A Place Called Esperanza in Ahwatukee
Esperanza is the Spanish word for hope, and Esperanza Lutheran Church has spent more than three decades embodying that name in a corner of the Phoenix valley where suburban streets climb toward South Mountain. The congregation sits at 2601 E. Thunderhill Place in Ahwatukee, a neighborhood of Phoenix in Maricopa County, and its campus is a familiar landmark for the people who attend Sunday worship, send their children to its preschool, and gather for community meetings during the week. Members of Esperanza describe a community that feels small enough to be family and big enough to support rich, relevant programs. Youth are nurtured from preschool through high school. Adults gather for study, fellowship, and a range of service projects. Everyone, in the words of the church's welcome statement, is welcome at the Table of Hope.
The Welcome Statement and What It Means
The congregation takes its welcome statement seriously. Posted on the wall and read aloud on Sunday mornings, it reads in part: "Welcome to new visitors and old friends; to believers, questioners, and questioning believers. Welcome to people of every shape and size, color and culture, age, ability, sexual orientation, and family type. We give thanks for the diversity of God's family and our unity as God's people. This is a safe place for celebration, healing, rejoicing and renewal." Esperanza calls itself a community that embraces God's word as a journey of discovery, rather than a destination of certainty, a place where questions are as welcome as answers. Members describe being transformed by serving alongside the homeless, the hungry, the lost, and the least, not just because they are called to do so, but because they are changed in the process.
Sundays at 9:00 in the Sanctuary
Esperanza worships at a single Sunday service that begins at 9:00 a.m. The order of worship follows a Lutheran liturgical pattern and includes Holy Communion, with bread and wine, or grape juice for those who prefer it. Those who join by livestream are invited to have bread or a cracker and wine or juice ready at home so they can participate fully. After the service, the congregation moves to the Fellowship Hall for coffee, conversation, and an unhurried chance to meet newcomers and reconnect with old friends. Esperanza's tagline - "Creating authentic connections and a deep sense of belonging as a Christ-centered community" - captures what members hope every visitor will find.
The music at Esperanza is a blend of traditional hymns and contemporized songs. The adult choir, Promesa de Esperanza, leads worship roughly every other week when it is in season, accompanied by Lai Ma Gates, the church's accompanist. Marcie Donavon serves as Music Director, working with the choir and arranging special services during Advent and on Good Friday. The aim, as the choir writes, is "to glorify God through music" and to give the congregation additional ways to worship through choral pieces that range from re-arranged hymns to modern worship songs.
The People of Hope in the Pulpit
Pastor Chris Heller was installed at Esperanza on March 3, 2024, after serving six and a half years at nearby Mountain View Lutheran Church in Ahwatukee. A graduate of Wartburg Theological Seminary, Heller was ordained in 2009 and served four rural Illinois congregations before callings that took him to Messiah Lutheran Church in Albuquerque and to Lutheran Campus Ministries at the University of New Mexico. He and his wife Elissa have three children, and he brings the energy of a parent who has spent many afternoons ferrying kids to school and activities. Beyond the parish, Heller serves as Fiesta Conference representative to the Grand Canyon Synod's Synodical Church Council and as Vice-Chair of Lutheran Campformation.
Deacon Connie Rose-Kamprath serves as Family Ministry Coordinator and teaches at Children of Hope. An alumna of California Lutheran University and the Lutheran School of Theology of Chicago, she has led youth through mission trips across the country, ELCA youth gatherings, Vacation Bible Schools, and preschool classrooms. She and her husband Peter have three children and a mini golden-doodle named Lizzie. Jessica Mueller, a longtime Esperanza member and respected early-childhood educator with more than fifteen years of experience, directs the Children of Hope Preschool. Lai Ma Gates, who has accompanied Esperanza since 2007 and the Greater Phoenix Chinese Christian Church since 1996, holds a master's degree in music composition from Arizona State University and is an adjunct faculty member at Arizona Christian University.
The staff is rounded out by Parish Administrator Joni Thorpe, Financial Secretary Jane Gisselquist (a volunteer), and website/newsletter volunteer Tim Klandrud. The Congregation Council, which meets on the fourth Tuesday of most months, is led by President Timothy Klandrud, Vice President Chris Armfield, Treasurer Mark Krach, and Secretary Kelly Edwards.
Children of Hope: From Preschool Through Confirmation
Children of Hope Child Development Center is the church's preschool for children ages two through four and was founded more than fifteen years ago as part of the congregation's commitment to early childhood education. The preschool is open for in-person learning and operates under a Safeguarding God's Children policy that the whole congregation has adopted. Its goal, in the words of its director, is to provide a positive first school experience within a Christian environment of understanding, acceptance, and love, where curiosity is sparked, friendships are formed, the love of God is shared, and every child is celebrated.
Older children are welcomed into the Sunday Funday School, which meets upstairs at 10:15 a.m. each Sunday for children in pre-K through fifth grade. Lessons, crafts, snacks, and prayers are woven together with a focus on parables of Jesus and how he led by serving others. Deacon Connie leads a recurring Playin' and Prayin' program for ages two through six during worship on selected Sundays. Younger children are also welcome to stay in the sanctuary with their families at the Pray-Ground, a dedicated space in the northeastern corner of the sanctuary with age-appropriate activities designed to let little ones worship alongside their parents without distraction.
Older elementary students and middle-schoolers work toward First Communion and Confirmation for All Ages. Teens meet for their own programming throughout the year, and the church runs an annual Vacation Bible School, typically held in early June from 9:00 a.m. to noon for children ages three (potty trained) through fifth grade. The church also adopted a Safeguarding God's Children policy to guide how adults and children interact on the campus and to prevent abuse. The policy is implemented alongside the everyday conviction that cross-generational relationships are one of the greatest gifts a faith community can offer.
Adult Education: Thursday Mornings and Beyond
Adults at Esperanza have several regular learning opportunities. The longest-running is Thursday Matters - A Journey in Faith, a small group that has met since the congregation's founding. From 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. on Thursdays, members gather in the Fellowship Hall to discuss the scripture readings for the coming Sunday, books of the Bible, theological issues, and other topics through a Christian lens. The pastor provides leadership and knowledge, but the conversation is known for taking unexpected directions, and many deep friendships have grown out of those Thursday mornings.
A Sunday adult Bible discussion meets between services at 10:30 a.m., with a peer-led conversation that wraps up at 11:00 a.m. A Thursday evening Women's Bible Study meets in person in the Fellowship Hall weekly except during the summer; recent studies have come from Gather magazine, the publication of Women of the ELCA, including "Plenty Good Room" on welcome and "Just Love" on living with uncertainty. Esperanza has also guided congregation-wide reading programs such as Journeying through the New Testament chronologically.
Promesa de Esperanza, the Choir of Hope
Promesa de Esperanza is Esperanza's adult choir, a group that rehearses every Wednesday from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. when in season and serves in worship roughly every other week. Directed by Andrew DeValk and accompanied by Lai Ma Gates, the choir explores a wide repertoire that includes re-arrangements of standard hymns and contemporized worship songs. The choir also presents special services during Advent and on Good Friday and supports major moments in the congregation's life, including singing at celebrations of life in the sanctuary. Recordings of many of its performances are available on the church's YouTube channel in a Special Events playlist.
Hands and Feet in the Wider Community
The Community Outreach Team coordinates a wide array of service projects that have become a hallmark of Esperanza's identity.
Feed My Starving Children is one of the congregation's flagship partnerships. Esperanza regularly sends groups of volunteers to the FMSC packing site in Tempe to assemble bags of manna for shipment to about seventy countries around the world. The congregation has reserved forty volunteer spots for recent packing events, with sign-ups coordinated online, in the fellowship area, or by text.
Esperanza has also been part of the Southeast Valley Lutheran Coalition of Habitat for Humanity for many years. Through the Arizona tax credit program, members donate to support annual home builds; the 2023-2024 build went to the Morino family on Don Carlos in Tempe, the 2022-2023 build to Angela Pelosi and her three children on South Roosevelt Street in Tempe, and the 2021-2022 build (the coalition's 25th) to the Jama family in Tempe.
The church prepares and serves a home-cooked dinner for about twenty-seven guests at the I-HELP (Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging Program) shelter hosted by Desert Cross Lutheran Church on South McClintock Drive in Tempe, and members collect cereal and granola bars for the Kyrene Family Resource Center, which packs Weekend Food Bags for students who arrive at school hungry. Esperanza volunteers also pack emergency food boxes at St. Mary's Food Bank, the oldest food bank in the country, in numbers that have topped a thousand boxes in a single session.
Each November, Esperanza partners with Sonoran Prevention Works to pack naloxone kits in the Fellowship Hall after worship, part of a wider effort to help reverse opioid overdoses in the community. Quarterly Adopt-a-Street cleanups, typically held with Scout Troop members and Troop Leaders, gather trash along South Ranch Circle East between Ray Road and South Mountain Parkway; one recent Saturday yielded thirty pounds of refuse and another seven bags. Esperanza also takes part in the Ahwatukee Easter Parade, the Spring Fling organized by the local Kiwanis Club, and the Children's 4th of July Bicycle Parade organized by the Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce.
The Garden of Eatin' turns a portion of the campus into raised beds for members and neighbors who want to grow vegetables. Hope for Newborns gathers on the third Friday of the month at 10:00 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall (no meetings in July or December) to knit, crochet, sew, and quilt kits that go to Arizona infants in need through Dignity Health's Chandler Regional Medical Center, UMOM, the Salvation Army, Helen's Hope Chest, and Project Linus. Each kit includes five diapers, a blanket, a clothing item, a hat, booties, a wash cloth, and a burp cloth; thousands of kits have been donated since the program began.
Prayer Shawls and a Praying Chain
The Prayer Shawl Ministry is one of Esperanza's oldest lay ministries. Since 2009, a group of about twenty-five needle workers has knit and crocheted shawls for the sick, the elderly, and anyone going through a hard time; the group has made more than nine hundred seventy shawls. Members meet in the Fellowship Hall at 10:00 a.m. on the first Wednesday of the month, and when a shawl is finished, the group prays over it and attaches a tag explaining that love, compassion, and prayers for God's grace were stitched into every stitch. A parallel Prayer Chain Community keeps members connected through prayer requests.
Stewardship: Time, Talent, and Treasure
Esperanza's annual stewardship program gathers the congregation around an annual Intent Sunday, when members make a financial intention for the coming year. The most recent program, "Planting Seeds of Faith," took its inspiration from the agricultural image of preparing the soil, planting seeds, nurturing growth, and celebrating the harvest, and included speakers on each of those themes. The congregation supports electronic giving through the Vanco platform and a smartphone app, accepts stock gifts, and encourages the use of bunching strategies, IRA qualified charitable distributions, and estate planning as ways to give generously. Members are also invited to consider donating through the Arizona tax credit to Habitat for Humanity, where joint filers can give up to $800 and single filers up to $400 and receive a dollar-for-dollar credit on state taxes. Generosity Coaches including Michael Paradise, Craig Peck, Dan Beeks, and Paul Beeks are available to walk members through tax-smart giving strategies.
Thirty-Five Years on Thunderhill Place
The congregation marked its thirty-fifth anniversary in early 2025 with a special celebration that Pastor Chris Heller described in a Transfiguration-season reflection as a "mountaintop experience." Esperanza first began gathering in 1990 in the Ahwatukee area of Phoenix and has been a part of the Grand Canyon Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ever since. The congregation belongs to the wider Lutheran tradition through its seminary-trained pastor, its ELCA women of the Bible studies, and its partnership with Wartburg Theological Seminary, the Lutheran School of Theology of Chicago, and California Lutheran University, all of which have shaped the leaders who have served Esperanza over the years.
Today the church's building hosts the people of Esperanza, Children of Hope Preschool, AA groups, Scouts, Toastmasters, and other community organizations. If you are looking for meeting space for a community group of which you are a part, the church office can let you know whether the campus can accommodate you. Esperanza's motto is the same one that anchors the welcome statement at the door: All are welcome at the Table of Hope.