Held
April 16, 2025A Note from Beth Palmer Hello Friends, I walked my first prayer labyrinth probably 25 years ago, and it was a powerful God experience that has stayed with me. It was an outdoor labyrinth, surrounded by beautiful landscaping, sometime in the fall just as the weather was starting to cool. A lovely evening. I started with a couple of deeper, centering breaths (my friend Vicki had given me some guidance). Then I began walking slowly and mindfully along…
Campus Futures Focus Groups
Join us for conversation & discernment around our church buildings and campus for the future Location: Meet in the Warehouse 839 worship space for the in-person sessions The Hilliard Food Pantry Plus has made a formal request to stay on the campus of Hilliard UMC for the foreseeable future. As they discern what they will need to meet the growing needs of our community, we are entering into a time as a whole church of considering what it would mean for…
Lent at Hilliard UMC
Holy Week, April 13-19 The Good Friday worship services (April 17 & 18) will include ASL interpretation for the deaf and hard of hearing. (This is a change – our interpreting service is unable to find someone for Maundy Thursday after all.) The Easter Vigil service at 7pm on Saturday, April 19, will be hosted in partnership with our friends at Resurrection Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3500 Main Street, just down the street from HUMC. Most services will also livestream. Easter…
Welcoming the Neighbor
April 9, 2025A Note from Amma Jackson Dear Friends, “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old.” ~Lamentations 5:21 It was in the late hours of July 12, 2013, when it finally dawned on me: I am leaving the place I’ve called home all my life — my family, my friends, and everything I’ve known since birth. As I sat in the airport with my husband, Andrew, I was deep in thought.…
Art & Lament
April 2, 2025A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, As we continue through this season of Lent, I offer you today another lens by which we can engage this practice of lament: art. Artists have an incredible ability, whether through visual, audio, or tactile media, to express and evoke the emotions central to lament, to draw us into experiences of suffering, and invite us to engage it with our whole selves. Last week, it was my privilege to attend a…
Listening to Lament 2
March 26, 2025A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, This week, I offer you another lamentation written by British poet Benjamin Zephaniah. As we turn our focus this week on the theme of social justice, I am convicted once again by the words of John Wesley: “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.” ~John Wesley, Preface, Hymns and Sacred Poems Krista Tippett’s On Being website writes: “Zephaniah’s urgent, imperative poem ‘To Michael…
Listening to Lament
March 19, 2025A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, I pray that your Lenten season has been one filled with space for reflection, connection, and community. This season, the practice I chose to add was a Loving Kindness Meditation. I’ve found it even more helpful to visualize and hold space for others if I am also creating space to listen to the real struggles they are holding in their hearts. As we read the laments of our ancestors in the…
Caring for God’s Sacred Creation
March 12, 2025A Note from Amy Rae Bashforth Dear Friends & Fellow Members of God’s Creation, I feel closest to God when I am in my garden. My garden is peaceful, but far from quiet. There may be a chirruping robin nearby on a fence post waiting to see if I unearth a tasty grub as I plant some seeds. I may hear the hum of a hummingbird as she quickly zips past my ear toward a Mexican sunflower. I…
Blessing the Dust
March 5, 2025A Note from Pastor Jon and Poet Jan Richardson Dear Friends, Blessing the Dust — A Blessing for Ash Wednesday by Jan Richardson All those days you felt like dust,like dirt,as if all you had to dowas turn your facetoward the windand be scatteredto the four corners or swept awayby the smallest breathas insubstantial – did you not knowwhat the Holy Onecan do with dust? This is the daywe freely saywe are scorched. This is the hourwe are…
Lamentations & Lent
February 26, 2025A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, This past week, I heard someone share a familiar story I’ve unfortunately heard many times. “My husband still associates church with ‘the place you go to be told how bad you are.’” Regardless of whether this was your story, the pervasive narrative of shame perpetuated in many Christian churches has woven itself into lots of places in our culture. Especially in the Season of Lent. The Season of Lent Next Wednesday,…
An Awesome Responsibility
February 19, 2025A Note from Jeff Rone Dear Friends, Constance Cherry is a United Methodist pastor from Indiana with Ohio roots. In 2012, she published an incredibly detailed book about planning worship services and events entitled The Worship Architect: A Blueprint for Designing Culturally Relevant and Biblically Faithful Services. When discussing the importance of selecting high quality worship songs, she says this: “Plato once said ‘Let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its…
Sharing Meals with Gladness
February 12, 2025A Note from Beth Latella Dear Friends, Acts 2 says, “42 The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers…. 44 All the believers were united and shared everything…. 46 Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity.” (Common English Bible) This description of the early Jerusalem church warms my heart. It shows community and shared…