Ormond Beach Presbyterian Church sits on Amsden Road in Ormond Beach, Florida, a quiet residential street a short drive from the Atlantic shore. The congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has called this address home since the early 1960s, and its members describe themselves with a simple motto: "Growing to know God, Living to show God." The church is known locally for its traditional Reformed worship, an unusually active music ministry, and a free concert series that has brought dozens of performers into the sanctuary over more than a decade.
A Church Planted in 1959
The story of Ormond Beach Presbyterian Church begins with St. John's Presbytery and a young minister from Minnesota. In 1959 the presbytery dreamed of planting a church in the Ormond Beach area, and on November 22 of that year Rev. Ernest E. Haddad and 92 charter members gathered to found the new congregation. Until the sanctuary and Fellowship Hall were completed in April 1962, the young church held worship at the Coquina Hotel. The church's main gathering space still bears the Haddad name; the Haddad Fellowship Hall is where most of the church's fellowship meals, packing events, and community gatherings take place.
Six decades later, the church looks much the way those early members would recognize: a Sunday morning schedule built around Sunday school and a single service of worship, a Session of Elders running the ministries through committees, and a deep commitment to mission work in the surrounding community. The 2024 call of Rev. Dr. Jeff Beebe as Senior Pastor marked the most recent chapter in that story. Beebe, a Florida native and ordained PCUSA Teaching Elder, returned to Ormond Beach after previous pastorates in Memphis, Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Palm Coast.
Sunday Mornings on Amsden Road
A visitor arriving on Sunday will find the building already busy long before the worship hour. Sunday school classes for adults, children, and youth meet in overlapping blocks from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. The Library Class gathers at 9:00 in the church library for a discussion-based study that often follows the day's lectionary scripture. Across the building, an Elementary Class for kindergarten through fourth grade begins at the same hour. At 9:00 a music class for younger children also opens. At 9:15 the Room 12 Class starts, a lecture-and-DVD format led by Jeff Sidwell that works through multi-month series. At 9:30 the Middle and High School Sunday School class begins.
At 10:00 the chancel choir rehearses, and at 10:30 the congregation gathers for the Sunday worship service, which runs until about 11:30. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of each month, and all who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ are welcome to partake. After the service, the Coffee Hour spills into the Haddad Fellowship Center, often paired with PB&J Making, a small assembly line that prepares sandwiches for Halifax Urban Ministries.
Nursery care is offered from 9:00 a.m. until the end of the worship service for infants through kindergarten. The nursery is staffed by caregivers who are screened by national background checks and certified in CPR, and children there enjoy supervised play with crafts, stories, and music.
Worship Through the Christian Year
Worship at OBPC follows the seasons of the Christian Year rather than the calendar year. The year opens with four weeks of Advent, a season of waiting for the coming of the Savior and the full coming of God's kingdom of peace. Christmas follows as a twelve-day celebration of the gift of Jesus. On January 6 the season of Epiphany begins, recalling the visit of the magi, and continues for several Sundays as the church celebrates the gift of Baptism and Jesus' call to follow him.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and runs for forty days of reflection and preparation leading up to Holy Week, when the final week of Jesus' life is retold: the last supper, the arrest, the trial, the crucifixion. Easter opens a fifty-day celebration of the resurrection. Pentecost follows Easter and stretches across the longest season of the Christian Year, from June into November, a long season of growth in discipleship and service marked by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Preaching, liturgy, and congregational song shape this worship. The church describes its approach as a Reformed-tradition worship that focuses attention on the sovereign God through proclamation, sacrament, prayer, and music. Worship services are livestreamed, and recordings of the most recent service are posted online for those who cannot attend in person.
Chancel Choir, Glory Bells, and the Tuned for Praise Series
Music is one of the clearest signatures of the church. The Chancel Choir leads the congregation in song at the weekly 10:30 a.m. worship service, singing a range of sacred music with an emphasis on traditional choral literature. Rehearsals are held on Thursday evenings from 7:15 to 9:00 p.m., September through May, and the choir is open to anyone who likes to sing and wants to serve the Lord through music.
The Glory Bells handbell ensemble rings once a month at the 10:30 service and frequently joins the choir and congregation for special musical presentations. The bell choir rehearses on Thursday evenings at 6:00 p.m. during the same September-through-May season, and while some music reading experience is helpful, membership is open to anyone willing to learn.
The Ormond Beach Youth Choir rehearses on Sunday mornings at 9:00 a.m. under the music director, with children and youth presenting musical offerings in worship that support the proclamation of the Word.
Each year, members of the choir, the handbells, and the wider congregation travel together to Montreat in the mountains of North Carolina for a week of music and worship that includes daily services, vocal and bell technique classes, liturgical dance, and Bible study. The week bonds OBPC members in ways that carry into the rest of the year.
Beyond the walls of the sanctuary, the Tuned for Praise Concert Series extends the church's musical hospitality to the wider community. Begun in 2012, the series has hosted more than sixty free concerts featuring local artists and touring performers. A free-will offering at each concert helps fund future programs. Past seasons have included performances by choirs and vocal soloists from across the region.
Growing in Faith: Classes and Amsden Academy
The church's adult education ministry is built around two weekly Sunday school classes and a broader lifelong-learning program called Amsden Academy. The Library Class meets in the library at 9:00 a.m. and works through group discussion of contemporary Christian issues, with different class members taking turns leading. The Room 12 Class meets at 9:15 a.m. and works through changing multi-month series using a lecture-and-DVD format.
Amsden Academy is the church's wider learning community, offering classes, speakers, and seminars that address the questions people of faith ask as they seek to grow in knowledge and wisdom. Programs span health and wellness, family life, growing in faith, coping with life's challenges, computer skills, internet safety and security, and new life skills. The academy welcomes anyone in the Ormond Beach community who has a thirst for knowledge, and its seasonal gatherings include free community events such as "Christmas Around the World," a holiday morning of storytelling and tastings hosted in the Fellowship Hall.
Children, Youth, and the Nursery
Children's ministry at OBPC is organized by age, with the understanding that parents are the primary teachers of the faith and the church is called to walk alongside them. The kindergarten through fourth grade class introduces children to the Bible and the role God plays in a child's life through stories, games, songs, and crafts. The fifth and sixth grade class, known as the Tweens class, continues exploring the Bible and begins to apply its stories to the everyday life of a pre-teen. The seventh through twelfth grade class is a discussion-based group where teens bring their own questions about how scripture speaks to the culture they live in.
Amanda Wilson-Stovall, who grew up in the Ormond Beach area and has attended OBPC since 1992, serves as both Media Specialist and Youth Coordinator. Under her leadership, the youth ministry runs a calendar packed with activities, including Teen Nights, end-of-school lock-ins, glow dance parties, youth ice-skating days, breakfasts at the beach, and seasonal events such as a Family Easter Egg Hunt.
The nursery is open from 9:00 a.m. until the end of the worship service for infants through kindergarten. Children in the nursery are cared for by attendants who are screened through national background checks and certified in CPR, and they enjoy supervised play with crafts, stories, and music.
Mission Partners and Outreach
Outreach has been a hallmark of OBPC since its earliest days, and the church partners with a wide circle of local, national, and international ministries. Locally, the congregation supports Halifax Urban Ministries, which responds to the needs of hungry, homeless, and low-income people in Volusia and Flagler counties. Members also partner with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Volusia County, serving on build days and dedications. The Rose Marie Bryon Children's Center, the oldest after-school program in the region, is another long-standing partner, providing a safe and Christian-based environment for seventy-five at-risk children.
The Presbyterian Counseling Center of Volusia County offers pastoral counseling in a caring, accepting atmosphere. Whispering Meadows, a 100 percent volunteer-based nonprofit on a ranch just outside I-95 in Ormond Beach, enriches the lives of those with disabilities and special needs through recreational, educational, and equine-assisted programs. Bethlehem Ministry supports sustainable education, healthcare, and employment in rural Haiti. Thornwell, a Christ-centered orphanage in Clinton, South Carolina, nurtures more than one hundred children in a cottage-style setting. This Child Here is a 501(c)(3) that supports orphans and youth in the Odessa region of Ukraine. Rev. Chris Chandler of Mission Discovery leads local and global mission trips, meeting the physical and spiritual needs of the hungry and impoverished.
Helping Hands Month is the church's signature annual outreach season, when the congregation focuses its energy on several projects at once. Recent years have included collecting Blessing Bags for the unhoused community, packing ten thousand meals through Rise Against Hunger, sending work teams to the Whispering Meadows Ranch, and filling shoebox gifts for Operation Christmas Child, a ministry of Samaritan's Purse that distributes gifts to children around the world and follows up with a discipleship program called The Greatest Journey.
Beliefs, the Panels, and Core Values
The church belongs to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and locates itself in the Reformed tradition that traces back to the French theologian John Calvin in the sixteenth century. OBPC summarizes its beliefs in classic Reformed terms: the sovereignty of God, the authority of Scripture, justification by grace through faith, and the priesthood of all believers. Confessional standards are gathered in the Book of Confessions, which includes the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism. The church is governed at every level by a combination of clergy and laity, men and women.
Five painted panels in the church illustrate the journey of discipleship and give shape to its ministry. The first panel, "Set Free," depicts the good news that in Christ God breaks the chains of sin and death. The second, "Growing Up," shows the seed of faith nurtured in study and prayer. The third, "Worshiping God," places worship at the center of the Christian life, with Jesus meeting disciples in the breaking of the bread. The fourth, "Getting Out of the Boat," recalls Peter's walk on the water and the call to keep eyes on Christ in the storm. The fifth, "Following Jesus," pictures the call to leave nets and follow him.
Five core values express how the church seeks to live out those truths: inspiring disciples through Christ-focused worship; developing disciples as a caring and compassionate community that welcomes everyone who comes through the doors; making disciples through mission-based outreach; growing disciples through Bible-based classes and small groups; and enfolding disciples into fellowship that celebrates life together in Christ.
Leadership: Session, Deacons, and Staff
The church is governed by a Session of Elders organized into eight committees: Christian Education, Evangelism, Finance, Outreach, Planning and Staff, Property, Stewardship, and Worship. The Moderator of the Session is the Senior Pastor, with Hunter Sharpe serving as Clerk. Committee chairs lead Christian Education (Mary Kay Wagner), Faith and Fellowship (Ann Myer), Finance and Stewardship (Claire Hiller, with Jim Adkins as Treasurer), Outreach (John Anderson), Planning and Staff (Bruce Miller), Property (George Weissgenber), and Worship (Jamie Hawes).
The Board of Deacons cares for members of the congregation who are ill, grieving, or shut-in and promotes fellowship across the life of the church. Deacons are organized into three classes, with members rotating on a regular basis.
The staff includes Rev. Dr. Jeff Beebe as Senior Pastor; Wade Meyers as Director of Music, a pianist and organist who returned to Florida in 2026 after years of service in the Washington, D.C., area; Amanda Wilson-Stovall as Youth Coordinator and Media Specialist; Virginia Tedesco as Office Administrator; Rafael Rivera Rodriguez as Custodian; and Kami Gibby as Nursery Attendant, with Susan "Bobbi" Parisi and Susan Barry as Assistant Nursery Attendants.
Giving and Getting Connected
Members and visitors support the church in several ways. Secure online giving is available through the church's giving platform, and contributions can also be made by cash or check during worship or by mail to the Amsden Road address. Estate planning gifts can be arranged by contacting the Finance Committee or the pastors, and gifts of stock and mutual fund transfers are welcomed through the EFCA. The office is open Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and the building is the natural meeting place for the many small groups, Bible studies, and fellowship activities that mark life at OBPC.