At 13 years old, Pastor Phil Gronbach heard the call to the ministry when his pastor said, “You should enter the ministry”.  Pastor Gronbach earned degrees from Luther College and the University of Chicago Divinity School and then was ordained into the ministry of the Lutheran church November 7, 1971. He served churches in Des Plaines, Port Byron, Campbell Hill and Sterling, Illinois and is presently Pastor Emeritus at New Life where he leads two Bible Studies each week and leads a Widows and Widowers Life group twice a month.  After his retirement in 2005, he has served as an interim pastor at six congregations and fills the pulpit for pastors on vacation as requested.

Since the church is always in need of deeper understanding of Scripture, he enjoys leading Bible studies and he has taught courses in the Lutheran Confessions, Lutheran Ethics, and American church history at a now defunct Bible college.  Over 50 years of ministry he has tried to change with the times but in recent years has seen a need to call Lutheran churches back to basic Christian teaching.  As an older pastor, he sees it as his calling to provide the younger generation the wisdom of the past while encouraging them to carry the church forward.  Daily prayer has become the backbone of his spiritual life.

His beloved wife, Anne, died in 2009.  Now, he finds great happiness in his son, Michael, and his wife, Isabelle, and in his daughter, Karen, and her husband, Tom, and he takes delight in his seven grandchildren who call him “Papa”.  Though they live some distance away, he very much enjoys visiting them in the midst of their busy lives.

Jesus Christ be praised.