Phil Hopper, Pastor Phil Hopper has been the Senior Pastor of Abundant Life since February 2000. He and his family joined the church in 1997 as he served as Missions Pastor, Adult Community Group Teacher, and then Interim Pastor. Pastor Phil attended the University of Kansas from 1987 to 1991. He was a SWAT team member with the Kansas City Police Department where he gained the respect of his superiors and peers. His awards include the KCPD's Distinguished Service Award. He played football as a defensive end for Glen Mason and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications. He had eight year career as an officer including BC's Gold Award for Valor, and Metro and National Tactical Officer of the Year.
It was through his service as a police sergeant that Pastor Phil's heart for people grew into a call to ministry. He answered that call by attending Calvary Theological Seminary. Soon thereafter, he came on staff at Abundant Life.
Under the current leadership of Pastor Phil Hopper, Abundant Life has grown numerically, financially, entered a successful building campaign, and started various ministries to bring others to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Pastor Phil's heart is for helping people grow in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by leading people to Christ, disciple them, and sending them out to impact their community and the world for Christ. It is Pastor Phil's prayer that Abundant Life Baptist Church will be known for years to come as a place where families are strengthened, broken hearts are healed, and souls are changed eternally.
Phil and his wife, Christa, married in 1991. They have three children, Jacob, Makay, and Joshua.
Rick Friesen, Executive Pastor
Rick Friesen and his family were among the original 29 members who, in 1994, helped form the Liberty Baptist Church now known as the Abundant Life Baptist Church. Over the years, Rick served in various layperson leadership capacities at the church including Board of Trustee, Deacon, Sunday School Teacher, and Youth Pastor. In September of 2000, Rick surrendered the call on his life to full time ministry and joined the staff of Abundant Life Baptist Church.
Rick has responsibility for assisting the senior pastor in performing his duties including visitation, counseling, office and business supervision, preaching, teaching, special assignments such as overseeing Abundant Life's recent and future building projects and fulfilling pastoral duties in the absence of Pastor Phil Hopper. While Rick has diverse responsibilities at the church, his main passion is to utilize the love God has given him for people by helping them grow in the Word and in their relationship with God. Rick is married to Glenda Lea and they have two sons, Kyle and Ben.
EmailLance Harrington, Senior Pastor of Students
Lance grew up on a farm in Garden City, Kansas. He surrendered to full time youth ministry at a youth camp in 1997 at the age of fourteen. Lance graduated from Garden City High School in May of 2000 and graduated from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO in May of 2004 with a BA in Inter-Cultural Studies. He joined the Abundant Life staff on June 1, 2004 as Youth Pastor.
Lance was married to
Rebecca on August 7
th, 2004.
Rebecca previously attended Baptist Bible College working on a music major.
Rebecca is finishing her music major at Calvary Bible College.
God has gifted and prepared Lance in a unique way to minister to today's youth. Lance's greatest desire is to see young people come to Christ and mentor them in walking more intimately with God.
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Jernigan Schwent, Pastor of Students
Jernigan was born and raised in
Jonesboro, AR.
Jernigan received Christ into his heart as his personal Lord and Savior at the age of nine. After living for two years in California, God began to change
Jernigan's heart, redefining his priorities, forming a personal relationship with God, and leading
Jernigan to begin following Him passionately.
He relocated back to the Kansas City area with his family in 2003 and began to attend Abundant Life Baptist Church. Having worked on his degree at the University of Central Missouri,
Jernigan felt the call to ministry and transferred to Midwestern Baptist College in January of 2006.
Jernigan has served as a member of the youth counseling staff at Abundant Life, and as an intern in the Youth Ministry. In January of 2007,
Jernigan joined the staff at Abundant Life as the Middle School Youth Pastor. In addition to this position, he is continuing to take classes at Midwestern on a part-time basis.
Jernigan's desire is to help teenagers come to see the bigness of God and the fullness of His glory while also emphasizing God's desire to have a personal and intimate relationship with each teen that He has created!
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David Williams, Business Administrator
David Williams joined the Abundant Life staff in March 2006 as Business Administrator, to serve the various ministries of the church through management of the financial resources, operations, administration and long-range planning. Prior to his ministry at Abundant Life, Dave had a 25-year career with a Kansas City airline, and previously served as Director of Facilities at another local Baptist church.
Dave is actively involved in Won By One Missions to Jamaica, and has served as Board Chairman for that organization since 2004. He has also led building teams to New Orleans. He and his wife Susan have five children.
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Dan Lehman, Worship Pastor
Dan trusted Christ as Savior and Lord as a small boy growing up in his home Church, the First Baptist Church of West Hollywood, Florida, under the pastoral leadership of Dr. Verle Ackerman. Dan also surrendered to the ministry as a young child and has had a heart to serve God through the local Church from his younger years till the present.
While pursuing pastoral and theological studies at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, Dan met his beautiful wife, Bridget and they have been married for 23 years. They have one son, Brenton, who is in his junior year at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, preparing for ministry.
In over 20 years of ministry Dan has served Churches in Missouri, Texas, Arkansas and Kansas, holding his first pastorate at the young age of 21.
Dan has served as founding and Senior Pastor as well as Young Married Adults Pastor and, of course, Worship Pastor in his various ministries.
While giving his life to the declaring of God's Word, God has blessed Dan with the ability to "preach a song" and lead congregations to authentic and life-changing worship. With several albums to his credit, he has sung on such major platforms as the Southern Baptist Convention and Pastor's Conference, Promise Keepers Men's Conference and has been the regularly featured soloist/worship leader on the nationally televised program (Daystar & WGN Chicago broadcast stations among others) of the First Baptist Church of Springdale, Arkansas, Dr. Ronnie Floyd, pastor.
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Jason North, Worship Associate
More information coming soon!
Chris Thomson, Children's/Family Pastor
More information coming soon!
Phil Long, Outreach Pastor
Phil started attending church in Springfield, MO at the age of three. Each week, the church bus would pick up him and his sister. His mother passed away when he was ten years old and he quit going to church for a short time, but through the visitation program and the bus ministry, he found himself back in church. He finally accepted the Lord as his Savior and was baptized when he was a sophomore in high school. Soon after he was saved, he surrendered to full-time Christian service.
After graduating from high school, Phil attended Baptist Bible College in Springfield for a year and decided he was not ready for college. He joined the United States Marine Corps where he was given the opportunity to serve as a Presidential Guard at the Eighth & I Barracks in Washington D.C. It was during this time that he met his wife and they joined Capital Baptist Church in Annandale, VA. There they were given the opportunity to serve as youth counselors. After his tour of duty was over, he knew I needed to be at BBC. The family returned to Springfield, MO in 1998 and enrolled at BBC.
While attending Baptist Bible College, Phil served on staff at Baptist Temple. He served in several positions, from janitor to youth leader to youth pastor and finally missions intern. In 2003 Phil and his family began deputation as missionaries to Scotland. They finally were able to move to Scotland in April 2006. While there, they worked with the children and youth in North Berwick. In September 2007, Phil and his family returned to the US to raise additional support in order to return to Scotland and continue working there. The Lord began to close doors in Scotland and open doors at Abundant Life Baptist Church. Phil accepted the position as outreach pastor at Abundant Life in March 2008.
Steve Guenther, Assimilation Pastor
More information coming soon!
