Joyce Lievano has a challenge for First Free. “The mission field moved to Rockford,” she says. “We have the opportunity of extending our wings, to make people feel welcome. But we don’t have to start a program. This isn’t a program. It’s...
In 1900, the most typical Christian in the world was a European man. Over the next quarter century, it might be a Nigerian woman. That’s perhaps the biggest global shift mentioned in the Lausanne Movement’s new State of the Great Commission report. As Christianity...
Paul and Diane Geddes never really imagined themselves as snowbirds. Now that they’re both retired, though, you won’t find them in Illinois during the dead of winter. The past three winters, they’ve used the month of January to head south—not to beaches or golf...
Don Oleson was still principal of Rockford East High School when First Free sent its first mission team to Czechoslovakia in 1992. He watched with interest and thought, I could do something like that after retiring. But he had no plans to retire any time soon. God has...
For more than 50 years, First Free Rockford sent students to eastern Kentucky every June. Generations of seventh and eighth-graders remember trekking to “the hills and hollers” to serve churches with service and maintenance work, plus hosting a Vacation Bible School....
During worship services this Sunday (June 4), we will commission individuals and teams from our church family doing summer ministry work in Rockford and all over the world. Here’s what some of them will be doing this summer, and where—plus some ways you can pray...
