Summer Events!
We’ve got some great stuff planned this summer to connect, play, serve, pray, and learn!
There All Along
June 1, 2023A Note from Deborah Mitchell Dear Friends, It’s Been There All Along, Waiting for You What does it mean to “grow”? What does it mean to grow as a Christian? To grow as a human being? In many ways, the idea of “growth” has been central to how I’ve tried to understand and interact with the world throughout my life. When I was a little girl, very early on I gravitated toward the idea of growth as mastery,…
Celebrations
May 17, 2023A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, Seventh grade was rough. In the small town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, all the students in seventh through twelfth grade went to school in the same building. The older students at our school were notorious for picking on the seventh graders. As a brainy, insecure, and extremely skinny 12-year-old girl, I was an easy target. I’ll never forget the afternoons and evenings spent crying in my bed, wishing that I could…
Stand Up & Go Gold!
May 10, 2023A Note from Robin Ozbolt Dear Friends, In our preschool world, colors are a topic of conversation on a daily basis. What is your favorite color? Can you share the red crayon? My dress is pink! My shoes are green! But when does a color represent much more than a shade on the spectrum of colors? The Color Gold The color gold has been on all of our minds this year. Gold is a precious metal, but it…
Prodigal by Proxy
May 3, 2023A Note from Diana Huey Dear Friends, My mother and I have a long, complex relationship, fraught with anger, disappointment, rebellion, grief, and denial, but also laughter, love, longing, healing, and hope. We didn’t speak for a quarter of a century, yet God has been working on us and we are slowly & steadily rebuilding & healing. Mom is a texter, not a talker, so imagine my surprise when she texted to ask if I was available for…
A Rock & a Hard Place
April 26, 2023A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, I’ve always been a goal-oriented person. I enjoy the work of problem-solving and finding the best possible outcome for everyone involved. Even when it’s hard, the process of overcoming obstacles and getting to the finish line is something I find incredibly satisfying. (Here’s me finishing my longest race ever of 10 miles!) The reality of life is that some things aren’t things you can “overcome.” Some things can’t simply be problem-solved.…
The Lost Years
April 19, 2023A Note from Pastor Jenny Smith Dear Friends, Anyone else feel like they lost the last three years of their life? I intellectually know March 2020-March 2023 happened. My body knows it too. There’s plenty of leftover trauma vibes running around my nervous system to prove it. My Google calendar is full of evidence I lived these last three years. Somehow my children grew taller. My Amazon Photos account even says I have 23,188 photos and videos during…
Discomfort
April 12, 2023A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, It was mid-January when my doctor called me with the news. “Your blood tests came back, and I’m sorry to tell you that you are pre-diabetic. We’ll need you to be on a strict diabetic diet for the next three months to see if we can get those numbers back down.” It wasn’t entirely a surprise. I had gone to the doctor that day after a few unusual blood sugar incidences.…
Gospel of Matthew Recordings
During this holy week, we invite you to take some time to experience the Gospel of Matthew as a whole, read by our pastors and other folks from both Hilliard UMC and Fairmont Presbyterian Church, our partner for The Great Story. Hearing the whole Gospel read straight through, from start to finish, can be a powerful experience! The Readers
Holy Ordinary
April 5, 2023A Note from Jon Esala Dear Friends, On January 18 of this year, one of my dreams came true. My wife Meredith gave birth to our son Emmett at just after 9 in the morning. I became a dad. He’s a little over two months old now, and every morning around 7am I get him out of his bassinet and change his diaper. As I do, he brightly smiles good morning to me. I smile back. We’re both…
Holding in Tension
March 29, 2023A Note from Molly Collier Dear Friends, I recently went skiing with some friends, and we were reminded of some very valuable lessons before we even hit the slopes. Mind you, this is Ohio skiing. I’m not sure if I can call them slopes, but they were high enough for me, a novice skier who hadn’t skied in over 10 years. It’s okay to ask for help The first lesson we were reminded of was that it’s okay…
It’s almost Farm Market season!
March 22, 2023A Note from Amanda Nofzinger Dear Friends, When I was a little kid going to the Farm Market with my grandparents in Michigan, I never really thought about what it would take to run one. I had no idea that that little seed of tradition would lead me into the role I play today. Now that I am the Farm Market Manger, let me share with you what it takes to organize the summer market. December: January: February:…