2025 Annual Report

Released on February 22nd, 2026

Letter from the Pastor

Dear Members and Friends of First Presbyterian Church, This is the third annual report I have had the privilege of commending to you as your transitional pastor. At the end of my letter introducing the 2024 report, I signed off with, “Let’s see what God has in store for us in 2025!” Well, it turns out that God had a lot in store for us in 2025.

God continued to delight us with his Word. This past year more of us than ever were involved in weekly bible studies and adult Sunday School. In worship, our preaching took us from the world-altering stories of the early church in the book of Acts to an exploration of the fruit of the Spirit (which we sang about every week in an original song by Darryl McCollum: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). We spent the summer considering surprisingly contemporary stories of women in the Bible, and the fall pondering Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount asking ourselves, “Dare we live in the world it imagines?” We at First Pres are “people of the Book” and our engagement with scripture continues to shape our faith and life together.

God gave us a vision for our neighborhood. In partnership with chef Chandra Collins, who has been teaching healthy cooking classes for the cancer support community from our kitchen since 2019, we caught a vision for our church as a community hub where people might find resources that nurture not only the spiritual life, but the whole person—mind, body, and spirit. What developed was a program of classes and events offered under an initiative we’ve been calling “Get Well, Concord” (getwellconcord.org). Though still in its fledgling stage, we hope to welcome more of our neighbors to our campus to find community and encouragement for living well. In addition to Get Well, Concord, we continued to support over 20 global and local mission partners, and to show hospitality to our preschool families and residents of the Heritage and Plaza Tower through seasonal parties, meals, and opportunities to volunteer.

God continued to provide for our present and our future. Our amazing facility and location, designed for a much larger congregation, is a gift to us, but costly to maintain. Through the generosity of our congregation and the income we received from leasing space to other churches, we ended 2025 in the black for the first time in several years. Our financial stability, I believe, is a sign of God’s provision and an affirmation that we still have a role to play as witnesses to Christ’s love and grace in downtown Concord. It gives us confidence and positions us well as we seek to call the next full[1]time pastor to serve FPCC. To that end, we elected an amazing Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) which has begun to search for a pastor with the gifts and skills to lead us into the future. I hope you will join me in praying regularly for the PNC as they continue their discernment process.

I want to thank each one of you for your continued commitment to our church. It has been truly a joy and privilege to have served as your transitional pastor this year. I hope you will enjoy reading this report and being reminded of all the ways God blessed us in 2025. With gratitude and great affection for you,

Rev. Dr. Carol Mile