Our Redeemer Lutheran Church

My name is Jacob Friedrich. I am honored to be the next pastor of “Our Redeemer Lutheran Church.” My home town is in Downers Grove, IL which is a suburb of Chicago. I come from a family of servants. I have an older sister named Katrina who recently graduated with a Master’s in public health. She works on pediatric clinical research to find better outcomes for life threatening diseases, currently she lives in St Paul with her husband Chris and will soon move to New Jersey to be a History Professor. My Dad’s name is Jamie and works for United Health managing pharmacy operations. My mom’s name is Karen and works part time at a store called “At Home”. She loves customer service. I have two uncles; one is in Chicago and a mechanic and one in Colorado, a semi-retired fiber optics manager for Colorado University. I have one Grandma (Dad’s mom) who lives on her own, loves quilting and has had an active life once as a Lutheran preschool director and later a child psychologist. My mom’s dad is still on his own as well at 95, a former General Electric business analyst.  I’ve been blessed with a lot of love by those with us and those that have passed.

     When growing up, I felt called by the church to pursue the pastoral office. God has shown so much love for us through His Son, that I wanted to share His love throughout my life. I started by serving at Peace Lutheran church in Lombard IL. During my high school years, I led the youth group by creating Bible studies and hosting social events. When I went onto college, I majored in pre-seminary studies with a minor in theological languages and a minor in educational studies. I graduated with honors.

     I attended Concordia Seminary St Louis, which helped me to develop my skills to serve the pastoral office. My resident field experience church was at Holy Cross Lutheran Church.

     Throughout the years, I have developed many hobbies. I love fishing, grilling and cooking in general, a nice hike, and enjoy playing strategy games like Risk. I also enjoy watching the Black Hawks live when I can and or Football in my spare time. I am also very fond of listening to older styles of music on my record player. I have many John Denver records and a large collection of big band music.