A West Olive Avenue Congregation in Peoria
South Peoria Baptist Church sits on West Olive Avenue in Peoria, Arizona, a working suburb of Phoenix where West Valley families have settled for schools, churches, and community life. The church frames its work around a straightforward mission statement: real people that live to lead others to find life in Christ. Behind that mission are four priorities drawn from the pattern of discipleship in the New Testament: worship, grow, give, and serve. Sunday worship at 9:30 a.m. centers the week, a discipleship hour at 11:00 a.m. digs into the Bible, and the same 11:00 hour gathers children for their own ministry. What sets the church apart in Peoria is the way those rhythms connect to South Peoria Christian Academy, the K-8 school that shares the campus and serves the same families.
Sunday Mornings: Worship Then Discipleship
The Sunday morning schedule is built around two coordinated services. The 9:30 a.m. Worship Service is the congregation's main gathering for singing, prayer, preaching from the Bible, and the ordinances of baptism and communion. At 11:00 a.m. the hour splits. The Discipleship Hour gathers adults for Bible teaching, while the Children's Ministry runs a parallel age-appropriate program. Both services are livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel so that homebound members, traveling families, and anyone curious about the church can follow along. A podcast and an archive of sermons and teaching series, including recent series on biblical theology and Baptist doctrine, sit on the same channel.
What South Peoria Believes
The church adheres to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and holds to a doctrinal framework organized around thirteen chapters that trace the storyline of the Bible. God, the church teaches, eternally exists as a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and has revealed Himself supremely through Jesus Christ and through the sixty-six canonical books of Scripture, which are holy Spirit-inspired, inerrant, and authoritative. The unfolding story runs from Creation, where God made the heavens and the earth and human beings as male and female in His image, through the Fall, where Adam's sin brought judgment and death, to God's covenant pursuit of sinful people, the Incarnation of the Son, the Cross where Christ absorbed the wrath of God in the place of sinners, and the Resurrection on the third day that grounds justification and the hope of glorification.
From that story flows the church's understanding of the local church as a community of regenerated believers gathered for preaching and worship, unified in love, and sent out for the great commandment and the great commission. Worship is God-centered and includes Bible preaching, the sacraments, prayer, Scripture reading, financial giving, singing, and music. Stewardship is taught plainly: tithing of 10 percent builds faith, and giving above the tithe develops a generous life. The congregation distinguishes closed hand beliefs, the primary doctrines around which the church unites, from open hand beliefs, secondary matters such as the age of the earth, end times, worship style, and the Calvinism-Arminianism debate, where Christians are free to disagree without division.
The Staff and Elders Who Shepherd the Church
Jeremiah Hayes Sr. has served on staff at South Peoria Baptist Church since 2011 and has been Senior Pastor since 2016. He holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies, a Master of Divinity, and is pursuing a doctoral degree in biblical theology. His ministry focus is equipping parents as the primary disciple-makers of their children and preaching the full counsel of God's Word. John Popovich serves as Associate Pastor alongside him. Noah Hayes leads worship and youth ministry. Melissa Fastrup directs both the children's ministry and a special needs ministry that walks alongside families affected by disability. The elders who share pastoral oversight with the pastors are Jeremiah Hayes, John Popovich, Noah Hayes, Tony Thomas, Martin Cook, and Kevin Kosier. John Steeger, Clint Hecht, and Zach Mather serve as deacons.
Children, Youth, and Special Needs
Children's ministry meets during the 11:00 a.m. hour, giving parents who attend the Discipleship Hour a parallel program for their kids. Melissa Fastrup's dual role as Children's and Special Needs Director means the ministry is intentionally designed to welcome families affected by disability, a commitment that runs alongside the church's broader conviction that every person is an image-bearer of God. Noah Hayes's portfolio extends youth ministry through the teenage years and into the worship ministry that leads the Sunday gathering in song.
South Peoria Christian Academy
Sharing the West Olive Avenue campus, South Peoria Christian Academy is a K-8 Christian school that grows directly out of the church's mission to come alongside parents in discipling their children. The academy mission statement puts the Bible as the foundation, salvation in Christ as the priority, and building the Kingdom of Heaven as the goal. Tuition is structured to work with Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account: students in 1st through 8th grade qualify for $6,500 to $7,200 in ESA assistance, and kindergarten students qualify for $4,000, against tuition of $7,000 for grades 1-8 and $4,000 for kindergarten. After STO and scholarship help, the typical out-of-pocket cost lands between $0 and $500 per year.
Amber Mather directs Early Elementary Education and came to the role through children's ministry at the church, work in special education as a paraprofessional, a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education, and a Master of Education in Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education from Grand Canyon University. Sara Hecht directs Upper Elementary Education with a Bachelor of Arts in General and Special Education, a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership, and K-8, early childhood, and K-12 Principal certifications. Cash and check tuition payments can be mailed to the church office, and Zelle payments go through the church number. A downloadable school calendar gives families the full year at a glance.
Sending the Church Out: Give and Serve
South Peoria teaches that giving is an overflow of God's blessing and quotes Proverbs 11:24 to frame the congregation's generosity: the world of the generous gets larger and larger. Online giving is available through the church's giving link, and contributions can also be Zelled to the church phone number or given in person during services. Beyond the walls of the building, the church frames its mission in the language of sending: the local church scatters to fulfill the great commandment and great commission as missionaries to the world, partnering with other Christian churches and ministries for kingdom work. Sunday worship, midweek discipleship, the academy, the special needs ministry, and the call to reach the world with the hope of the gospel are all parts of one shared calling on West Olive Avenue.