St. Andrews Lutheran Church has held a place in Park Ridge for more than 110 years. On the corner of 260 N. Northwest Highway, just north of Uptown and adjacent to Hinkley Park, the congregation sits at the literal center of the suburb it has served since long before the first streetcars ran. What began as a small Lutheran society meeting nearby has grown into a single campus that combines a worshiping congregation, a preschool-through-eighth-grade day school, a confirmation program that runs alongside the late Sunday service, and a service ministry with partners across the Chicago area. The motto says it plainly: Connecting People to Christ, Church & Community.
The church is a member congregation of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, and its teaching centers on the cross and empty tomb. Within that confessional framework, however, St. Andrews is unmistakably its own place: three weekend services with very different feels, a Dobson pipe organ anchoring the traditional liturgy, a Saturday night contemporary service led by a worship leader with more than four decades of experience, and an 11 a.m. Foundations Service where confirmands serve as ushers, readers, and communion assistants while Luther's Small Catechism is taught from the chancel.
Three Services, Three Styles
Visitors who show up on Saturday evening at 5 p.m. walk into the most informal of the three. The instrumentation is contemporary - guitars, drums, and a band led by Greg Lendy, who has directed contemporary worship at St. Andrews since 2007 and has more than forty years of leading music behind him. The service is reverent and relaxed.
At 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, the mood shifts to what the church calls the Divine Service, a more traditional liturgy with the organ, piano, and guest musicians. This is the service for which the church's Dobson pipe organ was built; the instrument has its own entry in the Pipe Organ Database. The 8:30 service also doubles as the Summer Sunday service when the schedule shifts.
At 11 a.m. on Sunday, the congregation gathers for the Foundations Service. This is the liturgical home of the confirmation program. Confirmands actively participate by serving as ushers, readers, and communion assistants. The service focuses on teaching the foundations of the Christian faith through Scripture and Luther's Small Catechism. Holy Communion is celebrated on the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of the month. The Foundations Service is also where Life Together, the confirmation small-group hour, plugs in: confirmands meet from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. between the two Sunday services.
All three services are livestreamed on BoxCast and made available afterward in the sermon archive, where they are paired with a weekly podcast called How the Sausage is Made, in which Pastors Matt Hoffmann and Ethan Luft unpack the text behind each week's sermon.
A K-8 Lutheran School Sharing the Building
Sharing the campus is St. Andrews Lutheran School, a Preschool through 8th-grade day school whose mission the staff describes as nurturing Christian faith, determination, and academic excellence so that children leave prepared, confident, and resilient for high school and beyond. The school is led by Principal Mrs. Hillary Delanty. Admissions and Early Childhood are led by Michelle Cimilluca, who also teaches in the Pre-Kindergarten classroom.
The Early Learning Center offers Preschool for three-year-olds and Pre-Kindergarten for four- and five-year-olds, in half-day (8:30-11:30) and full-day (8:30-3:20) options, two to five days a week. Each classroom runs with a teacher and an assistant, with class maximums of 18 (Preschool) and 20 (Pre-Kindergarten) and ratios of 9:1 and 10:1. Kindergarten is offered half-day or full-day, five days a week.
In the elementary years, homeroom teachers carry Grades 1 through 5 with curricula that include McGraw-Hill's Wonders for ELA, Go Math for math, Savvas Elevate for science, Impact Social Studies for civics and history, and Heggerty and Jolly Phonics for early literacy. Spanish instruction runs Grades 1 through 5. The middle school (Grades 6 through 8) uses McGraw-Hill's StudySync for ELA and adds a notable German program that begins in sixth grade and runs through eighth - one of the few middle-school German programs in the greater Chicago area. The middle school also has daily devotions, chapel, catechism, memory work, and church history woven into the day, and the eighth-grade class takes a spiritual retreat at LOMC.
Faith is not a subject at St. Andrews so much as the air the school breathes. Every Wednesday morning, students in Grades 1 through 8 gather for chapel, with each class taking a turn planning and leading the service. Prayer is daily. Every student encounters the Bible in age-appropriate ways, and the religion curriculum for older students is anchored in LCMS-endorsed materials. Alumni and former families are invited to stay in touch through the alumni newsletter.
The school partners with local District 64 to provide speech, occupational therapy, and social-work services for students who qualify, and it runs a part-time resource program for students who come with an IEP, 504, or formal outside evaluation or who fall below the 25th percentile on NWEA MAP testing. Spring 2025 results: 81% of students met or exceeded Illinois state math standards and 86.3% in reading, against state averages of 38.4% and 52.4% respectively.
Before- and after-school care is available from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., billed at $7 an hour with a $50 enrollment fee. The hot-lunch program, Marla's Lunch, sources meals from local restaurants (Jimmy Johns, Panera, and others) on a rotating menu, ordered online by families. Athletics includes volleyball, basketball, cross-country, track and field, and cheerleading under a no-cut policy through the Lutheran Sports Association. Co-curriculars include Art Club (split K-3 and 4-8), Homework Club, Battle of the Books, Geography Bee, Spelling Bee, and Student Council.
Tuition runs as an inclusive rate, with separate fact sheets for PS/PK and K-8 and member and community rates for K-8. A non-refundable $206 deposit is due at registration, increasing by $100 per additional child. Tuition Assistance, a School Support Fund, and a School Growth Initiative are all available for giving through the church's giving portal.
Sunday Mornings Are for the Whole Family
St. Andrews is clear about one thing: children belong in worship, not in a back room. At St. Andrews, children are not spoken of as being the 'future of the church.' We know they 'are the church' just as much as anyone else. The back of the church has a private nursing room and a cry room for children under four, plus a stash of tables and coloring books that families can use during the service. The ushers will sweep up Cheerios afterward. There is no expectation that kids need to be silent to be welcome.
Sunday School runs from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. during the school year for children ages three through 8th grade. The classes are split Pre-School, Kindergarten through Grade 2, Grades 3-4, and Grades 5-6. There are no Sunday School classes on the fourth Sunday of the month, when the congregation gathers for an All-Church Pancake Breakfast between services.
A Weekday Rhythm of Bible Study
Beyond Sunday, the church offers a fairly packed weekday study schedule. A Tuesday Morning Bible Class meets from 8:45 to 9:45 a.m. and is open to all. A Bible study is offered on the first and third Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. Friday Family Fellowship meets on the second Friday of the month from 6:00 to 7:15 p.m., September through May: dinner at 6:00 and study at 6:35, with classes available for all ages. In addition, Women's Fellowship, Men's Fellowship, a Knit&KnowHim group, and small groups called Getting to Know You run on their own schedules through the year.
Confirmation: A Two-Year Walk Through the Catechism
The confirmation program at St. Andrews is built around the Foundations Service. Confirmands, typically in 7th and 8th grades, gather for Life Together from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. each Sunday morning for prayer, conversation, and relationship-building. Then they move into the 11 a.m. Foundations Service as active participants - reading, ushering, assisting with communion - for the rest of the morning.
The curriculum is laid out in three movements that map onto the Small Catechism. The fall begins with a unit called What Is the Bible?, walking through the Big Story of Scripture, the different chunks (Torah, Prophets, Wisdom, Gospels, Epistles, Apocalypse), and how the Old and New Testaments fit together. October through mid-December moves into Baptism: John's Baptism as anticipation, what baptism is and is not, the simplicity of water as a means of grace, and what new life looks like after the font. Advent gives way to the Lord's Prayer in November and December, one petition at a time through the 7th Petition, with the 6th and 7th landing just before the Christmas Program. The Creed takes January through mid-February, three articles across multiple weeks. Lent follows, with Palm Sunday, Easter, and then a final unit called What Is Worship? that covers liturgy, Confession and Absolution, Word and Sacrament, and the Body of Christ before Confirmation Sunday on the first Sunday of May.
Middle School and High School Youth
Sunday nights belong to the youth. Middle School Youth meets from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. and High School Youth from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. overlap is a shared dinner and fellowship for both groups. The current year's theme is Who Are We?: Discovering who God is, who I am, and why that matters, built around helping students articulate and live out their faith in a culture that is increasingly non-Christian.
The broader Youth and Family ministry is shepherded by Rev. Ethan Luft, the Associate Pastor of Youth and Family Life, who came to St. Andrews in 2025 with his wife Wren and their new daughter Isla. Before seminary, he studied Psychology and General Business at Northwest Missouri State and earned his M.Div. at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. The Walcamp trip for sixth graders - and Pasta Under the Stars, the fundraiser that supports it - are part of the youth ministry calendar each year.
Music: Organ, Choir, Handbells, and Brass
Music is built into the fabric of St. Andrews. The traditional service is anchored by the Dobson pipe organ. Three ensembles - Choir, Handbells, and Brass - meet regularly and enrich the church's musical life under Music Director Jordan Holliday, who joined the staff after graduating from Concordia University Chicago in 2023 with a focus on composition. He also directs the children's choirs: Grades K-3 and Grades 4-8 each take a turn singing in worship during the school year. Contemporary service music is led by Greg Lendy, who has written more than 250 songs over his career and whose work has reached the top of the iTunes and Billboard Christian charts.
A Heart for the Neighborhood
The Board of Service Ministry runs a sprawling portfolio of outreach. It is grounded in Matthew 25 (I was hungry and you gave me something to eat) and meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the Social Area. Anyone is welcome.
The board organizes partnerships across a wide range of ministry areas. For those experiencing food insecurity, the congregation supports Saint Paul of the Cross Food Pantry, Feed My Starving Children, Sunday Night Suppers, the CROP Hunger Walk, and the Park Ridge Emergency Fund. For those experiencing homelessness, the church partners with The Harbour and supports St. Matthews Lutheran Church's coat, turkey, and financial efforts. For refugees, the church works with Exodus World Service on ethnic food, Welcome! to America Packs, and Household Care Packs. Education is supported through Lutheran World Relief school supply backpacks. Expectant mothers in need are served through Redeeming Life Outreach Ministry's maternity home. Christmas joy is shared through Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Eyeglasses are collected for MOST Ministries. Homebound members receive Easter and Christmas floral deliveries and birthday greeting cards. The community and the environment are served through an annual Earth Day roadside cleanup.
The school adds its own monthly outreach projects and participates annually in Uncle Pete's Ministry, providing meals to those experiencing food insecurity. The Myra Comfort Dog ministry, one of the listed church groups, runs a fall shoe drive that brings gently-used shoes to a wider network of Lutheran comfort-dog ministries.
What St. Andrews Believes
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod is the denominational home, and St. Andrews teaches three solas at the heart of its identity: Scripture Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone.
Scripture Alone means the Bible is God-breathed and authoritative for what is believed, taught, and confessed at St. Andrews. Grace Alone means that no human work can earn right standing before God; Jesus lived the perfect life, fulfilled the Law, died for sinners, and rose again. Faith Alone means that the gifts Christ gives - new life in baptism, forgiveness of sins in Holy Communion where Christ is truly present - are received by faith, and that faith itself is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The center of everything is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died and rose for sinners. The church exists to enjoy God's love, grace, and forgiveness and to share it with those who are hurting.
Pastors and Staff
The pastoral team is led by Rev. Matt Hoffmann, the Lead Pastor. Pastor Matt came to St. Andrews after serving as an Associate Pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church and School in Giddings, Texas, and as Sole Pastor of Concordia Lutheran in Columbus, Ohio. He studied Communication and Business at Pacific Lutheran University (Class of 1998) and earned his M.Div. at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis in 2003. He and his wife Anne have two children, Killian and Elsa. He is a Police Chaplain for the Park Ridge Police Department and is heavily involved with Mission India.
Rev. Ethan Luft is the Associate Pastor of Youth and Family Life. He and his wife Wren are both Missouri natives; they recently welcomed their daughter Isla. Pastor Ethan studied Psychology and General Business at Northwest Missouri State and earned his M.Div. at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis in 2025.
Supporting them are Jordan Holliday (Music Director), Greg Lendy (Director of Contemporary Worship, leading the Saturday service since 2007), Christa Neve (Communication and Media Director), Nichole Wandel (Church Secretary, in the role since 2017), and Ray Pagels (Christian Gift Planning Counselor, working with the congregation in partnership with the LCMS Foundation).
The school side of the operation is staffed from Preschool through 8th grade by homeroom leads (Kindergarten through 5th Grade), middle school teachers for ELA, math, science, social studies, and foreign languages, plus dedicated resource, art, music, PE, librarian, school nurse advisor, and building supervisor roles. Mrs. Leslie Cook serves as the school's Athletic Director as well as a Kindergarten teacher.
Visiting St. Andrews
First-time guests can expect a reverent and relaxed feel. The dress ranges from casual to dressy across the three services. Kids are not just tolerated but celebrated in worship, and the building has a private nursing room and a nursery/cry room for children under four. Holy Communion is offered at the 11 a.m. Foundations Service on the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of the month.
The address is 260 N. Northwest Highway, Park Ridge, IL 60068. The church phone is (847) 823-6656; the school phone is (847) 823-9308. Giving is available online through the Church Center app or by texting 888.402.5120. Worship services are livestreamed on BoxCast, and sermon audio and the How the Sausage is Made podcast are available in the sermon archive.
After more than 110 years in Park Ridge, the calling has not changed. The congregation simply keeps doing what it has always done: loving its neighbors, teaching the faith to the next generation, and pointing people to Christ.