On a quiet corner at Ninth Street and Greenleaf Avenue in Wilmette, Illinois, a congregation that has worshipped, taught, and served for more than a century opens its doors every Sunday at 10:00 am. First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette gathers more than a hundred people in a Sanctuary whose stained glass windows catch the morning light, and reaches another audience through cameras trained on the chancel. The church lives its mission in three short sentences: Experience God. Grow Disciples. Transform Lives. Worshipers describe it as Church for All, an identity the congregation has built through music, education, hospitality, mission partnerships, and a steady commitment to racial and social justice.
A Century of Worship at Ninth and Greenleaf
The congregation was constituted on October 22, 1911, when the Chicago Presbytery organized 101 charter members as the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette. While plans were drawn, the new church met at the Woman's Club of Wilmette on Tenth Street. Dr. James M. Wilson of Seattle was called as the first permanent minister and began his work on July 12, 1911.
The first permanent building, a large chapel and church schoolrooms facing Ninth Street, was dedicated in the summer of 1913. In 1923, the chapel was enlarged, additional schoolrooms were added, and the building acquired a kitchen and two bowling alleys. On December 29, 1929, fire destroyed the church building during a heavy blizzard. The congregation returned to the Women's Club of Wilmette while new plans were drawn. Three years later, in 1933, the first services were held in the present structure, and on Easter Sunday, March 28, 1937, worshippers made their first entrance into the new Sanctuary. A classroom building was added in 1951. The parking lot entrance and the elevator that now serves the east side of the building were completed in 2003.
Today the congregation carries that history forward. Members who were baptized here as children now sit in the same pews as their grandchildren, and the church has remained a fixture of Wilmette through two world wars, the long suburban expansion of the twentieth century, and the changes that have reshaped American mainline Protestantism.
What Sunday Morning Looks Like
Worship at First Pres Wilmette runs on a steady rhythm. The Sanctuary service begins each week at 10:00 am and runs about an hour. A lay liturgist, one of the pastors, and one or more of the church's music groups lead the congregation through hymns, scripture readings, prayers, and a sermon. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of each month, with an open table where all who come are welcome to share the bread and cup.
Children start the service with their parents in the Sanctuary. Children from age three through sixth grade leave for Children's Chapel in the adjacent Chapel, where they gather for songs, prayer, simple liturgy, and a Bible story, then return to their families in the Sanctuary near the end of the service. Infants and young children are cared for in a staffed nursery; parents can sign children in beginning at 9:45 am.
The service is traditional in feel. Members tend to dress in a variety of ways, with traditional attire most common and casual dress perfectly fine. Pews at the front are wheelchair-accessible, and ushers, greeters, and members are happy to help visitors find their way. Seating is not assigned.
Fellowship Hour begins at 11:00 am in the Wallace Moore Fellowship Center on the lower level, where coffee, refreshments, and conversation follow the service. On warm-weather Sundays the gathering sometimes moves outdoors for lemonade and treats.
The service is also livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel, and recordings are posted for later viewing. The congregation has come to expect both options, in the pews or on a screen.
Summer Sundays at Gillson Park
Beginning on Father's Day and running through Labor Day, an earlier service takes the church outdoors. At 8:00 am on Sunday mornings, worshippers gather at Gillson Park on the shore of Lake Michigan for a casual communion service. They bring chairs or blankets and worship surrounded by the lake, the sky, and the wind. The Beach Band, a group of singers, guitarists, and bass players, leads the music. In case of inclement weather, the service moves to the Chapel.
While the summer park service runs, the 10:00 am Sanctuary service continues as usual, and a third outdoor option appears in the fall. First Festival, held in early September, takes the congregation outdoors under a tent for a single combined service with guests like bluegrass group The Special Consensus or gospel ensemble Heirs of Joy. First Festival marks the start of the program year and is followed by lunch and fellowship on the church grounds.
The Building and Its Stained Glass
The Sanctuary's stained glass windows were the gift of a former member, Charles R. Fahringer, as a memorial to his wife, Adelaide Gibb Fahringer. The windows were produced by Giannini and Hilgart of Chicago, one of the few companies that Frank Lloyd Wright used for his designs. After a year of production and installation, the windows were formally dedicated on June 4, 1961. A brochure on the symbolism of the windows is available through the church.
Worshippers enter the building through one of two entrances. The west entry is at 600 Ninth Street, between Greenleaf and Central Avenues. Parking is available on all three streets. The east entrance is accessible through the alley and the parking lot behind the church; an elevator there connects the Sanctuary, the Chapel, and the lower-level Wallace Moore Fellowship Center. On Sunday mornings the parking lot is reserved for wheelchair users, families with infants, and members and visitors for whom walking is more difficult. The Memorial Garden sits on the church grounds.
Music That Carries the Service
Peggy Massello has served as Director of Worship & Music and as organist at First Pres Wilmette for more than twelve years. With more than twenty-five years of experience in church music, she holds a Master of Sacred Music from Northwestern University and a bachelor's degree in vocal performance from DePauw University. The Sanctuary's music ministry rests on her work with the Chancel Choir and several supporting ensembles.
On a typical Sunday morning, the Chancel Choir anchors the service under Massello's direction. During the Advent and Christmas season the music expands to include the Chancel Bell Choir, the Youth Bell Choir, vocal and choral soloists, organ, piano, and on at least one occasion a guest piper's salute, with bagpipes joining the ensemble for the Lessons & Carols service. In summer, the Beach Band takes over for the early Gillson Park services. Children's musical each spring, performed during worship, brings together the Midweek Meetup children as singers, and each year features a cantata or musical such as 100% Chance of Rain or Oh, Jonah.
The church's worship spaces include a Steinway piano and a tracker organ, and on many Sundays the music brings in guest instrumentalists: clarinet, flute, trumpet, percussion, even a brass quintet at the Easter Vigil. Hymns are accompanied by organ, piano, and occasionally guitar. Music selections draw from across the tradition and beyond, blending classical hymnody with gospel, classical, and contemporary repertoire.
Children, Youth, and Tower
The congregation considers its ministry to children and young people central, not peripheral. Lindley Traynor serves as Director of Children & Family Ministry, leading the programming for ages three through sixth grade. Her work begins each Sunday in Children's Chapel, where she walks the children through liturgy, song, and a Bible story. The Wednesday afternoon Midweek Meetup gathers the same age group for crafts, games, music, and preparation for special worship services such as the Christmas Pageant and the spring children's musical. Most weeks the meetup is followed by the Church Family Dinner on the lower level, a shared meal that brings generations of the congregation to one place.
Older students find a home in youth ministry under Pastor Kara Smith-Laubenstein. Fifth- and eighth-graders are welcomed in fellowship, retreat, and seasonal events, and are invited to take part in Midweek Meetup and Children's Chapel as leader-helpers. Tower Senior High Youth gathers high school students for fellowship, faith exploration, and a weeklong summer work trip. Tower trips have taken youth to Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico, where students have built affordable housing, assisted in disaster relief, and served alongside local congregations. Each summer, Tower Youth return home and lead a Sunday worship service to share what they saw and learned.
Programming extends through the summer. Midsummer Meetup gathers the same age group for crafts and fun, and a church-wide picnic dinner typically follows. A week of Montreat Middle School Conference and the winterXtreme Retreat at Camp Timber-lee anchor the calendar of youth events.
Small Groups and Adult Faith Formation
Beyond Sunday morning, the church runs an active small-group ministry. Pastor Jeff Lehn leads several series of classes each program year, gathering adults in the Church Lounge before Sunday worship. A recent fall series, The Ten Commandments as Ancient Words for Contemporary Faith, drew on the work of biblical scholar Patrick D. Miller. A spring series, Holy Envy, worked through Barbara Brown Taylor's book on what Christians can learn from other world religions.
Pastor Lehn also leads a weekly Bible study on Thursday mornings in the Church Lounge, with discussion available both in person and online. The women's Spoke Bible Study, facilitated by Pastor Smith-Laubenstein, meets monthly on Wednesday mornings in a member's home at Westminster Place in Evanston, with the option of phone participation. The Men's Hour gathers men of all ages on Thursday evenings in the Church Lounge or the Fellowship Garden, weather permitting, for readings, meditations, and discussion.
Two fellowship and meal groups round out the week. The Men's Council gathers weekly on Saturdays from September through May in the Wallace Moore Fellowship Center for breakfast and a program. The Lunch Group meets monthly on the second Wednesday at 11:30 am in the Church Lounge for a brown-bag lunch or provided meal. The Senior Meal Group welcomes those over sixty-five to a monthly evening dinner at Ridgeview Grill in Wilmette, shifting to a midday gathering in winter. A monthly Book Group meets on the third Wednesday evening in the Church Lounge.
Family Promise and a Wide Mission Network
First Pres Wilmette's mission work extends well beyond its walls. The congregation serves as a rotational shelter for Family Promise, hosting families with children several weeks each year. Volunteers from the congregation and from partnering congregations provide meals, fellowship, and sleeping space in the Wallace Moore Fellowship Center and in rooms on the second floor. A site coordinator works with Family Promise staff throughout each host week.
The Mission Committee describes the work in two ways. The church seeks both to do mission, transactional acts of charity, and to be mission, relational work in which both server and served are transformed. Mission efforts are clustered in five areas:
- Hunger and Poverty: Good News Partners, Interfaith Action, Sarah's Circle, Stock the Shelves.
- Mental Health: Counseling Center of the North Shore, Family Service Center, Mary Lou's Place at the YWCA Evanston/NorthShore.
- Education: C24/7, Curt's Cafe, Family Matters, Learning Bridge Early Education Center, Women Initiating New Directions.
- Christian Ministry: New Life Baptist Church, Presbyterian Disaster Relief, University Christian Ministry.
- Global Neighbors: Malawi Engagement with the Central Church of Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) Katawa congregation in Mzuzu, Refugee Relief, Seraj Library Project.
Service projects appear throughout the year. Operation Sandwich, an all-ages event held after worship in the Fellowship Center, makes and packs sack lunches for Connections for the Homeless. The church has long supported Sarah's Circle; on the Sunday nearest its annual Walk for Warmth, walkers and runners from FPCW join Team FPCW on the route. A Back-to-School Backpack Drive each summer helps C24/7 provide backpacks filled with supplies for Rogers Park students. A Giving Tree each December connects members to Erie House, Family Promise, Mary Lou's Place, and the homeless shelter at New Life Baptist Church through gift requests hung in the Narthex.
A Standing Commitment to Racial and Social Justice
In 2022 the Session added a Racial Justice Committee to its committee structure, drawn from a sense of call following racial injustices past and present. In 2025 the committee widened its work and renamed itself the Social Justice Committee, seeking justice for all God's children regardless of race or creed. The committee meets regularly, builds awareness, develops relationships, and supports work to dismantle unjust structures, laws, and policies.
The committee's education series has covered hidden bias, racial microaggressions, mass incarceration, redlining and racial housing discrimination, environmental justice, diversity and inclusion, and voting rights. A Racial Justice Pilgrimage took a delegation to Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham in November 2023. The Chapel has hosted the traveling Shorefront Legacy Center exhibit on the North Shore's Black history and a folk art exhibition by Jevoid Simmons. The Ricky Byrdsong Memorial Race Against Hate, the largest social justice run/walk in the United States, draws a contingent from FPCW each June. A planning meeting with One Wilmette and New Trier Rapid Response, focused on ICE safety, gathered neighbors and friends into the Sanctuary. A Braver Angels workshop on Skills for Disagreeing Better was co-hosted with Congregation Sukkat Shalom.
The church's openness extends across the theological spectrum. Members of New Life Baptist Church in Chicago preach at FPC Wilmette through an annual pulpit exchange; FPC Wilmette's pastors preach at New Life Baptist in return. The worship committee's chairperson and the church's leadership have committed to including diverse sources, creators, artists, and presenters in the church's life.
Weddings, Baptisms, and Memorial Services
The Sanctuary hosts weddings throughout the year. The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) treats marriage as both a civil contract and a covenant before God, and weddings in the church follow the liturgy from the Book of Common Worship. Couples meet with the Director of Worship & Music to plan music, including vocal soloists and instrumentalists as desired, and review the order of service with the presiding minister.
Baptism may be administered to infants, older children, youth, and adults, and is arranged with one of the pastors. The church practices infant baptism as a sign of God's claim on a child before the child is able to respond in faith; adults make a public profession when they come to baptism. The Book of Order is explicit that both believers and their children are included in God's covenant love. The church recognizes baptisms by other Christian churches and does not require full immersion. Baptism is received only once.
Memorial services and funerals are held in the Sanctuary or the Chapel, with livestreaming on YouTube available on request. A committal may follow at a graveside or columbarium.
Leadership and How to Join
The congregation is governed by its Session, made up of men and women elected by the congregation to three-year terms. Elders lead ministry groups in Faith Formation, Buildings and Grounds, Communications, Welcome and Connection, Finance, Budget and Operations, Giving, Mission, Personnel Support, Social Justice, and Worship, Music and the Arts. A Board of Deacons cares for members and friends who are homebound, ill, grieving, or in need, with each Deacon assigned as a Care Partner and serving through visits, calls, cards, meal preparation, flower delivery, and the Christmas cookie tradition.
Membership exploration classes meet annually in spring and fall. The classes cover Presbyterian beliefs and history, the relationship with Christ, the mission and values of First Pres Wilmette, and ways to become involved in the life of the congregation. Those who decide to become members are received during a worship service soon after the class. Members transferring from another church are supported in that process.
The pastoral staff is led by Senior Pastor Jeff Lehn, who was called as Pastor/Head of Staff in February 2017. A graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School, he served Highland Park Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church of Fort Wayne before returning to Illinois. Associate Pastor Kara Smith-Laubenstein, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and a former Associate Pastor for Youth Ministries at First Presbyterian Church of Libertyville, was ordained in 2015 and installed at First Pres Wilmette in May 2023. Rev. Dr. Lolly Dominski serves the congregation as Parish Associate for Congregational Care, having previously served as Interim Associate Pastor in 2001 and 2002.
The church's team is rounded out by Peggy Massello, Director of Worship & Music; Lindley Traynor, Director of Children & Family Ministry; Rick Flintz, Director of Congregational Engagement; Marvin Behm, Finance Manager; and Jane Currie in the church office. Together they lead a congregation whose welcome extends across every difference of background and whose work has stretched from Wilmette to Malawi for more than a century.