Editor’s Note: This story is part of a Day in the Life of Charleston series.

Senior Pastor Jared von Kamp stepped on stage as he does every week with a loose-fitting suit jacket, side-swept brown hair and a soft smile to greet his congregation. 

The nave of the church was filled with chatter upon his arrival on Nov. 16. Some parishioners conversed about their busy weeks over coffee; others flipped through notebooks and pocket bibles. 

When von Kamp grabbed his acoustic guitar, slinging it across his chest as he did near the start of every service, the room’s attention snapped forward.

The worship team, consisting of a piano, acoustic guitar, bass guitar and drum set in a glass box, began to play. More than 100 people, some alone, some surrounded by children and grandparents, rose to their feet and sang. 

For the next hour and a half, six songs and a sermon echoed through the wood-beamed halls of Christ First Church. 

The Music of Christ First

Music is critical to Christ First’s services. It’s at the core of von Kamp’s life too. Some of his earliest memories of Christianity are of singing hymns as a child.

Before he or his predecessor Mike Southards came to this church, von Kamp said the church struggled to find its musical identity. Should it stay traditional with an organ and handbells or switch to contemporary Christian music? 

For years, the church had been totally traditional, but prior leadership tried to pull the church totally contemporary.

When Southards got there, the church aimed for the middle: to combine contemporary Christian music with hymns and psalms.

“It keeps it fresh, and it keeps it worship-centric and not performance-centric,” bass player Mitchell Cox said. “There are some times where I will go to a church and they have like two fog machines and three bassists and three drums, and I’m like, ‘This feels like producing a band instead of leading worship.’”

This week, the service had a tune many considered joyfully out of the ordinary: “Jesus Loves Me” –a children’s lullaby. Cox, an EIU senior theater major, has attended Christ First with his wife Patience Cox for a year and a half now, and he was thrilled to play the lullaby again. 

“It’s nice. The songs we learn as children are still prevalent in our faith even if we may not return to them a lot,” he said.

Von Kamp said he chose it for two reasons. 

First, it fit the theme of that week—trust in the Bible. The chorus to “Jesus Loves Me” sings, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Second, he wanted to engage with the children who come to service. 

Christ First’s Congregation

A man seated in the back was the most vocal in the room during service, starting a clap that many others joined.

When von Kamp sang, “We are the sons of the living God,” in the first song “This Is The Day,” the man whispered, “I know that’s right,” with confidence under his breath. 

This was Brent Schroeder, a deacon and longtime attendee of Christ First alongside his wife Kathy Schroeder. 

For the husband-and-wife duo, Christ First Church is their home away from home. They’ve been a part of this church since the 80s, well before the church moved locations in 2020. 

For Kathy Schroeder, aside from her deep faith in God, her relationship with the other attendees of Christ First Church, what many describe as the church family, is the main thing that keeps her coming back. 

Eight years ago, Kathy Schroeder said their son, Kyle Schroeder, fell ill and was in Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, for five weeks. They were right there with him the whole time. 

Kyle Schroeder had received a liver in 2011 but was in need of another one, von Kamp said. When the time came to undergo a transplant, Kyle Schroeder wasn’t healthy enough to undergo the transplant and ended up passing away. 

During that time, Kathy Schroeder said the people of Christ First Church sent cards and messages daily, praying for her son and offering emotional support to the family. 

“God’s love, the love of Jesus, shined through the members of this congregation and many other people in the community as well,” she said. “We dearly love everybody here.”

The family had some issues with insurance, and the church assisted them financially. 

“Nothing’s going to ever erase the pain of what they went through, but it just helps to not be alone,” von Kamp said. 

For 66-year-old Lisa Harmon, who has been coming to Christ First since her daughter was 5, the church family can look pretty similar to her everyday family. 

She first started coming when she was newly divorced and a single mother. The church had a support group. 

Now, four generations of her family come to church together: her 86-year-old mother Sue Nance, her now 39-year-old daughter Miranda Schaljo and her three grandchildren Pate, Clark and Josephine. 

“You miss it; you actually miss it I think when you aren’t here. You can’t wait to get back,” Elder Curt Fisher said. “It’s not a place I feel compelled to go to begrudgingly. It’s a family that I feel compelled to be with and spend time with.”

For Pastor von Kamp, it wasn’t the church family or the new building that brought him. He fell into this church by pure coincidence.

He was originally from Ohio with his wife EIU professor Rebecca von Kamp, arriving at Christ First in 2014 to help with music and work with the youth ministry.

This church was where the right door opened up at the right time. Before this, von Kamp said it was a terrible telemarketing job, a men’s clothing store run by two brothers who hated each other, a side job selling shoes and a managing position of a music store. 

Him and his wife wanted a place to settle down and raise their children, one at the time but three now.

At first, von Kamp could never have seen himself in the role of pastor.

He went to college for euphonium performance, realized he didn’t want to perform for the rest of his life and shifted to seminary school—graduate level religious training. 

“At the time, I just thought I would be the music guy, find a church that was maybe large enough to have a program I could lead,” he said. 

Years after seminary, von Kamp realized he wanted to do a little more. He certainly wasn’t ready to be a pastor, but he wanted to help lead some things, like Sunday school. That turned into filling in for sermons, and slowly, he gained more preaching responsibility.

“The next thing I knew, the church wanted me to be the lead pastor, and I wasn’t saying no,” he said.

A Change of Scenery

Christ First Church hasn’t always been on the outskirts of Charleston near the lake. In fact, this building just turned 5. 

The church itself, not in the same building or name but in essence, has been in Charleston for nearly 185 years, Fisher said.

Fisher, an Ameren engineer of 33 years when not at church, led the relocation effort.

Before it was Christ First at 1706 Community Drive, it was First Christian Church at 411 Jackson St., now owned by the Family Worship Center. 

“They call it the Pizza Hut church because the roof kind of comes to a strange point,” Fisher said with a laugh.

The former building was getting old and needed work done, he said, begging the question should they spend the money to fix it or just build a new place? Fisher and the church decided it was time for a change. 

Builders broke ground in April 2019 with plans to finish the new building in a year’s time. 

The new building, modern in design with blue-gray siding, a brick base and white pillars akin to a barn, was a night and day difference from the long, brown one in the heart of town. Inside, the stained glass brought over from the old location still sits overhead.

But the new church was completed in 2020 in the midst of COVID-19. 

On Sunday mornings when the weather was nice, service was held outside in the parking lot. The congregation showed, standing 6 feet apart on asphalt warmed by the sun. 

Alongside the move, the church was renamed. The old name, First Christian Church, has ties to the Disciples of Christ denomination, Fisher said. But the church had not been a member of that denomination in decades and, thus, made the switch. 

Since the church was built, a park district has been blooming around it. 

Soccer fields have popped up, and pickleball courts are being planned by the city of Charleston for the area too. Originally, the church owned all 40 acres of land but sold off 35 acres to the city.

The church’s demographics have changed over the years too. According to Harmon, originally the church had an older demographic. But in 2018, EIU Campus Outreach partnered with Christ First. 

Since then, von Kamp said the number of young people has gone up drastically, primarily in young families and college students. 

Additionally, last year, von Kamp said the church began a “ministry of the month” program to collect items and money for donations by section of the church, going to programs like the Charleston Area Churches Food Pantry and Standing Stone Community Center. 

“We’ve looked at average giving numbers per attendance numbers, and our church has always kind of been ahead of the norm for a church our size,” he said.

In 2024, Christ First raised $43,170 for charity. 

At the closing of the day, the congregation members filed out as loudly as they had started the day, sharing written notes, bumping shoulders with quiet apologies and inviting one another to lunch. 

Von Kamp left quickly, meeting his parents for a meal before they headed back on the road to Ohio, waving Fisher goodbye on his way out. 

“We’re not perfect,” Fisher said, “but as I’ve heard someone say, if you find a perfect church, don’t join it because you’ll mess it up. None of us are perfect.”

Fisher smiled when he locked up the church, which had emptied in about a half hour. 

They’d be back again soon, with a Thanksgiving feast happening later that night. 

  Alli Hausman can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].