and 3rd graders can enroll in The Cornerstone Class, which walks students through the foundational truths of the Christian faith in a way they can apply to everyday situations. Older students in 4th and 5th grade are invited to Candid Conversations, a monthly gathering led by Beth Bohlmann, Cathy Hartke, and Tammy Higgins that gives kids a safe place to ask hard questions about their faith. And every summer, Vacation Bible School draws hundreds of children for a week of songs, stories, games and crafts around a single creative environment, most recently Rainforest Falls, where 249 children explored the nature of God through stations, skits and adventure.
For students in grades 6 through 12, the Student Ministry is led by Director Austin Bowles and Associate Director Maggie Duffy. Sunday mornings feature Student Sunday School in the Student Room at 9:00 AM, complete with a breakfast snack. Sunday evenings bring the popular Roots youth groups, with middle school and high school tracks meeting separately from 6:30 to 8:00 PM for snacks, games and small group discussion. Each summer, students travel on Reformed Youth Ministries trips. The high schoolers head south to RYM Florida at Laguna Beach Christian Retreat Center on the Emerald Coast, and the middle schoolers go to RYM Midwest at Lake Williamson Christian Center in Carlinville, Illinois. Both trips are designed to combine outdoor fun (ziplines, high ropes, swimming, beach volleyball) with Bible study, worship and discipleship, and the church offers financial aid so that cost is not a barrier.
Men, Women, and the Brotherhood Table
Discipleship at Greentree takes seriously the conviction that men and women thrive when they are connected to others pursuing Christ.
The Men's Ministry, coordinated under Pastor of Discipleship Brad Tubbesing, runs a string of weekly Bible studies designed to fit working schedules. A 6:30 AM Monday study meets at the Kirkwood Saint Louis Bread Co. on Manchester for formational reading and journaling; a Tuesday 7:00 AM group in Room L009 works through the final chapters of Paul's letter to the Romans; a Wednesday 7:00 AM study in the Conference Room digs into Ephesians; a Wednesday night group at 7:00 PM in Room L005 explores Daniel and faith in exile; and a Thursday 7:00 AM group for dads in their twenties through fifties studies 2 Timothy in Room L035. There is also Undivided Heart, a small-group experience that helps men discover their identity in Christ. Periodic Brotherhood Gatherings bring men together for a teaching, breakout discussion, fellowship and snacks. The first in a series is called The Intentional Man and focuses on husbands, fathers, workers and disciples.
The Women's Ministry is built around the Women's Teaching Ministry (WTM), an annual study that meets on Thursday mornings from 9:15 to 11:15 AM and Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8:00 PM, with childcare available for the morning session. Recent studies have included the Gospel of Luke and Walking with God by Beth Moore. Beyond WTM, women meet for a monthly Sunday Bible study during the 9:00 AM Sunday School hour; a Monday evening young adult Bible study for women in their twenties; a Tuesday noon study using Lydia Brownback's Titus Bible study; and a Thursday morning small group of about fifteen women meeting in a home. A mentoring program pairs women for one-on-one spiritual growth, and Single Women of Every Season gatherings bring together women of every age for panel discussions and fellowship.
For younger adults, the Young Adults Ministry hosts gatherings every 2nd and 4th Saturday for fellowship, discussion and connection (game nights, Bible studies, and the like), and the wider community groups of 8 to 18 people meet bi-weekly in homes throughout the area for shared study, prayer and life.
A Network of Care: Stephen Ministers and Support Groups
Greentree's Care Ministry is one of the most distinctive features of the church. At its heart is Stephen Ministry, a one-on-one caregiving ministry that was founded more than forty years ago in St. Louis. Greentree currently has 50 trained Stephen Ministers, church members who have completed 50 hours of training in compassionate, empathetic listening and are ready to walk alongside people facing crisis, illness, grief, job loss, divorce, spiritual doubt, or the weight of caring for a family member with disabilities. Care receivers meet with a Stephen Minister weekly for about an hour, and conversations are strictly confidential. New training classes are offered every two years.
Around Stephen Ministry, the church runs a constellation of support groups. DivorceCare offers a structured setting for those working through separation and divorce. GriefShare provides a 12-week journey through loss using video teaching, group discussion and prayer. Surviving the Holidays offers a one-evening seminar for those navigating grief through the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. The Samaritan Group meets on the second Monday of each month for those caring for loved ones with mental illness, blending devotional, education and prayer with the help of a professional counselor. Financial Coaches are available for one-on-one help with budgeting and debt, and the church endorses the professional counseling services of Craig Walseth, who practices out of the church's offices at 100 Kirkwood Place.
Amy Pinner serves as Director of Connections and Care, and Amy is the first point of contact for newcomers interested in a small group, mentoring relationship or next step toward membership.
Kirkwood, St. Louis, and Beyond: The Missions Heart
Greentree's vision statement names three concentric circles (Kirkwood, St. Louis, and beyond), and the Missions Ministry, led by Missions Director Nancy Prott and a volunteer Missions Team, takes that geography seriously. Roughly half of the church's mission budget supports local and national partners, and the other half supports international work, all vetted and reviewed by the team.
Locally, Greentree partners with a food pantry, youth mentoring programs, Kirkwood schools, Kirk Care Inc., KLIFE House, Mission Gate Ministry, Oasis International, Promise Christian Academy, South City Community School, Young Life, The Fam, Refuge & Restoration, and Undivided Heart. Each fall the church mobilizes for Hands on Kirkwood, a one-day missional blitz where area churches and organizations connect volunteers to neighborhood projects. The youth ministry leads an annual Chili Cook-off to fund the summer RYM trips. Harvest Party turns the front lawn and parking lot into a free carnival for the surrounding community. And each fall, members pack meals at the Feed My Starving Children Gateway Mobile Pack, an effort that has now run for nearly a decade and aims to package more than a million meals in a single week.
Globally, the church works with EPC World Outreach missionaries in England, Lebanon and the Balkans; Campus Outreach staff in Peru and England; Comfort Foundation; Grace4Kenya; the Jerusalem Evangelical Outreach; the Micah Project; Missions to the World; PMI International in Hungary and Portugal; When The Saints in Malawi; and the Albanian Encouragement Foundation. The point of the network, the Missions Team writes, is not to spotlight the church but to activate it: to be the hands and feet of Christ wherever members live, work and serve.
Music That Bridges Generations
Worship at Greentree is intentionally blended. The Worship Director, Chip Demetri, oversees a music ministry that draws on a deep well of styles, including recorded live hymns, bluegrass arrangements, gospel songs and spirituals, unplugged acoustic sets, and contemporary worship songs. All are available through the church's online music library. Each Advent the church assembles an Advent Choir, rehearsing on Sunday afternoons and leading worship at the annual Lessons & Carols service in December. A separate Christmas worship album captures favorite carols from the season.
The same blending shows up in the sermons. The audio archive includes series through 1 Peter, the Gospel of Matthew, Romans, the Pillar Epistles, Jeremiah, Ephesians and the book of Daniel, along with topical series on resilience, vision, and what Scripture itself is for. Pastors preach expositionally and conversationally, aiming to connect Scripture's truth with daily life. Sermons are released as a podcast and made available on the church app for iOS and Android.
Getting Connected at Greentree
For those ready to take a step inside, the church offers several on-ramps. Visitors are always welcome, and a monthly Newcomers Coffee gathers guests with staff and ministry leaders between the Sunday services in the conference room. A typical Sunday is relaxed: come as you are, grab a coffee, drop the kids at their programs, and join in worship.
For those considering formal membership, Discover Greentree is a four-week Sunday morning class that walks through the church's beliefs, vision, and the meaning of belonging to a spiritual family. The next class is scheduled to begin in early October, with attending the class carrying no obligation to join.
Online, members and regular attenders can use the Engage community platform to share prayer requests, join ministry groups, and find ways to serve. The Greentree app (available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, identifiable by an acorn icon) keeps the church in members' pockets. Giving can be done online through Pushpay, by texting GREENTREE to 833-468-8485, by mail to 100 Kirkwood Place, or through planned gifts and securities coordinated with Fortify Wealth.
Whether someone arrives for the first time, joins a Wednesday night study, walks with a Stephen Minister through a difficult season, or hops a plane to a high school summer trip in Florida, the same conviction runs through every corner of Greentree: that the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings salvation, reconciliation, justice, and mercy to Kirkwood, St. Louis, and beyond.