St. John United Church of Christ in New Athens, in the Kaskaskia Valley, is known for two distinct Sunday worship services and for the education and care built around them. The church is at 301 S. Market. Traditional worship begins at 8:00 a.m., contemporary worship at 9:15 a.m., and Sunday school meets at the contemporary service time. Coffee and doughnuts between the services give people from both gatherings a chance to connect. The same congregation supports childcare, Christian education, emergency assistance, counseling, and a food pantry.
Traditional Worship at 8:00 and Contemporary Worship at 9:15
The 8:00 a.m. service is St. John’s traditional worship gathering. Its early time gives worshippers room to take part in other Sunday activities, and it has a loyal group of people who value being able to worship earlier in the day. Pipe organ music is an important part of the service. Several people play the organ, with Paul Bickel serving as an organist and accompanist for the Quarterly Choir. Julie Daab is also an organist.
The 9:15 a.m. service is less formal. On the first and third Sundays, the St. John praise band Common Lot leads worship. On the second and fourth Sundays, the music combines recorded songs from popular and contemporary Christian artists with a smaller group playing drums, piano, and bass guitar. Scripture readings use contemporary, easy-to-understand translations, and the message is presented in a way that invites those gathered to participate.
Common Lot on First and Third Sundays
Common Lot is directed by Steve Jackson. Its musicians include Jackson on lead guitar, Scott Gallagher on percussion, Julie Daab and Paul Bickel on keyboards, and vocalists Cathy Koch, Clyde Scherle, Amy Drake, Connie Park, and Dave Vogler. The group also includes bass guitar in its contemporary worship instrumentation. Members try to remain familiar with contemporary Christian music, selecting songs that use present-day language and music to communicate the good news of God’s love.
Sunday school begins at the same 9:15 time as contemporary worship. Parents can take children to their classes and remain for the service. Coffee and doughnuts served between the two Sunday services also create a shared time for people from the traditional and contemporary gatherings to meet. Services are broadcast every week on St. John’s YouTube channel.
A Bible Story That Moves Through the Rooms
St. John’s Sunday school uses a rotation model for children age two through elementary age and for young people in junior high and high school. Adult classes are offered periodically according to interest and need. Rather than sending students directly to separate classes, the Sunday school week begins with a gathering beneath a tent decorated with flaming torches and a desert backdrop. Students then move through a hallway decorated to resemble a first century alley.
A single Bible story is taught for four or five consecutive weeks. Students rotate through several workshop settings, encountering the same story in different forms. The rooms include:
- A computer room for activities connected to the lesson
- A drama room
- An audiovisual room with projection television, surround sound, and hot popcorn
- A game room
- A craft area that sometimes includes cooking
Teachers remain in the same room for an entire rotation. That continuity allows them to become familiar with the lesson, improve how they teach it, and adjust the message for different age groups. The model combines a shared Bible story with varied forms of participation, so students hear, see, act, discuss, create, and play their way through the lesson.
Adults have a Bible study class that usually meets on Monday evening. Vacation Bible School is offered each summer and follows a modified version of the rotation model. Its activities include worship and music, crafts, Bible study, computers, snacks, and outdoor experiences. Two workshops are held each year: one for people sharing with family members in their first communion, and another that gives young people receiving their first Bible from the Board of Christian Education an overview of Scripture.
Confirmation Across Two Years
St. John’s long connection with confirmation reaches back to its Evangelical roots within the United Church of Christ. Photographs of confirmation classes dating to the early 1900s hang near the church office. The present program lasts two years, beginning in seventh grade and concluding on Palm Sunday of the eighth grade year. It prepares young people for full membership in Christ’s church.
Confirmation students attend worship and Sunday school, become active in church life, and help with community projects. On Presentation Sunday, students help lead worship and read statements of faith that they have written. At confirmation on Palm Sunday, they take for themselves the baptismal vows their parents previously made on their behalf. The program combines classroom learning, worship, service, and a public statement of the young person’s own faith.
New Beginnings From Six Weeks Through Six Years
New Beginnings Daycare is a state-licensed childcare facility serving children from six weeks through six years of age. It operates under guidelines covering all aspects of a child’s day and is inspected each year by state and local officials. The program gives families childcare during the early childhood years while connecting preschool education with the life of the church.
The program has also expanded to include care for school-age children. Families can use care before and after school, as well as all-day care during summer months. Grants from Children’s Home Aid Society of Illinois have supported specific parts of New Beginnings, including materials and curriculum for the preschool reading program and the hands-on science area. The combination of full-time daycare, part-time preschool, and school-age care allows the facility to serve children across several stages of early childhood.
From German Evangelical Roots to a Remodeled Sanctuary
On April 14, 1871, a group of citizens decided to establish an Evangelical church in New Athens. The young congregation was officially named German Evangelical St. John Church. It moved into its first sanctuary on December 2, 1878, and soon afterward organized the Frauen Verein, or Ladies’ Aid, and a church school. Those early efforts placed education, fellowship, and community organization alongside worship from the beginning.
A storm damaged the original church building, and a new sanctuary was constructed in 1905. That building remains in use by the congregation. It has been expanded and remodeled several times, including work in 2005. The sanctuary and additional church rooms have accommodated changing worship styles, Christian education, music, meetings, and community programs over the church’s long history.
The United Church of Christ itself was founded in 1957 through the union of several Christian traditions. St. John describes that fellowship as a community of faith seeking to respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed. It also emphasizes Christian communion even when people do not agree. The congregation’s motto, “That they may all be one,” comes from Jesus’ prayer for the unity of the church.
Bob Koch’s Ministry of Plainspoken Gospel
Dr. Robert Koch has served as St. John’s pastor since 1989. He graduated from McKendree College with degrees in English and religion, studied the history and literature of religions at Northwestern University, earned a Master of Theological Studies at Garrett Evangelical Seminary, and received his Ph.D. from Northwestern in 1988. His academic background is joined by a pastoral emphasis on making Christian faith understandable to people in ordinary life.
Koch helped introduce contemporary worship to a congregation whose history included a strong pipe-organ tradition. He initiated televised worship services for the New Athens Home for Aged, helped bring St. John into the Family Care Ministry, and welcomed student pastors from Eden Seminary into the church family. He was instrumental in founding New Beginnings Daycare and encouraged improvements to the sanctuary and other church facilities.
His community involvement has extended beyond church programs. Koch chaired the local Parents’ Club, founded and chaired the school district’s After Prom event, organized community dances for junior high students, and chaired CESNA, the Church Emergency Services of New Athens. At St. John, he also worked with church leadership on a building addition, sanctuary redecoration, and other improvement projects.
Koch describes the test of ministry in direct terms: “I’m worthless as a pastor if I can’t share the good news of Jesus Christ in ways people can understand.” He points to Jesus as the model, saying that Jesus “reached out using everyday language and met people where they lived.” That conviction connects the church’s pipe organ and praise band, its German Evangelical history and contemporary worship, and its educational and service ministries.
CESNA’s Helping Hand
Church Emergency Services of New Athens, known as CESNA, is an ecumenical service organization sponsored by New Athens churches. It brings together Christians from different congregations to assist people experiencing urgent needs. St. John participates in this ministry and houses the New Athens food pantry, where CESNA makes canned goods available.
CESNA assistance includes:
- Emergency rent payments
- Help with utility bills
- Groceries
- Emergency clothing, including shoes and winter coats
- School supplies
- Personal care items
- Canned goods distributed through the food pantry at St. John
CESNA relies on fundraising and community support. Its annual spring soup supper serves 500 or more people, combining donations from attendees with contributions from area businesses. The United Methodist Church of New Athens sponsors a summer sing-along that adds another source of support, with talent drawn from congregations throughout New Athens and beyond. CESNA also supports the Merrier Christmas Drive alongside local civic organizations and caring individuals. The drive gathers assistance for children and families who need help during the Christmas season.
Family Care’s Sliding-Scale Ministry
Family Care is a cooperative ministry that began between Hoyleton Children’s Home and several United Church of Christ churches in the Illinois South Conference. Its primary aim is to provide low-cost Christian counseling for people who might otherwise be unable to obtain professional help. The participating congregations include churches in New Athens, Darmstadt, Biddleborn, Lenzburg, Marissa, Freeburg, and Smithton.
Susan Ditch serves as Family Care’s counselor and meets with clients at St. John in New Athens and at an office provided by St. Paul UCC in Freeburg. Fees are set on a sliding scale. Sponsor churches cover the difference between the counselor’s fee and what a client is able to pay, so no one is turned away.
Family Care also supports confirmation discussion groups, grief support groups, parenting seminars, and in-home health care for elderly residents of the area. These programs extend the cooperative ministry beyond counseling appointments. They connect support for individuals and families with the practical needs of older adults, young people, and people working through grief or difficult family transitions.
Word and Deed on South Market
St. John’s United Church of Christ identity is visible in both its worship and its service. The congregation describes itself as a community responding to the Gospel in word and deed, while holding together a communion in which people need not agree on everything. That identity appears in the traditional service at 8:00, the contemporary service at 9:15, and the shared coffee and doughnuts between them.
It continues in Common Lot’s music, the pipe organ, Sunday school’s rotating classrooms, two years of confirmation, New Beginnings Daycare, CESNA assistance, the food pantry, and Family Care counseling. Founded as German Evangelical St. John Church and now working within the United Church of Christ, St. John remains a single New Athens congregation joining Scripture, worship, education, care, and service at 301 S. Market.