Phil Hopper | Senior Pastor
Phil Hopper has been the Senior Pastor of Abundant Life since February 2000. He and his family joined the church in 1997 and 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 an 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 the call by attending Calvary Theological Seminary. Soon thereafter, he came on staff at Abundant Life. Under the current leadership of Pastor Phil, 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 person relationship with Jesus Christ by leading people to Christ, discipling 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 know 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 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 2000, Rick surrendered his life to full time ministry and joined the staff of Abundant Life Baptist Church.
Rick is responsible 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 future projects and fulfilling pastoral duties in the absence of Pastor Phil. 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 grown in the Word and in their relationship with God.
Rick is married to Glenda Lea and they have two sons: Kyle and Ben.
Lance Harrington | High School Pastor
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.
God has gifted and prepared Lance in a unique way to minister to today's students. Lance's greatest joy is when teens pursue God and live it out in their daily lives. He desires to see young people come to Christ and mentor them in walking more intimately with God.
Lance married Rebecca on August 7, 2004. His wife, Rebecca graduated from Calvary Bible College with a music education degree. They have a baby boy, Parker Slayden.
Jernigan Schwent | Middle School Pastor
Jernigan was born and raised in Jonesboro, AR. He received Christ into His heart as his personal Lord and Savior at the age of nine. After living two years in California, God began changing his heart, redefining his priorities, forming a personal relationship with God, and leading him to begin following God 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, he felt the call to ministry and transferred to Midwestern Baptist College in January of 2006.
He has served as a member of the youth counseling staff at Abundant Life, and as an intern the Student Ministry. In January of 2007, he joined the staff at Abundant Life as the Middle School Student Pastor. His 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!
Jernigan married his wife Jessica in July of 2007 and she is actively involved in the Student Ministry with Him.
Email Pastor Jernigan SchwentPat Koontz | College PastorPat was born and raised in Kansas City, MO. He accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior as a young boy at a 5 day club. His mother and brother were also saved, but it wasn't until he was in 7th grade that his father accepted the Lord. At that point his parents took him out of public school and sent him to Blue Ridge Christian School. This turned out to be a huge blessing in that his father passed away when he was 16 and he had the opportunity to be surrounded by many Christian friends and families. He graduated in 1984 and attended Longview Community College and then Southwest Missouri State University, graduating in in 1989 with a BS in Secondary Education - Biology. During his professional career Pat has taught high school for 9 years and was a police officer at the University of Missouri - Kansas City for 10 years.
Pat married his high school sweetheart, Justine, in April of 1989 and they now have three children, Frankye, Tommye and Noah. Pat and Justine began attending ALBC (Liberty Baptist Church) about 11 years ago. They had the opportunity to be involved in various ministries and in September of 2001 they began teaching a college Sunday school class. This class eventually turned in to a calling into ministry. In February 2009, ALBC called Pat to be the full-time College Pastor. The college ministry currently has Bible studies that meet various times during the week and is also working to establish studies on the Longview and UMKC campuses.
Email Pastor Pat KoontzTifanni Hughes | Director of Children's MinistryTifanni was born and raised in Jersey City, NJ right outside of New York City. She attended and graduated from St. Peter's College in 1994 with a BS in Business Management and a minor in Marketing. She met her husband Danan in New Jersey and moved to Kansas City after he was draafted by the Kansas City Chief's in 1994. Through her relationship with the Chief's wives Bible study, then led by Debbie Lusardi, she was exposed to God's Word and all that it had to offer for the very first time. She and her husband Danan both came to know the Lord in 1997, shortly after they began attending Liberty Baptist Church, now ALBC. She has served in Children's Ministry since 1997, beginning in our 'one room' nursery. Her primary role has been to oversee and serve in the Nursery department. She has also served as the Treehouse Preschool Coordinator until the summer of 2008. At the end of last year, she transitioned into the Director of Children's Ministry position. God has called her to partner with parents as a tool in His hands to help reach and teach children to be Rooted in Him! She is passionate about reaching out to the children in our community.
Tifanni and Danan have 5 children, Jessie, Joey, Taurin, Savvy and Talyn.
Email Tifanni HughesSteve Guenther | Assimliation PastorSteve grew up in a church that did not preach or teach the Word of God and only knew about Jesus Christ, but did not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In 1998, the Lord convicted Steve of his sinful life and through godly repentance Steve gave his life to Christ and has been following Him ever since.
Steve graduated from CMSU and it was there he met his wife Terisa and they married in 1984. They have 2 grown sons, Michael and Ryan, a daughter-in-law, Carmen and a grandson, Ethan. Steve enrolled in the Shepherd School of Ministry at KCBT in 2002 and graduated in May of 2005. The Lord called Steve to full-time Christian service in January 2008.
Steve is the Assimilation Pastor which means he is responsible for ensuring people find their place of fellowship and service at ALBC. Steve is also responsible for the Discipleship 1 ministry and has a passion for discipleship and seeing people grow in their relationship with the Lord and His Word.
Email Pastor Steve Guenther
Dan Lehman | Worship Pastor
Dan trusted Christ as Lord and Savior as a small boy growing up in his home church, the First Baptist Church of West Hollywood, FL, 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.
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 Pastors 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 television program (Daystar & WGN Chicago broadcast stations among others) of the First Baptist Church of Springdale, AR, Dr. Ronnie Floyd, Pastor.
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. The have one son: Brenton, who is in his junior year at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, preparing for ministry.
Jason North | Worship Associate
More information coming soon!
Chris Thomson | Singles Pastor
Chris was born in Denver, CO on an Air Force base and lived on Air Force bases for the first year of his life. He spent the rest of his childhood in west-central Illinois in small farming communities. After graduating from Pittsfield high School in 1988, Chris attend Truman State University for 3 years studying Agricultural Business and Economics.
but God had a different call on his life! Chris heard the call to ministry and graduated from Ozark Christian College in 1995, with a BA in Biblical Literature with an emphasis on youth ministry. Prior to beginning his ministry with ALBC in September 2007, he served for 2 years in Cherryvale, KS and then as Student Pastor at Forest Park Baptist Church in Joplin, MO for 13 years.
Chris has made the transition from Children's Pastor here at ALBC in 2009, to becoming the pastor of the newly-formed Career-age Singles Ministry (22-25 years 0ld).
Chris has been married to his wonderful wife (Michelle) since 1994, and has three awesome children: Michaela, Carter and Madeline.
Phil Long | Outreach Pastor
Phil started attending church in Springfield, MO at the age of three. Each wee, the church bus would pick him and his sisters up. 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 then he joined the United States Marine Corps where he was given the opportunity to serve as a Presidential Guard at the Eight & I Barracks in Washington D.C. It was during this time that he met his wife and they joined the 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 leaders 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 Berwich. 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.
Phil has been married to his wife, Vala, since February 1996 and they have four children: Tabitha, Phillip, Gabriel and Deacon.
Dave Williams | Business Administrator
Dave 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 of Chairman for that organization since 2004. He has also led building teams to New Orleans. He and his wife Susan have five children.
Joe Holt | Director of Counseling
Joe has been married to his wife Patsy for 21 years. He has experienced both foster and adoptive parenting. He attended Friends College for 2 years for Christian Education and has a degree in Business Management, Computer Science and a masters in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Joe previously was an intern counselor at Abundant Life Baptist Church and the Independence School District. Joe was placed full-time on staff in January 2008.
Joe has been part of:
- Team Leader for Case Managers of Mental Health Clients
- Counselor in Residential Juvenile Lockdown Facility
- Director of Crisis House for Severely Depressed Individuals
Joe's desire is to draw others closer to Christ and each other. Joe is a fellow human being, Christian, sinner saved by grace, who wants to try and make a difference in the body!
Joe and his wife Patsy have 4 children: Jeremy, Edwin, Janet and Faye.
