125 years of worship and service
Past, present and future generations of the Hillsboro Church of Christ will be honored Nov. 24, as the church will celebrate 125 years of ministry throughout a special day of services beginning at 9 a.m.
According to lead minister Jim Bush, the “Generations” celebration will be an opportunity for the congregation and the community to “remember with gratitude the faith and obedience of saints in the past, thanking God for His goodness and provision in the present and trusting in His faithfulness for the future.”
The morning’s worship service will include special preaching by keynote speaker Robert Hudson, who served as minister for the church from 1982 to 1995. Bush said that the church has invited back a number of former ministers and associates of the church, along with ministers who grew up attending the Hillsboro Church of Christ.
For all of these speakers, Bush said, the focus is to “acknowledge their contributions to the church with a day of joy, hope and promise.”
Services will begin at 9 a.m., with the first hour devoted to a worship service, followed by a break and then a look back at the history of the church.
One feature of the church’s step back in time will be a walk-through of the history of the church through music. Bush said that members of the congregation will look back at the milestones of the church, such as its inaugural year and other major anniversaries, by listening to popular songs from those years.
“We will see how music changed and shaped the church,” Bush said. “In 2013, the music is very different, but it all carries the same message.”
The anniversary celebration will also coincide with the church’s annual harvest celebration, Bush said, in which the church will “count God’s blessings.”
“The role that God has graciously allowed The Hillsboro Church of Christ to play in this community over the past 125 years is just one of those things for which we give thanks,” Bush said.
Everyone is welcome to attend the anniversary celebration in the church sanctuary.
The church is located at 155 West Walnut Street. A carry-in meal will follow the services in the fellowship hall, located on the ground floor of the church.
Bush provided information on the background of the church’s 125 years in Hillsboro, which will also be covered during the second half of the Nov. 24 services.
The Hillsboro Church of Christ’s beginnings were due in large part to the prayers and vision of Mrs. Solomon Hughes, who had long hoped for a church to be established in town that preached the simple gospel of Christ. An unexpected meeting with Evangelist J.V. Updike seemed to be the answer to those prayers.
Through a series of meetings held in the Hughes family’s home and after outgrowing their home, the HCC was organized and formed in 1888 with approximately 100 members. The church then met in a tent until the completion of their first building in 1892 on the corner of West and Walnut streets, the same property where the current church is built.
Bush credited local families, especially women, for their role in the church’s inception.
According to Bush, the year 1914 was the year of the “great revival” in Hillsboro, when a tabernacle seating 3,000 people was built on the south side of what is now the old Webster School building. The revival was held through the harsh months of January and February, filling the tabernacle to capacity nearly every evening for six weeks. As a result of that revival, 300 souls were saved, Bush said, and the church grew in number and influence in the community. The following year, a new and larger building was built over the existing structure of 1892.
Future expansions saw the building of a chapel in 1966 for the purpose of teaching and training the youth of the church and the community. The HCC was a pioneer in the area youth ministry among churches in the nation, especially those in rural communities. The current structure (attached to the chapel) was built in 1981, replacing the structure of 1915.
• In 1983, Little Lamb Christian Preschool began its ongoing ministry in HCC and to the community.
• In 1991, Southern Ohio Pregnancy Center opened their doors for the first time. SOPC is a multi-church venture which was born in the heart of Mike Labig, a member of the HCC family.
• Highland County Christian School began at HCC in 1994. That ministry ceased to function as a part of HCC in 2010 and now operates under different leadership as the Hillsboro Christian Academy.
• In 2003, Southern Cross Ministries was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia through the labors of HCC Minister of Missions Jim Newman and his wife, Becky, planting churches and training leaders in Australia.
• The Upward Basketball program was begun in 2008 as an endeavor to reach out to families in the area surrounding Hillsboro, teaching Christian principles of life and sportsmanship to children through the medium of basketball. The Upward program now serves over 265 children and their
families.
• In 2009, Area 937, a benevolent outreach ministry of HCC, began as an effort to bring relief and the love of Christ to a community feeling the loss of DHL from Wilmington and the pressures of nation in recession.
For the future, Bush said the church wants to focus on its task of “bringing the message of salvation, the message of the cross and the message of Christ to the next generation.”
“With every church, you go through seasons of growth and seasons of challenge and struggle, as a community, as a church family and as a nation,” Bush said. “But God has been faithful, and we are still here, 125 years later.”
Bush said that the church’s future “depends on how we respond to these challenges.”
“We live in the present,” Bush said. “Our needs and demands are different [than when the church began]. We have got to be able, without compromising the truth, to meet the challenges of today, and we want to embrace the future.”
(With thanks to Mr. Jim Bush and Mr. Joe Bryan for their contributions to this story.)