January 25, 2007

Yellow Springs United Methodist trustees gathered after last Sunday’s sevice. Pictured are, front row, left to right, Ellen Hoover, Sarah Lowe, Mark Crawford; second row: Paul Evans, Seth Skidmore, Gary Blevins, Bruce Bradtmiller; third row: Charles Strecker, Macy Reynolds, Ralph Acton, Don McAllister; fourth row: Pastor Charles Hill, Darlene Fugate, Chuck Fugate.

By Diane Chiddister

This article is the second in a series on Yellow Springs spiritual

The sound of a baby crying can mean many things, but at the Yellow Springs United Methodist Church on Sunday mornings, that sound warms hearts. It means that the church, at a low point just a few years ago, has begun to come back. It means that new young families have arrived, and that an old church is feeling new life.

“I just love seeing the new babies and a few more people,” said longtime member Patty McAllister. “It’s beginning to look like it used to be.”

Just as important as the new bodies filling the pews on Sunday morning is the church’s new vision and energy, according to several members in recent interviews.

“The church feels exciting. It’s vibrant,” said member Bruce Bradtmiller. “We’re small, but people are excited to see what we’re going to do next. There’s a sense that anything is possible.”

Five years ago, few would have described the local United Methodist church as vibrant. Like many mainstream churches, its membership had dropped alarmingly in recent decades, from several hundred members to only a small group that showed up on Sunday mornings. The church strained to pay the full-time salary of its pastor, who had sparked some divisiveness in the congregation. And like several older churches in Yellow Springs, the Methodists were saddled with an aging building that seemed beyond the church’s means to repair it.

Now, the Methodist church, while still undeniably small, is attracting new people. The membership has risen slightly to about 75 members, and those members are active, with about 50 people attending on Sunday mornings. While a snowstorm took its toll on attendance last Sunday morning, about 40 people, including families with babies and young children, middle-aged couples, singles and elders, made their way through the inclement weather to join together in worship.

As well as new life, the church is nearing the end of a building restoration project that, five years ago, no one would have imagined possible. In the past few years church members raised about $225,000 to tackle a multitude of necessary projects, including adding a ramp and improving the front sidewalk to make the building accessible, redoing lighting and the sound system, replacing windows, repairing a portico, adding a kitchenette and redoing bathrooms.

Even the person most directly responsible for the building renovation, Pastor Charles Hill, expressed surprise at its scope.

“I thought maybe we could raise $50,000,” Hill said in a recent interview. “We had a response beyond anything I could have dreamed.”

Asked to identify the source of the church’s turnaround, all those interviewed agreed that Hill helped to spark new unity, vision and energy for the Methodists.

“He’s brought a lot of love to the church,” said McAllister. “You know he loves being here, and he makes you want to be here, too.”

As well as helping to unite a divided congregation, Hill brought to the church the determination and experience needed to take on such a large fund-raising project, several said.

“It was a kick in the pants for the congregation,” according to member Carol Cottom, who credited Hill with contributing his “leadership, vision and willingness to help us tackle” the project.

Five years ago, the Methodists, having lost their full-time pastor, appealed to the district superintendent for a part-time one. About that time Hill, a retired pastor from Springfield with 40 years’ experience as a minister and a district superintendent himself, decided that retirement didn’t suit him. He sought a “small country church” to work on a part-time basis, he said, and 10 days after he made his request, he was assigned to Yellow Springs.

“It was a great fit from the start,” Cottom said.

Hill has a personal warmth that draws people to him, several church members said. Beyond that, he sets a tone of acceptance for the diversity of beliefs in the Yellow Springs church that has brought church members together, according to Cottom.

“I think we have people from the conservative to the liberal end of their interpretation of the Bible,” she said. “We have people at different points of a spiritual journey, from those who are older and settled into beliefs to those who are doing a lot of questioning.”

One of those who considers himself a questioner is Hill himself, he said.

“When I was a child, I knew exactly where God was, up in heaven on a throne,” he said. “That’s not where I think he is today.”

Rather, he said, he sees the presence of God in interactions between people.

“I experience God as present in the fellowship among us,” he said. “It’s not something out there in the beyond. Here is where we draw strength from each other. If there is something more, that’s fine. But this is where I am.”

The opportunity to examine his own beliefs was one reason he chose to come out of retirement and lead a church again, according to Hill, who said he feels frustrated with church leaders who claim to know all the answers. And he is highly skeptical of a president who, claiming to be a Christian, “can bomb the daylights out of people,” he said. Each week, during the Sunday service, Hill reads the names, ages and hometowns of American servicemen killed in Iraq that week.

Hill’s sermons helped to draw Macy Reynolds, one of the church’s newest members, to the Yellow Springs church, according to Reynolds. She and her husband, who once lived on Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, visited many area churches before they finally settled on the Methodists and moved into town on Orton Road.

“It’s not a fundamentalist church. I like the liberal attitude and the intellectual approach,” she said, adding that the church members “are very welcoming and friendly.”

Another churchgoer who appreciates Hill’s sermons is longtime member Sarah Lowe, who teaches physical education at McKinney Middle School.

“I wish more people could hear his messages of peace, love and acceptance of all people,” she said after the service last week. “I want to go out and tap people on the sidewalk and say, ‘hear this man.’ ”

While Hill has undeniably helped strengthen the church, he couldn’t have done so without a core of committed members. Several of those interviewed emphasized the warmth and unity of the United Methodist Church body, and said that the members tend to enjoy each other’s company and to graciously welcome newcomers.

Music also helps to strengthen their community, several members said, and the choir plays a strong role in the Sunday service. An avid singer, Pastor Hill has also been known to burst into song during his sermon, several said.

While the combination of Hill’s sermons and the membership’s welcoming attitude has drawn some new members to the church, its greatest challenge remains its need to grow more, according to both Hill and several longtime members.

One path toward growth may be outreach into the community, and the church’s new energy can be seen in several new efforts in that direction. For instance, this fall, Faith Skidmore and Pastor Hill organized an after-school program at the church for Mills Lawn students on Wednesday afternoons, which has been well attended. And church members recently took over the operation of the Yellow Springs food pantry, formerly organized by the late Mary Ann Bebko. The pantry is now open the second and fourth Thursday afternoons of each month in the church’s basement for anyone who needs food, according to McAllister.

The Methodists hope to do more outreach, according to trustee Ellen Hoover.“When there’s a need in the community, this group responds quickly and generously,” she said.

The Methodists will face another significant challenge in a few years, when Hill decides to retire again. No one knows for sure when that will happen, including Hill, but church members believe the energy he sparked will continue to grow, and that the obstacles faced by church members have strengthened them.

“It’s been a good growth,” Hoover said of the church’s past few years. “We have new people and new ways of looking at things.”

Because the United Methodist Church believes in rotating ministers every few years, longterm members have experienced the loss and replacement of many ministers. Each time a minister leaves and is replaced, the members need to both undergo a mourning process and to open themselves to change, Cottom said.

“It’s always an emotional change,” she said, adding that she sees the Methodists’ challenge, when their pastor retires, is “to get through the mourning period and to keep the momentum going.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com