Lancaster Evangelical Free Church meets on Pierson Road in Lititz, a small town in the heart of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The congregation belongs to the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) and has built its identity around a single, plainly stated calling: to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Everything at LEFC, from the two Sunday morning services to the midweek groups, the summer camps, the prayer ministry, and the global partnerships, is meant to flow from that aim. The team describes its work as loving God, loving people, living truth, and proclaiming Jesus, and they use a Greek word, Oikos, to describe the relational world each person carries with them every day.

Sundays at LEFC: Two Services, One Mission

Worship at LEFC is built around two Sunday morning services, one at 9:00 AM and one at 10:50 AM. Both services are identical in structure and run in person at the Pierson Road campus and online through livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Boxcast. The order of service draws from a blended style that pairs contemporary congregational singing with expository preaching, often moving through books of the Bible in series. Past sermon series have included Something Better (a journey through Hebrews), Peace of Mind (Philippians), Light of the World, Assured (1, 2, and 3 John), Established (Colossians), Origins (Genesis), and One (Ephesians). The livestream opens on Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM with both services, and the full library of past sermons is available for listening and watching any time on the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Two adult Bible fellowship tracks run alongside the services, so a guest who arrives a few minutes before 9:00 can join a fellowship hour from 9:00 to 10:20 AM, attend the first worship service, and then either head to a second fellowship from 10:50 AM to 12:15 PM or stay for the second service. The first-service fellowships include Mosaic (a mix of young couples, singles, and new families), Roots and Branches (adults in their thirties and forties), Koinonia (couples in their forties and fifties), Faith Builders (adults in their fifties to seventies), and Philippians (ages sixty and up). Second-service options include Imago Dei (for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities), The Bridge (the young adult ministry for ages 18-24), Synago (young adults in their twenties to early thirties), and Agape (older singles and couples).

A Welcome Desk, a Gift Bag, and Homemade Cookies

LEFC takes first-time visits seriously. Before coming, guests are invited to fill out a First Time Visitors Form online so that the welcome team can prepare. Upon arrival, anyone walking in through the main entrance will see a welcome desk in the lobby, where friendly volunteers hand out a gift bag filled with information about the ministries of the church along with homemade cookies. The team can answer questions, point families in the right direction, and pre-register children for the Kids Ministry wing.

For families with infants through fourth graders, the New Family Check-In Desk is in the lobby of the kids' wing. Past the auditorium entrance and the baptistry pond, the lobby opens with the church cafe to the left and the circular New Family Check-In Desk to the right. First-time parents fill out a short registration form, receive matching security tags for parent and child, and are walked to the appropriate classroom. Security is a top priority: the kids' wing is a secure area, trained security personnel monitor the classroom areas, and parents are contacted by cell phone or text message if a child needs them during the service.

Kids Ministry: Shepherds Walking with Families from Nursery Through Fourth Grade

LEFC's Kids Ministry serves children from two months old through fourth grade and is intentionally built around the people who serve in it. Volunteers in the ministry are called Shepherds, and every Shepherd has gone through background checks and safety screening. The team leans into relationships, viewing the ministry as a partnership with parents rather than a separate program for children.

On Sunday mornings the kids' wing is divided into four age groups: Nurseries (infant through one year old), Preschool (two- and three-year-olds), Pre-K and Kindergarten, and Elementary (first through fourth grade). The Nursery provides loving care in a safe environment where babies and toddlers begin to experience God's love through his people. Preschool uses a Christ-centered, Bible-based, developmentally appropriate curriculum that gives the youngest learners a strong foundation. Pre-K and Kindergarten follow a similar arc with age-appropriate games, activities, and crafts. Elementary uses the Gospel Project, a chronological and theologically rich curriculum that walks children through the entire narrative of Scripture over a three-year span, supplemented and customized by the LEFC coordinators.

Children are encouraged to bring their own Bibles, and the church is happy to provide one if needed. Memory verses are introduced every few weeks and listed in the Friday email newsletter. Snacks are provided; veggie straws are the standard, and parents are welcome to send a nut-free alternative after checking with their child's Shepherd. Allergies are noted on each child's name tag at check-in.

Hands and Feet: One-to-One Buddies for Kids Who Need a Little Extra

LEFC's Hands and Feet Buddy Ministry exists so that children who benefit from a little extra support can thrive in the same classrooms as their peers. Hands and Feet Buddies are caring volunteers who partner with families to walk alongside a child during Sunday mornings. The role of a buddy looks different for each child and may include gentle guidance, help with transitions, reassurance, or simply being a steady, encouraging presence.

The process is relational and pressure-free. A parent or caregiver first reaches out to start the conversation, then the team completes a brief buddy profile to understand the child's strengths, needs, interests, and what helps them feel safe and successful. The Hands and Feet Core Leader and the Minister with Kids prayerfully match a buddy or buddy team, gathering resources such as visual schedules, lesson plans, sensory tools, and hands-on manipulatives while they wait. Once a buddy is confirmed, introductions happen so that the family and buddy can begin building trust together, with ongoing communication and regular check-ins from the core leader.

Student Ministries: G56 and Crossover for Fifth Through Twelfth Grade

LEFC's Student Ministries covers fifth through twelfth grade and is built on three values: knowledge of the Lord through teaching, discussion, and Scripture study; affection for the Lord through worship, prayer, and community; and obedience to the Lord through outreach, service, and community. The department is split into two main stages. G56 is the bridge between Kids Ministry and Student Ministries for fifth and sixth graders. Crossover is for seventh through twelfth grade students, with Middle School Crossover for seventh and eighth graders and High School Crossover for ninth through twelfth graders.

The name Crossover comes from John 5:24, where Jesus says that whoever hears his word and believes has crossed over from death to life. Every student is challenged to be a disciple, to be discipled, and to become a discipler who entrusts the truth to someone else. Crossover Life Groups are single-gender and single-grade groups of ten to fifteen students, each led by at least two committed leaders, that meet throughout the week for biblical community.

On Sunday mornings during the school year, Crossover students meet during the first service from 9:00 to 10:20 AM for teaching, discussion, and fellowship. Middle School meets in the Lower Level and High School meets in the Crossover Room. On the last Sunday of the month, the two groups often combine for a Global Focus Sunday. On Sunday evenings from September through May, students gather at the church from 6:30 to 8:30 PM for worship, teaching, and time with their Life Groups. The first Sunday of the month is typically a Fellowship Night or Oikos Night, which is a community night when students are invited to bring friends. In June, July, and August, Summer Nights move outside from 6:30 to 8:30 PM with themes, wild activities, fellowship, and time in the Word.

Camps and retreats anchor the student ministry calendar. Winter Blast is a weekend winter retreat for seventh through twelfth graders. The Summit is a week-long middle school summer camp at Montrose Bible Camp. Beach Camp is a week-long high school summer camp at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference. Crossover also offers an international missions trip every other year as well as local outreach opportunities throughout the year.

Adult Ministries: ABFs, Life Groups, Hope Groups, and Recovery

Because no one is meant to do life alone, LEFC's Adult Ministries department is designed to help adults experience connection and grow spiritually. The entry point on Sunday morning is the Adult Bible Fellowship, a smaller class that meets during one of the two worship hours. Teachers rotate through the classes, so the teaching style naturally shifts between discussion-based and lecture-style. Beyond Sunday morning, the department offers Life Groups, Hope Groups, Bible studies, Re|Engage, Re:Generation, Team127, and Precept, each designed to make a large church feel like family.

A Life Group at LEFC is a group of six to fifteen people who gather regularly to share their lives, study Scripture, and pray. Groups are encouraged to embrace six distinctives: be relationally connected, be biblically based, be radically vulnerable, be mission-minded, be intentionally led, and continually pursue multiplication. Many Life Groups are sermon-based, using the weekly discussion guide the church publishes after each Sunday sermon. Other groups study books of the Bible, pre-written curriculum, or faith-based books. Groups typically meet weekly or every other week.

Hope Groups are gatherings of people in similar challenging stages of life or situations who meet to encourage one another in Christ. Current Hope Groups include Re|Engage (a marriage enrichment program for healthy, struggling, or broken marriages, offered two semesters per year on Wednesday evenings); Re:Generation (a Christ-centered, gospel-based, twelve-step recovery and discipleship ministry that runs on Wednesday evenings from fall through the following summer); Team127 (a support network for adoptive and foster families built around James 1:27); Hope in Mourning (a Christ-centered grief support group for those who have lost a loved one); Hope for Hurting Parents (a monthly group for parents of teens and young adults who are struggling or in crisis); and Common Thread (a monthly group for parents of children with special needs). Precept is an inductive Bible study for men and women that meets on Tuesday evenings in two semesters per year and uses resources from Precept Ministries International.

The Bridge: A Young Adult Ministry Between Student Life and Adult Life

The Bridge is LEFC's young adult ministry for recent high school graduates, college students, recent college graduates, and anyone else in the 18-24 age bracket. The Bridge meets on Sunday mornings during the second service, from 10:50 AM to 12:15 PM, in the Crossover Loft. A typical morning includes a time of fellowship and prayer, then uses the weekly sermon discussion guide as a starting point for conversation about that morning's sermon. Throughout the year The Bridge also schedules monthly social events to encourage friendships and build connections among young adults in the church and the surrounding community.

Men's and Women's Ministry

LEFC's Men's Ministry exists to encourage, equip, and empower men to pursue a deep abiding relationship with Christ. The team hosts four Saturday morning Men's Breakfasts each year, a weekend retreat every other fall, a Men's Bible Study that meets on the second, fourth, and fifth Mondays of the month at 6:30 PM in Room A4, and a Men's Prayer Group that meets on the fourth Friday of every month from 6:00 to 7:00 AM in Room A6 to pray for families, Oikos, revival, and global partners.

Women's Ministry, under the theme Coram Deo (Living Before the Face of God), seeks to create welcoming environments for women to grow as disciples of Christ. The flagship program is Women's Bible Fellowship (WBF), a weekly Bible study offered in two semesters per year, in the spring and the fall, with both morning and evening options. WBF mixes in-house LEFC teaching, video-based studies, and virtual classes, and each session includes plenty of time for fellowship, discussion, and prayer. Other women's ministry offerings include a fall retreat at Black Rock Retreat Center, a spring brunch, summer interest groups, and a robust Scripture memory program.

Disability Ministry: Imago Dei

LEFC's disability ministry is called Imago Dei and exists to help adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities grow in faith through prayer, music, Bible teaching, and community. Imago Dei meets on Sunday mornings during the second service in Room D1 and welcomes everyone from those on the autism spectrum to others with special needs who desire to gather and grow. The ministry also extends to children through the Hands and Feet Buddy Ministry and to parents through Common Thread, a Hope Group for parents of children with special needs.

Marriage and Family

LEFC takes marriage seriously as a God-designed, lifelong covenant between a man and a woman. Premarital counseling and mentoring are available for engaged couples, and Re|Engage is offered twice a year for married couples who want to grow together. Ministry to Women and Marriages, led by Jenny Hoover, supports married couples who are looking for resources and encouragement, and the broader marriage ministry offers ongoing enrichment opportunities throughout the year.

Care Ministry: From Visitation to Budget Coaching

LEFC's Care Ministry is committed to tangibly loving and caring for attenders in a way that reflects the teaching and actions of Jesus Christ. The care team offers personal care through visitation by trained member chaplains who visit people in homes, hospitals, and nursing homes during illness, injury, or loss. Practical care comes through the Mercy Network, where volunteers offer hands-on services such as yard work, meals, light housework, transportation, and painting. Budget Coaching is available for those needing financial guidance, and the Servants Fund helps with financial assistance requests that come through the Care Request Form.

Relational care covers engagements, marriage, parent-child, and other relationships. Recovery care points people toward Re:Generation or helps connect them with licensed counselors in the area. Care Ministry also oversees the Chaplain Ministry, a team of Christ-followers who volunteer their time as an extension of the pastoral staff in the personal ministry of visiting, praying with, and caring for anyone dealing with sickness, surgery, loss, or death.

Mobilization: Local, Global, and Crisis Response

LEFC's Mobilization Ministry brings together the church's global, local, and crisis response efforts. Strategic partners and missionaries are supported through prayer and financial generosity, and Life Groups regularly partner together to serve organizations such as Water Street Mission, Bridge of Hope, Green Meadow Farm, Good Samaritan Services, North Star Initiative, House of His Creation, Align Life Ministries, TNT Youth Ministry, and Unto. On the crisis response side, LEFC sends teams to partner with the EFCA's Reach Global Crisis Response ministry, including a team headed to Fort Myers, Florida, in January 2027 to help rebuild areas damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

Baptism and Membership

LEFC practices baptism by full immersion as an outward symbol of an inward commitment. Baptism does not save, but it publicly declares a believer's personal decision to follow Jesus and illustrates the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The church holds baptism services periodically for those interested in being baptized. The two ordinances the church celebrates, as outlined in the Statement of Faith, are baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Agreement with the church's Statement of Faith is required to become a member of LEFC or to serve in a discipling role. The membership process flows through Starting Point, a class designed to introduce guests to the mission, beliefs, and structure of the church before they commit to membership.

What LEFC Believes: The EFCA Statement of Faith

LEFC is affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church of America and holds the EFCA Statement of Faith as its theological framework. The church teaches belief in one God, Creator of all things, holy, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is taught as the verbally inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of his will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged.

The church confesses that human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God and under his wrath, and that only through God's saving work in Jesus Christ can people be rescued, reconciled, and renewed. Jesus Christ is confessed as God incarnate, fully God and fully man, who lived a sinless life, was crucified, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father as High Priest and Advocate. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.

The Holy Spirit is confessed as the one who convicts the world of its guilt, regenerates sinners, baptizes them into union with Christ, adopts them as heirs in the family of God, and indwells, illuminates, guides, equips, and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service. The true church comprises all who have been justified by God's grace through faith alone in Christ alone, united by the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, of which he is the Head. The true church is manifest in local churches whose membership should be composed only of believers.

LEFC believes that God's justifying grace must not be separated from his sanctifying power and purpose, that Christians are to love God supremely and others sacrificially, and that with God's Word, the Spirit's power, and fervent prayer in Christ's name, believers are to combat the spiritual forces of evil and make disciples among all people. The church confesses belief in the personal, bodily, and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the bodily resurrection of the dead, in final judgment, and in eternal blessedness for the believer and eternal conscious punishment for the unbeliever.

Guiding Principles: Major on the Majors, Minor on the Minors

LEFC's leadership describes the congregation as led by the Holy Spirit and the Word; committed to preaching and teaching from Scripture to equip the body; desiring for all to engage in heartfelt worship; approaching God and other people in humility; engaged in small to medium gatherings to make a large church feel like family; pursuing relational depth for the discipleship and spiritual growth of all ages; empowering lay leadership alongside staff; seeking unity and freedom by setting aside minor positions to maintain the bond of peace; generous in the stewardship of time, resources, and gifts; and multiplying the Kingdom of God locally and globally by sharing the hope of the gospel. One of the distinctions of the EFCA, the church notes, is that it works to major on the majors and minor on the minors, refusing to divide over non-essential issues while still caring deeply about sound doctrine.

Leadership: Elders, Deacons, Deaconesses, and Staff

The spiritual and physical well-being of LEFC is overseen by Elders, Deacons, and Deaconesses, each affirmed annually to their position at the spring Congregational Meeting. The congregation also votes on important issues at biannual business meetings. The Elder Board is chaired by Tyler Ranck and includes Dan Heller, Gary Hoover, Senior Pastor Tony Hunt, Executive Pastor Joel Lingenfelter, Dan Martin, Chip Mershon, Darryl Preziosi, Phil True, DJ Weaver, Eric Wenger, and Kurt Zimmerman. Non-sitting elders have previously served on the board and step in when needed. The Deacon Board and Deaconess Board round out the lay leadership structure, and Ken Martin serves as Pastor Emeritus alongside Greg Heisey.

The staff team is led by Senior Pastor Tony Hunt, Executive Pastor Joel Lingenfelter (Operations and Theology), and Executive Pastor Matt Sowada (Discipleship Ministries). Alex Swann serves as Minister of Worship Arts, Bob Travis as Pastor of Mobilization, Julia Brown as Minister to Kids, Nick Vargas as Pastor of Student Ministries, Jenny Hoover as Minister of Women and Marriages, Jeff Travis as Pastor of Adult Ministries, Gary Poorman as Pastor of Care Ministries, and Tom Daly as Pastor of Teaching. The full staff also includes directors, coordinators, and assistants for each ministry area, as well as communications, finance, IT, property, and custodial teams.

Witness Park: A Sacred Resting Place on the Church Grounds

Witness Park is a final resting place for departed loved ones within the church and community. Designed to be a unique and sacred space, Witness Park is intended as a place where, even in death, those who rest there leave a witness to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Visiting LEFC

Guests can plan a visit by filling out the First Time Visitors Form in advance or simply stopping by the welcome desk when they arrive. Sunday services are at 9:00 AM and 10:50 AM, and dress is casual. Children from birth through fourth grade are welcome in the Kids Ministry wing, students in fifth through twelfth grade have their own programs during the first service and in the evening, and adults can join an Adult Bible Fellowship before or after worship. The church livestreams every service on YouTube, Facebook, and Boxcast, and the full sermon library, podcast, and weekly discussion guides are available online for anyone who wants to follow along at home.

The church office is open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Friday from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. The address is 419 Pierson Road, Lititz, PA 17543, the phone number is 717.626.5332, and the general email is office@lefc.net. Prayer requests, care requests, and First Time Visitors forms are all available.