Hebron Crossroads 3-9-03
By Jeff Gill

Our area has much to be proud of, and the tone of last Monday’s public meeting before the Lakewood School Board goes on that list.
With tough choices and painful decisions in front of everyone, the discussions were, as the diplomats say, "a full and frank exchange of views."
Except when a State Department spokesman says that, he means the ambassadors threw plates and chairs at each other. In virtually every case, the statements were heartfelt and fair, passionate and respectful. Mike Call did well to commend early on in the evening all of the "No" voters, who at least showed up to vote, and even more so to the "No’s" who came to the meeting and shared their views in person.
I’d guess about 550 or a bit more were present, and 50 were clearly opposed to any new taxes for any reason. . .and 500 some were willing to do whatever it takes to keep extracurriculars, band, and athletics. As someone said after the evening was over, "without new revenue, we’re not looking at cuts or even amputations; we’re being asked do we remove the heart or the brain of the patient."
And since that’s true, that even with these heart-rending cuts proposed now we’ll be making academic cuts in a year or two with no other change in income (calculus, languages, classroom music), some answers to the reasons to vote "no" seem very much in order.
After the case was clearly made by Superintendent Phil Herman that our taxes are effectively as low as they can be, the lowest in all Licking County and the surrounding Buckeye Lake region, and that passing this levy will move us from dead last to (drum roll) next-to-last, someone stood to claim that he moved here from California five years ago and his taxes are twice what they were.
A little research quickly shows that yes, California drastically lowered property taxes a few decades ago; and after spending a decade with the lowest education spending in the nation and seeing the effect on their economy and quality of life, they started increasing the sales tax, to where you can now pay up to 8.25%. I’d ask that family which is more regressive, more difficult for the poor, the elderly, and the fixed-income: property taxes, or sales taxes on your everyday purchases?
Another case was made by a parent of a student that extracurriculars don’t end at the school door, such as 4-H or FFA, and no one helps pay for those. Quite true, and may I note that Prime Producers 4-H, 30 young leaders-in-the-making from around Hebron, is having their meeting this Sunday night at 6 pm in Hebron Christian Church to elect officers for the coming year! And for what it’s worth, your correspondent is also a district official with the Boy Scouts in Licking County.
Neither 4-H, Scouting for boys or girls, nor a number of other very worthwhile groups get any "money" from the school district. But I can assure you that, without access to buildings that may be necessarily locked up at the end of the school day, without the teachers and school staff who are often the advisors and committee members of our organizations, we would find it very difficult to go on as we do now.
I would personally add that, sadly, we have trouble serving all the youth we would like right now due to a chronic shortage of adult volunteers available nights and weekends when youth activities are scheduled. Shift work, rotating schedules, working in Franklin and Delaware Counties, all limit our adults’ abilities to help us reach all the youth who might participate.
Let me say unequivocally that, with the elimination of school based activities, our other groups will not be able to fill the gap. And what do you think will fill the void in kids’ schedules?

There’s more to be said, but I do want to get back to news and views next week with our Ohio bicentennial activities past and upcoming. Just let me close with two more answers to questions thrown around.
The $15 million dollar budget for Lakewood is $3 million lower than comparable schools. That says something about our administrative efficiency, right? But some ask, "why close to $2 million in cash reserves?" OK, again a fair question, but make sure to hear the answer Phil and board president Larry Harmon are offering. They employ about 300 people, and carrying two month operating expenses is what my church, the Scouting organization that I also serve, and my own household tries to have "accessible" in the bank. That’s not slush, that’s pure prudence. We can spend it down, and then when we have a roof blown off and a boiler blow and the state gets jiggy all in the same month, won’t you ask why we we’re ready to deal with that?
And finally on the ol’ "we didn’t used to spend that much to educate kids" point, our $6683 per pupil number, lower than both the state average and similar districts, is low. Low, low, low. AND they are currently providing a quality education for that, for which everyone involved can be proud. They need a bit more to keep doing that job, which after 10 years at that rate seems perfectly reasonable.
So for the "used to spend" debate, if you use an inflation calculator, our per pupil costs equal $514 in 1930’s dollars. What did we spend per pupil back then at Hebron or Jacksontown High? That, and our usual load o’ history and fascinating trivia, will be back at the Hebron Crossroads next week!

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church, and gave up coffee for Lent; if you want to carefully approach him with news of the Hebron area, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

for The Advocate 2-28-03

Ringing In Ohio’s Bicentennial
By Jeff Gill

When Thomas Worthington hosted a famous all-night gathering at his mansion named “Adena” some 200 years ago, they saw the sun rise over the hills east of Chillicothe in a view enshrined on the Great Seal of the State of Ohio.
Some say they were writing the first state constitution, others claim it was a poker game, but whatever they were doing, they couldn’t have foreseen what Ohio would look like in 2003.
From back when canal boats were high tech and it took weeks to cross the new state on a horse, to our online 24/7 world where interstates get you from Dayton to Steubenville in hours (weather permitting), much has changed. But some things haven’t, even across two centuries.
Casting a bell still requires pouring liquid metal into a mold that produces a musically functional work of beauty; barns still hold hay for fodder no matter what’s painted across its side in red, white, and blue; and pancakes were a favorite of George Washington’s -- and we don’t make them too differently from how they made them at Mount Vernon or Adena in 1803 for a weary crew greeting the dawn.
Saturday, March 1 is “Statehood Day” for Ohio, and the kickoff for a year and more of bicentennial events around the state. While many dignitaries will wind their way up the hill to the newly refurbished “Adena” mansion in Chillicothe, Licking Countians will greet the dawn, or at least 8 am, with a pancake breakfast and a variety of entertainment opportunities.
The official Licking County bicentennial bell, one of 88 cast in each of Ohio’s counties, will appear at the OSU-Newark campus as the first pancakes are served, with members of the Newark Kiwanis and from the county bicentennial commission cooking and serving. All around the Hopewell Hall cafeteria area are hung over 700 works of art from most Licking County school districts. And while enjoying pancakes at $4 per person, $2 for children ten and under, diners will hear musical offerings including handbells from Hebron Christian Church, singing by Angelic Voices featuring Jim Fullen of the commission, the Campus Chorale, and from the group Young At Heart, as well as music from the Zerger Hall Band.
Door prizes will be announced through the morning, and face painters will decorate the kids in attendance just as the barns of Ohio have gotten a new look for 2003. “Salt & Pepper,” a local clowning duo, will perform balloon art for children of all ages.
“We’ve been working for months to get ready for this day,” says Marcia Phelps, county commissioner and chair of the Licking County Bicentennial Commission. Since the Newark bicentennial celebration last summer, where our bell was cast, she has escorted the bell on its carriage to a variety of community events, and the schedule for the bell is jam-packed through 2003, including a late June/early July wagon train passing through on US 40 that the bicentennial commission is working on. “But this is the central event, and we want to do our part to help the state celebrate. We’ve got plenty of history right here in Licking County.”
The Statehood Day celebration at OSU-N will be history making in its own right, when the centerpiece of the 8 am to noon pancake breakfast will be a pause in the program at 10:30 am as everyone goes outside for an aerial photo, capturing for years to come an overhead view of a human map of Ohio. All present will be shown to a place on an outline of the state, with local veterans invited to physically map Licking County into the middle of the display. Everyone will also have a chance to sign a giant birthday card for Ohio, decorated with some of the student art and designed to be part of the historic record of the day.
Copies of the photo can be ordered through the morning, with J & B Photography taking both the pictures and the orders. The outline of Ohio will be done rain (or snow) or shine, since the 200th Statehood Day comes around only once. Ball Surveying is marking out the area in the campus parking lots where the people will stand, and Don Strickler will do the overflight thanks to the support of Jim Bradley.
The commission would also like to thank Action Pest Control, BIA, Fleming Dairy, Kroger, Park National Bank, and Wendy’s for donations and assistance to make this historic day a success.
If you have questions about events or arrangements for Statehood Day, call 349-6555; Kim Workman and Pam Jones with the County Planning Commission have been key workers on the local Ohio bicentennial effort. “This has been a true community effort from all over Licking County,” said Workman.
“Please remember that there is effectively no budget for this,” notes Commissioner Phelps, who has given hours of her time to keep the effort moving forward, along with countless hours and personal donations from members of the county bicentennial commission. With the state budget situation, what money was available has been eliminated, and local efforts, work by the Ohio Historical Society, and other activities are operating on a pay-as-you go basis.
There’s something that would appeal to George Washington and Thomas Worthington about paying for our historic commemoration with pancakes. Some things don’t change through the years, and the taste of pancakes early in the morning is one of them.

Statehood Day in Licking County is Sat., March 1, with a Pancake Breakfast and State of Ohio outline aerial photo at the OSU-N campus. The breakfast is in Hopewell Hall from 8 am to Noon, with tickets $4 for adults and $2 for children ten and under, available at the Licking Co. Commissioners’ office and Park National Bank branches, or at the door. Aerial photo is scheduled for 10:30 am rain or shine, with veterans invited to form Licking County within the state outline, and copies of the photo may be ordered that day.

Notes From My Knapsack

Our microwave blinked out, as a few of you know who made it to church in Feb. and saw an overly large children’s message prop beneath the pulpit. Quickly, a new little oven arrived in the Gill household, and it (inevitably) has more buttons and doodads on it than the last one.
The funny thing is, here we are a week later, and I’m still trying to punch the buttons on the old microwave, which on this appliance are in very different places, leading to some interesting adventures with my coffee cup (note: don’t heat coffee for twenty minutes; even I won’t drink it then).
It’s the power of habit, of course. I know the buttons are in different places, I can see that it’s a different microwave, but the fingers start lazily punching, the mind having already drifted off to the next thing, and suddenly you have chewy singed goo in your mug – again!
That’s what the discipline of Lenten fasting is about: breaking the habits of mind to let us look at our actions more directly, more consciously. Yes, fasting is about giving things up, but in order to give something to God; we end up with clearer intentions, more thoughtful reflections, and a life lived more aware of what a gift simple things are.
Like, for instance, coffee. Yes friends, it is an odd numbered year, so your pastor is giving up coffee from Ash Wednesday, Mar. 5, to blessed Easter Sunday morn, Apr. 20. And each time I reflexively reach for the coffee pot (or filters, or canister of grounds), I will have given myself another opportunity to think about why I value God more than any one earthly thing, why I want to appreciate coffee all the more, consciously, when I go back to drinking it – and I will!
Not what are you giving up, but what are you giving to God this Lent?
In Grace & Peace, Pastor Jeff
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What’s a Disciple? Starting Sunday afternoon, March 16 at 4 pm, a Membership Class is offered in the parsonage meeting room next to the church building. A trip to Bethany and Brush Run where the Restoration Movement began is planned for April 5. Youth in grade 4 and above are especially invited to join this year’s “Pastor’s Class.” We’ll explore what it means to be a Christian and a member of the church. Everyone who wants to learn more about the church (whether or not you have been baptized) is welcome to join us. Please let Pastor Jeff know you’re interested. We’ll then try and schedule our remaining class time when it is convenient for those involved. A number of both adults and youth are planning to make their confession of faith or transfer membership into Hebron Christian at the Palm Sunday service Apr. 13.
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"SERVE ONE ANOTHER WITH WHATEVER GIFT EACH OF YOU HAS RECEIVED." I PETER 4:10 Our Week of Compassion Offering helps provide disaster relief in this country and around the world. As Lent is beginning we will continue to gather up this special offering, which has been hurt by the two big snow Sundays hitting the two WoC Sundays. Envelopes are available at the church or simply mark your gift “Week of Compassion”.

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Lenten Bible Study We’ll be closely reading the Gospel of Mark this Lent, with our study time at 10 am on Wednesdays starting Mar. 5. If you can’t make this meeting time, and would like to get e-mail updates of the lessons and group discussions, tell Pastor Jeff or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.
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Lenten Devotionals The first two Sundays of March we will have a special Lenten devotional booklet at the door before worship, with enough for one to each family. This is a daily devotional from Ash Wednesday to Easter, with each day’s mediation and prayer written by a regional pastor or general church official. This gives us a chance to pray by name both with and for those who are working in that very important and challenging field of ministry.
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ATTENTION MEN! The District 10/11 Spring Disciple Men’s Rally will be held Sunday, March 2, 2003. This year’s rally will be hosted by the men of Bellaire Christian Church. Registration begins at 2:30 p.m. Cost of the meal is $5.00. If you plan to attend, please let John Slater or Pastor Jeff know we can call in reservations.

Lakewood Public Meeting A very important public forum is set for Monday, Mar. 3 at 7 pm in the high school auditorium. If that is a snow day, the forum will be Thur. the 6th. Elimination of all extracurriculars is the main item of business; alternatives are needed, so bring a friend and a good idea with you.

Grinding Out the Years
By Jeff Gill

At the visual center of Hebron since 1885 or thereabouts, the old grain mill on Main Street is becoming an economic focal point again as well.
Saturday, March 1, Brezina Design & Construction Services will hold an open house at the Hebron Mill from Noon to 4 pm, so the entire community can see the transformation and preservation work they’ve done on this long-time local landmark.
“We’d like to get any old photographs people have of the mill through the years to copy,” says Luke Baus, treasurer and senior designer for the firm, “and create a timeline over the years.”
As is apparent the moment you step in the doors, this building no longer grinds out wheat and corn into meal, but is still grinding out work every day. The work stations, drafting tables, and conference areas all show signs of activity and energy. . .but with the dust and grime left out on the job site for the most part.
The modern light fixtures and contemporary curves and angles of the office furniture contrast strikingly with the solid, heavy right angles of the original support timbers. Lettering in classic architectural strokes on blueprints and perspective drawings scattered about the open plan work areas is counterpointed by the old carved “The Hebron Milling Co.” sign hanging above it all.
Don and Gene Gutridge worked at the mill for many years, joking that one was president and the other was general manager, but they were never sure which was which. The same kind of easy equality seems to echo among the mill’s current occupants, where secretaries, laborers, and designers all interact easily and casually, an obvious intention of the design of the space.
And Don has been in a number of times since BD&CS moved in, admiring the preservation of a building so long a part of his life. Gene, who died just after the initial renovation was completed, was pleased to know that his mill would be preserved for future generations to enjoy.
The staff at Brezina’s want you to do just that, and drop by this Saturday. They have learned that over the years it seems as if almost everyone worked at the mill for a time, whether summers in high school, for a slow season on the farm or between jobs after a layoff. They hope that the area around the mill can be used for purposes that return to the community a central point around which Hebron turns, whether in farmers’ markets, a restaurant, or further professional offices.
A framed print in the office space shows Taliesin, the studio, school, and home of Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin where he developed his philosophy of “indigenous architecture.” While the Hebron Mill may not exactly “grow from the landscape,” as Wright would have preferred, the renovation uses wooden siding, natural colors, and very organic feel that grows from the original purpose of the building, which was to work with what literally grew from the landscape around Hebron.
Sitting at the bend in the old National Road, Hebron’s and America’s Main Street, and overlooking behind the site of the former Ohio Canal turning basin, this historic building is a natural part of today’s landscape, and a visit there is a natural close to Ohio’s bicentennial Statehood Day on March 1.

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Hebron Crossroads 03-02-03
By Jeff Gill

Monday night at Lakewood High School’s auditorium, March 3 at 7 pm, one of the most important community meetings in recent years will take place. All of the district is invited to come and speak before the board after a presentation on the fiscal situation facing Lakewood in the next two years.
At a work session last Monday, the board reviewed the numbers and considered a number of plans. Among the points of interest and concern: even with “pay-to-participate” the district spends $248,000 on all athletic, music, and general student extracurricular activities. P2P is already driving students out of activities (shown in that income from the $250 per kid per program is down more than $10,000), and not only is an increase in that fee out of the question, most coaches and advisors agree that a majority of activities will dwindle down to nothing if things stay as they currently stand.
Along with the existing P2P, high school buses eliminated, and half-day kindergarten, every remaining staff cut, attrition reduction, and consolidation that can be legally made under state mandated standards brings us to less than the minimum $450,000 cuts that we have to implement as a school district in order to have a balanced budget, again as per state requirements.
Oh, and the state legislature, which created all those requirements, is now going to foist a $99,000 cut on us from the third or so of our budget that comes from them. Combine that with the fairly obvious assumption that personal property tax revenue from inventory will decline from the drop already recorded from 2001 in the 2002 payments not yet in, and you’re looking at something more like $650,000 in budget cuts that are required for the coming year to stay in balance.
So add all that to our taxes and our teacher salaries basically now being the lowest in Licking County and the Lake region, and the Lakewood School District is forced to consider not whether or not to cut all athletic, band, and student activities, locking up the buildings 30 minutes after the instructional day ends, but whether to take that step this summer or next. Without an increase in their budget, coming from the resources of the Lakewood taxpayers, that is the only step remaining. There is literally not one thing left to cut, other than our throats, which is what eliminating all extracurriculars would be. Does anyone really doubt that Don Thorp, David Wohlford, or Martha Fickle (to name just a few) have been pinching pennies until Lincoln wept? Is this what the residents of Hebron and Buckeye Lake, Harbor Hills and Union Township, Jacksontown and Licking and Franklin Townships really want?
There were tears of sorrow, tears of anger, and words of immense frustration around the tables as the board considered their options. No one of them doubts the devastating effect on the district of these actions, but the six levy losses leave them in an incomprehensible position. Loud angry voices say “don’t touch our sports, our bands, our programs,” but the voice heard at the polls each election day isn’t a loud “no,” but a deafening silence.
When less than half of the registered voters even register an opinion aye or nay, and we all know that the registered vote total doesn’t cover half of the eligible voters in our precincts, we’re looking at fifteen percent of the grown-ups telling us “cancel it all, we don’t care.” Do we follow that counsel, which at least got up off the sofa and went to the polls? Or is there some level of passion left in Lakewood to address what makes an education a thing of value and a resource for the entire community?
So, if I may, please show up on Monday night at 7 pm in the auditorium, but don’t show up to just say what you don’t want to do. We’d better all show up to figure out together what’s going to be done, and roll up our sleeves to do it.
Time’s a’ wasting.

Sadly, I’m having to close with what I originally was going to open this week’s column with. Our Lakewood Drama Club made their flying trip to New York City last weekend, seeing three plays in three days, meeting with actors and teachers, seeing Ground Zero and the Statue of Liberty (from Battery Park, anyhow), and making their way around Manhattan for the experience of their high school lifetimes. Many worked extra hours to pay the costs of the trip, and some parents who really couldn’t afford it (all that P2P, you know) went along as chaperones for the dozens of kids in their care.
They carried the Hebron flag off the village flagpole (with permission, I should add), waving it before the cameras at Rockefeller Center for the Today Show. That’s how I want to hear about Hebron on the news. That’s the kind of memories and experiences I want our kids to have in the Lakewood School District. That’s not extracurricular, that’s part of the very heart of the curriculum. Let’s not cut it out.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a local historian and archaeologist. You can pass along news and events to him at 928-4066, or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 02-23-03
By Jeff Gill

Did you see the blue?
Not in the sky, of course; there’s been precious little of that lately. But from the same source, the blue of the sky and the rainbow and the spectrum of visible light.
With inches upon inches of fresh, light snow, if you looked into a crevice or gap or shovel gash in a snow bank, you saw a crystalline blue glowing out of the shadowed depths. Most of our eighteen to twenty-one inches that fell last weekend across the Hebron/Buckeye Lake area was fluffy enough that the light there was could penetrate the icy structure of the piled snowflakes and scatter, just as the air scatters sunlight so that the main visible hue is sky-blue.
Anyhow, it’s an interesting phenomenon to reflect on while you’re gasping for air after shoveling the same driveway for the fifth time! The landscape is transformed and our cabin fever is reaching fever pitch, especially for those indoors with kids on extra days off from school. . .send ‘em out to shovel and burn off the energy is the only idea I’ve heard that works.
Through this siege of snowfall, a big tip o’ the hat to the Hebron Street Dept. crews (and helpers like Bob Gilbert and others driving plows, I see. . .) who have, in this correspondent’s opinion, done a stellar job of keeping both the main drags and the side streets as clear as can be expected. They’ve put in many round-the-clocks lately, along with Union Township and crews all over, certainly, but I’ve not had to go much further than our immediate area, and they’ve kept me shiny-side-up right through it all.
Can I ask a favor of y’all on behalf of the many snow plow drivers and salt truck pilots all over central Ohio? They are coming in from their shifts shaking and stunned: not from the long hours right through the night, which they cheerily accept as part of the deal, but from the myriad close calls with insane drivers as they try to keep the roads clear. The stories I hear aren’t about teenagers in souped-up cars, either. They’re shaking their heads over mature drivers in sensible sedans passing them on snow-slick hills, spinning out in front of their heavy blade, darting out in front of them as if a fully-loaded maintenance vehicle could stop on a dime in good weather, let alone in the middle of a record setting snowfall.
Folks, let’s use a little common sense, and remember the law of inertia, friction co-efficients, and the kinetic energy of two tons of road salt. Why would you want to pass a snow plow, anyhow?
My little guy, out helping the neighborhood shovel, kept asking “is this a snow party?” He has the right attitude, anyhow, and at four he’s safe from Dad handing him a shovel for a while yet. The Hebron/Union Twp. Fire Dept. rescue squad came down our street verifying access and occasionally shoveling out the fire hydrants (tip o’ hat number two!) giving him a real thrill.
Speaking of cabin fever, the Books & Coffee selection for March is guaranteed to break up the ice jams of your brain, and the author of “Under the Tuscan Sun,” Frances Mayes, is going to be at Ohio Dominican University this week, speaking in the Little Theatre on campus with book signing to follow. Thanks to Anita at Waldenbooks for the heads-up (hat tip three, if you’re counting), and the evening of Feb. 27 I hope to sneak over there and hear more about the house in Tuscany this English professor and her husband renovated and restored. Mayes puts in her book recipes and rhapsodies, travelogues, interior monologues, and meditations on lavender and honeybees, contractors and building codes, and thoughts warmed by sunlight of all angles and intensities.
There is no winter in this book at all, a’tall. Need I say more?
Speaking of reading, whether the Books & Coffee approach is your cup of tea or not (huh?), this is a great time to read, and the Hebron library, along with the Storytime for preschoolers on Tuesdays at 11 am, has some great picks for this time of year. George Washington, whose birthday is Feb. 22, has his story told in biographies by James Flexner and Richard Brookhiser either and both of which are worth reading (would you rather be out shoveling?), and thanks to PBS who seemed to be the only folks on TV who knew that last Monday wasn’t Michael Jackson Day with their feature on Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.
Did you know it wasn’t President’s Day, though? That’s a fiction of the greeting card and calendar industry; legally, the third Monday in Feb. is “Washington’s Birthday,” and long may George wave!
Hey, a fourth and final tip of the toboggan to Scott (twice!), Nick, and David, who plowed me out four times to match my four shovel-outs. Nothing like having a big red and black Case-IH chugging down your driveway on a snowy day! And we still haven’t gotten to the Ohio Canal, but since most of the Route 79 work came to a halt this week, we won’t be behind by much next week. . .i can hope.
See you Sat. March 1 at OSU-N (see the cover), and call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net if you have a brain storm or blizzard about something we can talk about at the drifted over Hebron Crossroads.

[and if Amy has space to burn this week, here’s a portion of]
Snowbound: A Winter Idyll by John Greenleaf Whittier

We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, --
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes;
strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

For the full (lengthy!) poem:
http://pencible.tripod.com/pande/snowbound.htm

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Booster 2-23-03
Cover Story

Ring In Ohio’s Bicentennial
By Jeff Gill

When Thomas Worthington hosted a famous all-night gathering at his mansion named “Adena” some 200 years ago, they saw the sun rise over the hills east of Chillicothe in a view enshrined on the Great Seal of the State of Ohio.
Some say they were writing the first state constitution, others claim it was a poker game, but whatever they were doing, they couldn’t have foreseen what Ohio would look like in 2003.
From back when canal boats were high tech and it took weeks to cross the new state on a horse, to our online 24/7 world where interstates get you from Dayton to Steubenville in hours (weather permitting), much has changed. But some things haven’t, even across two centuries.
Casting a bell still requires pouring liquid metal into a mold that produces a musically functional work of beauty; barns still hold hay for fodder no matter what’s painted across its side in red, white, and blue; and pancakes were a favorite of George Washington’s -- and we don’t make them too differently from how they made them at Mount Vernon or Adena in 1803 for a weary crew greeting the dawn.
Saturday, March 1 is “Statehood Day” for Ohio, and the kickoff for a year and more of bicentennial events around the state. While many dignitaries will wind their way up the hill to the newly refurbished “Adena” mansion in Chillicothe, with a parade of county flags leading the way, here in Licking County we will greet the dawn (or at least 8 am) with a pancake breakfast and much, much more.
The official Licking County bicentennial bell, one of 88 cast in each of Ohio’s counties, will make an appearance at OSU-Newark campus as the first pancakes are served, with local Kiwanis Club members cooking and serving. All around the Hopewell Hall cafeteria area will be over 700 works of art from most Licking County school districts. As you enjoy your pancakes at $4 per person, $2 for children ten and under, you’ll hear musical offerings including handbells from Hebron Christian Church, singing by the Angelic Voices, Par Excellence Choir, Campus Chorale, and Young At Heart, as well as music from the Zerger Hall Band.
“We’ve been working for months to get ready for this day,” says Marcia Phelps, county commissioner and chair of the Licking County Bicentennial Commission. Since the Newark bicentennial celebration last summer, where our bell was cast, she has escorted the bell on its carriage to a variety of community events, and the schedule for the bell is jam-packed through 2003, including a late June/early July wagon train passing through on US 40 that the bicentennial commission is working on. “But this is the central event, and we want to do our part to help the state celebrate. We’ve got plenty of history right here in Licking County.”
The statehood day celebration at OSU-N will be history making in its own right, as the centerpiece of the 8 am to noon pancake breakfast will be a pause in the program at 10:30 am as everyone goes outside for an aerial photo, capturing for years to come an overhead view of a human map of Ohio. All present will be shown to a place on an outline of the state, with local veterans invited to physically map Licking County into the middle of the display.
Copies of the photo can be ordered that day, with J & B Photography taking both the pictures and the orders. The outline of Ohio will be done rain (or snow) or shine, since the 200th Statehood Day comes around only once.
If you have questions about events or arrangements for Statehood Day, call 349-6555; Kim Workman with the County Planning Commission has given invaluable assistance to the Ohio bicentennial effort.
“Please remember that there is effectively no budget for this,” says Commissioner Phelps, who has given hours of her time to help keep the effort moving forward, along with countless hours and personal donations from members of the county bicentennial commission. With the state budget situation, what money was available has been eliminated, and local efforts, work by the Ohio Historical Society, and other activities are operating on a pay-as-you go basis.
There’s something that would appeal to George Washington and Thomas Worthington about paying for our historic commemoration with pancakes. Some things don’t change through the years, and the taste of pancakes early in the morning is one of them.

Statehood Day in Licking County is Sat., March 1, with a Pancake Breakfast and State of Ohio outline aerial photo at the OSU-N campus. The breakfast is in Hopewell Hall from 8 am to Noon, with tickets $4 for adults and $2 for children ten and under, available at the Licking Co. Commissioners’ office and Park National Bank branches, or at the door. Aerial photo is scheduled for 10:30 am rain or shine, with veterans invited to form Licking County within the state outline, and copies of the photo may be ordered that day.

Hebron Crossroads 2-16-03
by Jeff Gill

Next Saturday, "Books and Coffee" continues here in Hebron at 10 am with "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." This is a book that really makes you take a second look at what makes life worth living.
It is a true story, and if it were fiction it probably never could have been published. A black turtleneck wearing, cigarette smoking, wine sipping French fashion magazine editor living in Paris has a massive stroke, paralyzing his entire body except for one eyelid. He is moved to a convalescent hospital far out in the countryside, where he finds out who is friends are because they still visit, but can't communicate.
Did i mention he wrote the book himself? That's right, by blinking his one good eyelid he begins to communicate out of the diving bell of his body what is going on with the butterfly of his spirit, which is still flying. There's no miracle cure, but how Jean-Dominique Bauby responds to his situation is truly a miracle. Come talk about this amazing book at 612 W. Main on Feb. 22 at 10 am.
As many of you know, i think history is a big part of what makes life worth living; not just the reading and the research, but the living connections and sense of belonging beyond the here and now that history really communicates when you become part of it.
The Ohio bicentennial celebrations are really some history you can become part of, and i hope you all are planning to come by OSU-N on Sat., March 1 for some pancakes between 8 and noon and the Ohio outline picture at 10:30 am. We'll have more details in the paper next week, but make sure to mark that day now!

The levy defeat was frustrating for all the 300 plus volunteers who worked on it, but I am proud to note that both Hebron precincts and most of our immediate vicinity voted “yes” for our community responsibilities. With twenty to twentyfive percent of our registered voters casting a “no” on a tax increase, just let your correspondent note that I’ve worked on school levies in three states, and let me tell you that you’ll never see anything less than that, even when the economy is great, the baseball team wins a state championship, and every house has the bluebird of happiness sitting on the chimney. Our 1700 to 2200 “no” vote total is exactly what you’ll always see, no matter what: the mystery is the “not voter.” And you know who you are. . .all 5000 of you.
For parents who deal with the occasional frustrations of little things like pay-to-participate ($250 per activity per child, in case any of you had forgotten), no busing for the high school, and no all-day kindergarten, there’s also the complication of snow days.
We are now over our limit of five, so Monday, Presidents’ Day, will be “taken back” so we don’t have to keep doing school into June. More to come? I’m thinkin’ “yep.”
Anyhow, I asked Phil Herman, our hard working and always available superintendent about when snow days are called on account of snow, as most folks understand that the snow and ice decision is one between him, the transportation crew, and the county road reports. Phil says the guideline they follow is zero degrees air temperature, or twenty below wind chill when kids would be out waiting on busses. If those conditions are met or exceeded, we go to delay or cancellation. Thanks for clearing that up, Phil! He also wants to thank all the people who came out in good weather and bad to work on the levy effort.
Thanks to Janet Robberts, one of the volunteers who make all kinds of things work well around the Hebron Crossorads, some other local information of note:
Lakewood Youth Baseball signups are Saturdays, February 22, March 1 & 8. 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. in the Lakewood Intermediate School cafeteria. There will also be a Coach's Clinic February 22, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. and a Umpire's Clinic February 22, 12:00 p.m.. - 2:00 p.m..
Also, the Hebron Elementary PTO is sponsoring a Spring Craft Fair, March 15 10 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. For craft spaces please contact Lyn Lockwood at 928-7540.
The Hebron Elementary is also collecting Meijer receipts, Campbell Soup labels & Box Tops for Education. Anyone interested in donating these items may drop these off at the school office.
The elementary school will have their Statehood Day celebration a day early, on Feb. 28, and word is a person may step out of the past to tell a story or two about 200 years ago in the Ohio territory. . .
And if you get this by Sat. Feb. 15, Hebron Christian is having a Valentine’s Spaghetti Dinner from 6 to 8 pm with contributions for our regional capital campaign for church camp. Bring your sweetie and have some spaghetti, and choose your own level of generosity.
So here we are at the end of my allotted space, and I still haven’t got to the Ohio Canal and Rt. 79 like I promised last week! Someday I’ll learn to quit doing that, since when I say I will write on something, 42 other things suddenly show up for the column. On the other hand, I should keep writing previews if that gets more info for you to read and benefit from; anyhow, we’ll always get to it someday. So, canal tales next week at the Hebron Crossorads!

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and enjoys wind chill tables and good homemade spaghetti sauce (but his last batch turned into salsa: don’t ask). If you have Hebron news to use, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 2-09-03
By Jeff Gill


We salute those lost in service to their country, while on a mission to benefit humanity, whose high level of training and preparation gave them joy in their work but were brought down by the unexpected and unforeseen. Our prayers are with their families, most of them with young children, who know their loved ones did not die in vain, honored by many who never knew them as they served many they would never know.

That paragraph could be about the seven Columbia astronauts from the US and Israel, but in fact I was thinking of the four US servicemen who were killed when their Blackhawk helicopter crashed near Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, just a day and a half before the shuttle went down.

We don’t have to take anything away from our regard for those skilled and brilliant individuals whom we lost over Texas last Saturday, when we also want to remember our talented young men and women, often fathers and mothers, some from Licking County, who are on risky duty in Iraq overflights these last twelve years, who fly security and humanitarian missions over Central Europe and Afghanistan, who keep watch at our borders and near outposts like the Korean border around the world. They also deserve our remembrance when they fall. . .and especially where they stand on guard for freedom.


In the wake of the Lakewood Schools levy (you know the outcome, but as this is typed, I don’t!), many, many thanks to Phil Herman for all his work around the district in meeting with individuals, making calls, answering letters, and laying the groundwork for his term as superintendent of our great school system.

Lou Staffilino, who worked hard to put solid educational ground under all our feet, is doing much better after his extensive surgery in December, and on Tues., Feb. 11, Ohio Dominican University is inducting the first class into their new Alumni Hall of Fame, and Lou is one of the first inductees. A crew from Lakewood will be attending a program around this induction that night over at ODU (just off I-670 in Columbus), and our heartiest congratualtions to Lou on his recovery and on this honor!


While snow on 40 mile an hour gales whips by the windows, it feels downright good to think about soccer; that’s right, soccer! The Hebron Area Soccer Association is organizing (and still needs coaches, by the way); the first go round of sign-ups is Saturday Feb. 8 at the middle school cafeteria, which may be before some of you read this. Be of good cheer, because registration forms are still available.

The Hebron Library and the Lakewood Schools office has forms, and they are for interested boys and girls age 4 through 8th grade. The cost is $35 which includes a game shirt, and the season runs from April 1 to Memorial Day. If you have more questions, call Jim Dobos at 522-5969.

If anyone has info on youth baseball or other sports sign-ups in our area, please leave me a message at 928-4066 or e-mail the word to disciple@voyager.net, and it’ll show up in the column!


The Books & Coffee gathering was three for "Johnny Tremain", but I heard from a number of you who had kids with ballgames and such that day, and Waldenbooks said they sold a rack o’ copies, so the books are getting read. We had a fun conversation and drank up the whole pot of coffee, and we’ll be together again at 612 W. Main St. in Hebron on Feb. 22 looking at "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominique Bauby. This is a very moving true story, and that book too is selling at Walden’s at the mall in Heath. Remember that March 22, also at 10 am, is a real cabin fever cure, Francis Mayes’ "Under the Tuscan Sun."

Before that date, Sat. March 1 is our Statehood Day celebration for Licking County at OSU-N; come for the pancakes (8 am to noon, $4 and 10 and under kids are $2) and stay for the giant picture of all of us forming an Ohio outline at 10:30.


As one of the many Hebronites who drive up and down Rt. 79 more often than we care to think, the signs are unmistakable that the widening project is taking shape with little survey flags, spray paint marks, and digging already afoot with utilities and such.

Next week, I plan to talk about some of the canal history you can still see along 79, and what will soon disappear, but a reminder I imagine will be heard again and again.
Please be careful, especially as you make left turns onto 79/Hebron Rd., especially in Heath. I’ve seen some pretty scary jumps out into traffic, witnessed not just near misses but ended up holding hands or standing by smashed cars waiting for the police or worse yet the squad to come along, and we all heard about a death accompanying a left turn just before Christmas.

Folks, there are precious few places where you can’t maneuver through a parking lot to get to a side street with a traffic light, or turn right and then go down to another light and four-square around to get back the other direction. Left turns onto 79 through the business district are just a bad idea, and impatient sudden turns against traffic are even worse.

As the old city limits sign somewhere says, "Drive carefully, we don’t have any people to spare." We’ve got the time to wait, especially if we think about how much time a simple wreck takes us, let alone the implications of worse accidents. Avoid the left turn and get back to Hebron a few minutes late. . .we promise to wait for you!

Notes From My Knapsack -- Feb. 2003 "The Church Window"
Hebron Christian Church

Thanks to your very kind and much appreciated gift on Christmas Sunday, the Gill household was able to replace a washer and dryer that dated to the Reagan administration, and chose the end of 2002 to enter retirement. 14 years is a goodly time for such appliances, we guess, although some have told us of their own lasting longer – but that was some years back, too.

We also said goodbye to the last of a pair of cars that started well, but quickly revealed that they weren’t designed to last much past 75,000, and I was raised to expect a good 100,000 miles and more from an automobile; Ken George tells me that Detroit is engineering again for that kind of endurance, and we’re going to put that to the test!

How long should things last? I like shirts and suit jackets to wear long enough to get “comfortable”, which Joyce tells me is the same as “unsightly”, and I still remember the first youth minister job I had when, on our introductions, a kid asked, “How old are those sneakers,” and when I said “about 10 years,” he gave them a look of utter amazement.

But what really lasts? Even modern plastics and resins have “life spans”, atomic elements have “half-lives” no matter how long, and scientists guess and test at the age of the universe. . .and its end. And after what seems like three long nasty colds in a row since Thanksgiving, it looks like even the human body has its limits (or at least that’s what my nose is telling me).

Then there are the things we call “ephemeral”, that “are for a time.” A child’s smile, a touch of a hand while waiting on an ER gurney, laughter echoing out of a house as you walk up the steps to enter. They happen, they pass, and . . .

In this time between Christmas and Easter, our faith can guide us to a greater sense of what truly endures, what lasts, and a better awareness of what’s really ephemeral and passes away. Washers, dryers, head colds; of these is not the kingdom of heaven! Let’s think on the things that are, and act on the decisions which lead to what endures forever.

In Grace & Peace,
Pastor Jeff

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Pastoral Care Notes

Two reminders, which you’ve probably heard before and likely would help to hear again!

The hospitals, especially LMH, often ask if you would like your church/pastor to be informed. For myriad reasons, to complicated to go into here, you need to know that this system often doesn’t work! Our folks have had visits from very nice strangers who weren’t sure who they were, either; the church office often gets calls for Hebron UMC, Central Christian, etc., which Pastor Jeff reroutes as well as he can.

Anyhow, please let Jeff or someone know, because he’d rather hear it four times than not at all, and LMH will just have to keep working on their system. . .

The other note is tied to something you may note from the annual report; when it comes to worship attendance, only a relatively small number had five absences or less, while almost 250 made multiple appearances in worship through 2002. So missing church a few times doesn’t ring the same bell for pew mates, friends, or the pastor that it once did.

If you’re laid up at home and feeling lonely, give the church a call at 928-4066 or Pastor Jeff at 928-2576, and then we’ll all feel better!

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Interim Regional Pastor
Visits Hebron

On Thursday, Feb. 13, our building will host the monthly meeting of the clergy in District 10/11 (Licking, Muskingum, Coshocton, Guernsey, Jefferson, Noble, Washington Co.’s). Our guest at this meeting is Rev. Suzanne Webb, the interim regional pastor for the Christian Church in Ohio, and part of the Futuring Task Force for the region that Pastor Jeff is a part of.

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Statehood Day in Licking County

Saturday, March 1st, is both the kickoff for the State of Ohio bicentennial celebrations and a significant day for Licking County. That morning, at Hopewell Hall on the OSU-N campus, a pancake breakfast will begin at 8 am, continuing through the morning with a break at 10:00 am for all of us to go out and literally form the outline of Ohio. Our picture will be taken from above, and this picture will be part of the historical record of this day and year. Donna Braig and Kim Halter are part of the County Bicentennial Commission, and they’ve got Pastor Jeff roped in on some further events which will pass through Hebron this summer – but the first thing is for all of you to join the Commission, Hebron Village council, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, bands and choirs, as we start this bicentennial celebration on March 1. Come join us, and have some pancakes while you wait!

Hebron Crossroads 2-02-03
By Jeff Gill

Before the sun rises Tuesday morning, your fellow citizens in the Lakewood School District will be heading off to their polling places for the special election on the operating levy.
And before that, God bless ‘em, pollworkers who are also your friends and neighbors will have gotten up at oh-dark-thirty to set up the election equipment and be ready for those of us who vote at 6:30 am on the way into our day. Some of them hang in there right through the 7:30 pm closing on Feb. 4. Could we have a quick round of applause for those folks? Hear, hear. . .

Anyhow, we’re coming up on ten years with the same budget for Lakewood, and there are precious few households or organizations who are working with the same budget they had in 1993. With the recent arrival of the assessment letter and tax tickets (yep, I got mine too, and it went up), we’re reminded of reason number 367 why we need to change the state funding system for education; even though we are each paying more in taxes, the “rollback” provisions that give us each a lighter load on paying for bond issues also impact the contribution of the state to operating expenses, meaning that our schools can’t end up with more money than we voted for in 1993 until we vote otherwise.
That’s right, folks: when our assessments go up and we personally pay more, the law says that our work to make a better community is rewarded by cutting our state portion of the budget (paid for out of the sales tax and fees), leaving us where we started from minus inflation and wear-and-tear. Does this sound crazy to everybody, or is it just me?
So Superintendent Phil Herman, our school board, and hundreds of volunteers who are parents, grandparents, or just motivated citizens have to mobilize to ask for the money to pay the basic bills. . .the bills as they cost in 2003, not 1993. They’ve been working their way through the 9000 some registered voters in the district, calling, explaining, and communicating the need for a new levy. We’re currently paying near the absolute minimum in property taxes, and we’re barely making ends meet even without high school busing and all-day kindergarten and pay-to-participate.
Please get out and vote on Tuesday! I’m convinced that Lakewood is spending our money as carefully as they can, and they’ve convinced me that all-day kindergarten is vitally needed to set kids on the right learning track from the start. As for those who say half the high schoolers wouldn’t ride the bus if it were offered, my response is “but the half that would, would.” And pay-to-participate is just sad; I know my parents with four active kids would never have been able to pay per activity for all that us Gill kids did before and after school, and removing those activities creates a very real gap in our community where all manner of influences can enter in.
One more badgering point, and then I’ll move on (I promise); when people say “my kids are out of school, I’ve already paid my share,” among myriad other facts, the main point here is “no, you didn’t.” Virtually no one “pays their share” for their kids education, in large part because virtually no one could (yes, even way back when). While you were helping pay part of your kids education, whether through your own property tax on indirectly through your rent, others whose kids had already finished school were covering the rest. Schools are a community investment like roads and public safety, and we all pay what we can when we can; even churches and non-profits like the Masonic Lodge pay property taxes (my own congregation pays nearly $3000 a year, for instance) so this institution can continue to support and maintain democracy and literacy.
Meanwhile, we’ve gotta change this funding system: send your ideas to disciple@voyager.net or call 928-4066! Let’s get the public conversation going on this subject, but in the meantime, we need to give a modest bump to the the school budget for the next five years (which is as long as this levy would last, anyhow); maybe by 2008 we’ll have come up with an answer for this funding formula riddle. ‘Til then, see you at the polls on Tuesday!

Pastor’s Annual Report
2003 Congregational Meeting
Rev. Jeff Gill

As you read through the various reports and accounts of our life as a congregation found here, manifested in classes and choirs, groups and gatherings, you will read many different names (some repeated, certainly!), a variety of numbers, and hear stories told. Any one soul is precious, and the tale of any of our days would necessarily have to be either too brief to do it justice, or tediously overdetailed. That’s just as true for a community of faith, made up as we are not only of many different persons, but of all the complications growing from our interactions, one to one, two by two, and even the differences in each Sunday’s congregation at worship.

But we also are called to good stewardship of the time and talents, the gifts and graces God has given us both separately and together, and that means we have to have some way of measuring the past and planning for the future. In church life, we tend to judge the past by the quality of our fellowship (“everyone had a great time” being a common phrase for that), and we usually assess our future in broad and general terms (“we hope to continue and grow”).

Concrete measures tend to be limited to attendance figures and giving gauged against income versus outgo. By those standards, Hebron Christian Church has had a good year – see elsewhere in this annual meeting report! -- and our hopes for the future can be shown in the not quite 5 percent increase planned for in the budget.

Do these numbers, though, do justice to our sense of calling and vision as a body of believers called into being by Jesus Christ himself? Are there other ways for us to test our faithfulness and follow God’s call?

Every church that considers itself faithful to the New Testament model has certain tasks it must be doing:
bringing the Good News (Lk. 9:6, II Thess. 3:1-5),
making disciples (both nearby, and of all nations! Mt. 28:19),
equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12), and
to be kind and forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven us (Eph. 4:32).

For each of those high callings, worship attendance and general fund giving is a tool in ministry: not ends themselves, but tools to accomplish the ends God has established. But we run no less a hazard by avoiding a full accounting in settling for vague and general feelings of “that’s fine,” “I like that,” and of course the always risky “We’ve never done it that way before.” Can we come up with measurable and observable goals for our Christian community? One way we’ve done that recently is to take the perfectly good hope of “more people should read the Bible” and convert it into signed commitments to read the New Testament through Lent, which gave over half of our worshiping congregation a specific goal of their own from Ash Wednesday to Easter.

Getting to the heart of the title “disciple” is the concept of discipline, which we’re probably more familiar with as a practice than with what it means to “be a disciple.” But that’s just it! Being a disciple of Christ means that we are called to a more disciplined witness than, “yeah, I think that’s true, but that’s just my opinion;” to a more disciplined spirituality than “you can worship God anywhere, y’know;” to a sense of mission more disciplined than $5 in the offering plate when you won’t really miss it! Disciplining our faithfulness means being accountable to one another, being responsible for one another, and loving one another, both within these walls and to all those Christ died for.

How will we do this? Each element of church life will have to consider what is their own measurable and observable result of their ministry. The elders with their spiritual oversight and special responsibility for worship will look closely at Sunday attendance, but perhaps also at the rate and frequency of visitors who were personally invited to worship by a member. The trustees are responsible for the tool in ministry that is our church building, and can set goals about physical changes that increase accessibility and welcoming-ness of the layout (signage outside and in, for instance). The board, with its particular obligations as to fiscal stewardship, may want to look at how and when the congregation responds to special day offerings and other giving opportunities and how we can help connect mission and ministry. The Christian Education department has already met to review the year month by month to see where we are providing opportunities for spiritual growth.

I look forward to this new year, and the new life in Christ that Hebron Christian Church will share with so many through the months ahead. Disciplining our witness will allow so much more to happen in ministry, and in a time when so many are waiting to hear the Good News we’ve been entrusted with;

In Grace and Peace,
Pastor Jeff

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Outreach and Ohio Disciples’ Outreach update

The beginning of 2003 marks the start of a small change in wording and an acronym that may herald some large changes in how the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) does mission and manages your giving to mission causes.

We’ve had a quarter century to get used to – and get complacent about! – BMF, or “Basic Mission Finance.” That is the “central bank account” for what was called before that “Unified Promotion,” one of the steps that led to the re-structure of our denomination in the 1960’s. This “common pot of money” was convenient for book keeping, but said little to people wanting more “transparency and accountability” in where their dollars went.

The General Board of the Christian Church has adopted a sweeping set of changes to BMF, but some of them are a bit subtle: like the name “Disciples Mission Fund,” or DMF for short. The real difference is how the giving of churches and individuals is managed, and to outline these, here is a Q&A page from www.disciples.org, which you can can find by clicking the DMF logo over the words “Giving changes lives.” You can also see a version of it with links below “What’s New” at our web site, http://go.to/Hebron_Christian.


Questions and Answers about the new funding system

How will the fund be divided?
Receipts will be divided: 2003 through 2008
For Regional Ministries* 45% to 50%
For General Ministries 45% to 40%
For Higher Education Institutions 10% to 10%
*Note: allocations for Regional Ministries will increase one percent each year so that in 2008 the division will be 50 percent Regional Ministries, 40 percent General Ministries, and 10 percent Higher Education Institutions.

Who will determine funding allocations?
Each of the three ministries groups will recommend how funds will be divided. The General Board will give final approval. Regions have appointed a committee of five regional ministers and two lay regional moderators who will make allocation recommendations based on criteria developed by the regions in consultation with each other. The Council on Theological Education and the Council of Colleges and Universities will make allocation recommendations for institutions of higher education. General Ministries will develop allocation recommendations through an accountability process using an external review panel.

How will regional funding allocations be determined?
Proposed allocations for the regions have been submitted to the General Board for approval. For 2003 those allocations are based upon the percentage of Basic Mission Finance dollars that regions received in 2001. This recommendation should result in an increase in 2003 funds compared to 2001 funds for all but six regions. Those regions not receiving an increase may apply for assistance from the emergency fund established for regions. The 2004 allocations will be based upon criteria for regional ministry to be approved by the regions and the General Board in 2003.

How will a region's receipts be based?
A region's receipts will be based on a percentage of Disciples Mission Fund contributions from congregations across the whole church.

Where will the four Special Offerings go?
Special Offerings will be received for particular ministries:
Easter for general ministries implementation of Disciples Imperative to strengthen congregational life,
Pentecost for new church development (divided equally between the region in which it is contributed and general New Church Ministry),
Thanksgiving for higher education institutions, and
Christmas for regional ministries in the region where the funds are contributed for implementation of the church's Imperative.
In addition to these offerings, Week of Compassion and Reconciliation offerings will be received to fund specified Disciples ministries for disaster relief and the Reconciliation Mission.

* * * * * * *

Friendly Class Report

Our one adult class on Sunday mornings has begun meeting downstairs in Fellowship Hall, where we are a bit more visible and accessible, allowing the choir to prepare for the service, and letting us have coffee and bite to eat along with the lesson! We have used both the Int’l Sunday School Lessons resources, as well as some videos and outlines from Pastor Jeff.

We invite all adults to join us for assembly in the sanctuary at 9:30 am, and then downstairs for our class. The discussions and insights have been great, and we look forward to inviting more of you to join us in 2003.

Hebron Crossroads 1-26-03
By Jeff Gill


“Souper Bowl” Sunday is an ongoing effort on the part of many youth organizations, churches, and similar groups to remind people of the ongoing needs of area food pantries. Christmas is a great time for giving, but that’s also a prime time for pantries to give, too.
With the shelves often quite bare at the end of January, the Super Bowl is an occasion when folks are out shopping anyhow, and the suggestion is that we buy a can of food to donate for every item of snack food we’re indulging in for the big game. And since soup is one canned good that is always useful for families in need, hence the name “Souper Bowl” for this promotion.

Many area churches and their youth groups are asking their members to bring food pantry items on this Sunday, and we’re happy to remind folks at the Hebron Crossroads about it; LEADS at Buckeye Lake does great work on our behalf, but when they see more plywood than can lids, this kind of extra effort to stock the shelves is really appreciated.


Another program supported by many area churches and civic groups is “Heartbeats of Licking County,” which provides crisis pregnancy counseling, support for new mothers, and promotion of adoption as a loving alternative for unplanned pregnancies.

Merridy Hoover, who stepped down not long ago as the executive director, is still working with Heartbeats with a focus on adoption, and has put together a video on the subject, sharing accurate information and pointing out myths about adoption and adoptive children. This locally made video has gotten a great deal of attention around the country, from coast to coast, and has been used in a variety of school programs far beyond Licking County where it was originally intended for use, including Lakewood schools. There is also a version of the video made for churches and faith-based groups.

Rindy Brooks, who was brave enough to step into Merridy’s very large shoes, is getting better known, as is the new location for Heartbeats at 336 East Main St. in Newark (their phone number is 349-7558). Rindy says, “When I run into people at the store, or out on the street, because of our abstinence-based teaching, they say, ‘Oh, that’s right, you’re the ‘No Sex Lady,’ and I’m trying to find the right way to tell them, ‘No, I’m pro-sex; I’m trying to help you have great sex, which is through a marriage with someone you waited for and that you’re so glad you’re with.”

Whether she becomes better known as the ‘No Sex’ lady or the ‘Great Sex’ lady, this lady has plenty of work to do, and she’s trying to figure out how to do more. With the counseling they do out of their office, Rindy points out that only 25 percent of their clients (averaging 19 to 25) turn out to be pregnant. “We want to reach out more effectively to that other 75 percent who say ‘whew’ and walk away, but came in worried. Heartbeats wants to address to source of those worries, and how they can eliminate those problems to start with.”
She also adds that their volunteer needs aren’t just for people who are comfortable doing crisis counseling, but also for women who are able to teach “how to be a mom,” folks willing to talk to teen and parent groups, or even have skills to share on basic home management.

With 40 million abortions in the US since 1973, there are tens of millions of women who have experienced the lasting after-effects of that choice, and Heartbeats’ program “Healing the Effects of Abortion Related Trauma,” or HEART, has been a real support for women who have taken the seven week group experience. New groups start whenever there are another six or seven women who want the course, which is led by women who have been through the course themselves. “No one is in the room who hasn’t been through an abortion themselves, and that can be very freeing for sharing and discussion in a non-judging atmosphere,” says Stephanie, a group leader.

Heartbeats has always had involvements in the Lakewood area, and while their “office” is a ways up the road, they’re just a phone call away, and as more volunteers and interest comes from groups around Hebron and Buckeye Lake, the more chance they’ll have of a visible presence in our end of the county. Dave Mason, pastor of Heath Church of Christ, and I agreed that Heartbeats is one of the most effective volunteer organizations in Licking County.

Hebron Crossroads 1-19-03
By Jeff Gill

If you were driving through Hebron last Sunday night and were puzzled by the lights shining over Canal Park, you’d be right to think it was awfully early for baseball practice to start.

But it was ice skating at the village rink that lit up the sky behind Bowman’s truck lot south of Main St. Ice skating, you ask? Village rink? That’s what we’re talking about during these deep freeze days of January.

Scott Walters, who is just going off of the Parks Committee on village council, has been working with village staff to set up a skating rink on one of the ball fields just off of Cumberland Street and Canal Road. This 80 by 200 foot area is made up of a rubber liner and outer boards along with some simple signage indicating the hazards of skating and recommending protective gear (like the signs at the bike park in Evans Park just north of town).

“We were looking for another way to give back to the citizens of Hebron in all seasons,” said councilmember Walters, “and this gives people another reason to come to Hebron parks.” Mike McFarland had seen a similar portable rink arrangement in Glenford, and when this gently used one became available, the next step was obvious: time for a Hebron skating rink!

Right now, you have to bring your own skates, since the costs of buying and renting out gear makes a cost-effective idea suddenly quite expensive. “But lots of people are finding they or their neighbors have skates hung up in the garage from when people used to skate out on the lake all the time.”

Some of those Buckeye Lake classics are showing up on the feet of kids who look much younger than the skates they wear, with a few dozen out on the ice the first day. The six inches of ice are dependent on the weather, but that’s been the easiest part to date. Help from Hebron’s Fire and Street Departments, as well as assistance from the Union Township maintenance crew, got the rink in place under the ballfield lights that are already in place. While generally unsupervised, activities at the rink and day to day operation is just tied to checking ice conditions indicated by whether the sign at the entrance says “open” or “closed.”

With Scott moving over to chair the Finance Committee, Ray Guinsler will take over as Parks chairman, but he plans to stay involved in bringing more and more of the community to the parks of Hebron.

“Thanks to Bear Creek Company, we just got 300 trees planted out at Evans Park, and there on the ball courts we hope to have some lawn-chair concerts this summer,” Walters points out. Back to the winter and Canal Park, your columnist pointed out a cost-effective promotion might be to have Tonya Harding come to give clinics on both ice skating and boxing, but Scott wasn’t sure he’d take that one back to committee. “We’ve got a few ideas of our own to discuss; that’d be. . .interesting.”

Well if you don’t like the idea you can just say so. . .


Next Saturday (Jan. 25) is Books & Coffee, discussing “Johnny Tremain” at 612 W. Main St. in the front room at 10:00 am; you may have already guessed that if coffee isn’t your beverage of choice, you may want to bring your own! With great literature written originally for children on our minds, and with plunging temperatures and a new ice rink, perhaps “Hans Brinker” is a good secondary choice (now there’s an oldie: anyone else out there read that one?).

If you know of any other events planned for the Spring on the Ohio Bicentennial, please let me know; next week, I’ll have more to tell you about the March 1 event for “Statehood Day” and some basketball news. It is time to start letting go of football a little, isn’t it? Oh, but I will have to tell you about the “Souper Bowl” again next week, and no, that’s not a typo! We just like confusing the spell-check program here at the Hebron Crossroads.


Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church, where the first pastor used to skate along the Ohio Canal to get to his preaching appointments. If you have news with a keen edge to it, or some meandering figure eights to share word of, call 928-4066 or e-mail him at disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 1-12-03
By Jeff Gill

If you’ve been hearing some of the discussions about the Newark Earthworks lately and wanted to know more about their 2000 years of history, you might want to watch Adelphia Cable channel 5 this Tuesday (Jan. 14) at 7:30 pm. Rich Lutze, the general manager of Adelphia here in the area, hosts a program called "Headlines – Licking County" each week. Recently, he taped a program on the mounds of our area, particularly the Octagon and Observatory Circle of Newark Earthworks State Memorial.

His guests for this week’s program are Dr. Richard Shiels of OSU-Newark, a professor of history, and your Hebron Crossroads columnist! So tune in and save me telling you again in print what an amazing cultural legacy we have here right in our own backyard.

(Oh, you may know the Octagon/Observatory part of the Newark Earthworks as Moundbuilders Country Club, but as a public site there are well marked spots off of 33rd St. and behind the hospital where you can view them.)

History is going to be a big theme for all of this year, with the Ohio Bicentennial officially beginning at Adena State Memorial in Chillicothe on March 1. From the front lawn of Thomas Worthington’s home is the view enshrined on the Great Seal of our state, and inside is one of Ohio’s most beautiful and most historic homes, with the involvement of Benjamin Latrobe in the design making a tie between Adena and Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home on the back of your nickle.

On your license plates has been a running reminder that, while Newark snuck a bow in towards the bicentennial in 2002, the statewide observance officially begins this year, and while the high and mighty will make the lines long down at Adena (so visit, but wait ‘til later), March 1 will be a big day in Licking County, too.

Come out on that Saturday morning to OSU-N at Hopewell Hall, and there will be a pancake breakfast through the morning on either side of a 10:30 am picture of the state of Ohio, formed by you, me, and a few hundred of our closest friends! A number of us from the Lakewood area are working on and with the county bicentennial commission, and there will be more to tell you, but make sure to come eat the pancakes at Statehood Day and be in the photo of an Ohio outlined and scripted by Licking County residents.

Right here in Hebron, our own Hebron Historical Society is doing their part by sponsoring special "badges" that many of us will be wearing on and before March 1. They are a two inch replica of the Hebron shield, with the slight modification of the years "1803-2003" and the words "Hebron Historical" above the village outline and the paths of the Ohio Canal and Ohio 79 crossing the National Road.

Jody Schoop is coordinating this effort by the Hebron Historical Society (which meets on first Mondays at 7:30 pm in the Masonic Building), and she tells me that they are available at the Municipal Building during business hours for $3, or you can call her at 928-4161 for more info – or to arrange buying them in bulk, and give them to all your friends!

And of course there’s the wider context of our history as retold in fiction: have you read "Johnny Tremain" yet? I know some of you have (some have re-read it for the first time since junior high, I’ve heard), and we’re looking forward to the first "Books & Coffee" at 612 W. Main in the front room on Sat., Jan. 25 at 10 am.


Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and often involved in hysterical activities; or is that historical? Either way, pass along news and notes to "Hebron Crossroads" by calling 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Sun. Jan. 26
Souper Bowl Sunday!
This is a good reminder to bring canned goods -- like soup! -- for the food pantry this Sunday. Some folks like to get a can of food to donate for each snack item they buy for the Super Bowl celebration later on in the day. However you do it, help us make this a "Souper" Sunday for the food pantry.

Hebron Crossroads 1-05-03
By Jeff Gill

Winter is a fine time for reading. I enjoy skiing, and even snow shoveling has its pleasures (when you grew up shoveling snowfall
measured in feet), but there’s no time like these next few months for sitting near a fire, turning on a lamp, and opening up a book.
So the long promised (or threatened!) “Books and Coffee” series will begin the fourth Saturday of January, and run at least through May. We’ll meet at 10 am, in the meeting room at the front of 612 W. Main St. next to Hebron Christian Church, and I’ll have the coffee ready if you’ll come to talk about your reaction to the book o’ the month. They’ll all be relatively short, easily accessible by library or Waldenbooks at the mall, and picked by yours truly.
Jan. 25 we’ll look at “Johnny Tremain” by Esther Forbes. Officially a “juvenile” novel, this is a story of Boston as the American Revolution is getting started, and seemed a good choice as we’re about to see Ohio’s bicentennial celebration get started (March 1, don’t forget!). Published during the onset of World War II, Forbes was looking for ways to make history accessible and relevant to young people, but wrote a piece of historical fiction for the ages.
February 22 the selection is “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominque Bauby. This nearly un-summarizable book has to be read to be believed, and is quite short so why not try it? I guarantee a lively and memorable discussion.
March 22, as we’re all getting antsy with spring fever (or cabin fever if the winter’s grip has relaxed yet), the book is “Under a Tuscan Sun” by Frances Mayes. This is a true story that will warm up the most frigid view out your window as you read in February and March. There’s something here for cooks, carpenters, gardeners, teachers, poets, whatever your interests.
April 26, with Easter just past, we’ll look at “Desire of the Everlasting Hills” by Thomas Cahill, who wrote “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” Cahill is working his way through a series called “The Hinges of History,” and from his first Gaelic tribute to this most recent social history of the man Jesus, he’s living up to his intentions of giving a non-specialist overview of the major turning points in western civilization.
And the close of this experiment I made a “classic” that is rarely read today, but still in print (so someone’s reading it), Anthony Trollope’s “The Warden.” Again, a short book, but with a long reach across nearly 150 years into issues of today.
Even if you can’t attend any of the Saturday “Books and Coffee” gatherings but just decide to read a few of these titles that caught your fancy, you’ll have helped make this endeavor worthwhile. In fact, if someone e-mails me a few thoughts they had on completing the book for that month, I promise to make use of your contribution as we begin our discussion.
Of course, if you haven’t read (or finished) the book you’re more than welcome to attend; we just can’t promise not to ruin the ending for you! And the conversation is all the more interesting if you have some sense of who or what we’re talking about.
So request the book from the library, or go see the display at Waldenbooks (thanks Anita and Justin and Michelle!), and find a warm corner to read; we’ll see you Jan. 25.
Oh, and Go Bucks!

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and compulsive reader; if there’s a cure, he doesn’t want it! If you have news or book reports to share, call him at 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack

With the season of Christmas winding up on Epiphany Sunday (also known as Post-Fiesta Bowl Sunday), it’s also a good time for looking back over the “Holiday Season” and how the society around us does and doesn’t observe the occasion.

You’ve probably already heard how “the Gap” has instructed employees not to say “Merry Christmas”, and in fact I learned from employees at the mall that the landlords told all stores to avoid putting the word “Christmas” in any of their displays (I’m assuming, I hope unfairly, that manger scenes would have been completely out of the question). We’ve talked in the adult Sunday School classes and I’ve mentioned from the pulpit in recent weeks how seasonal music in ads and public spaces is now almost completely “carol-free,” limited to “Jingle Bells”, “Let It Snow”, and “Chestnuts Roasting. . .”, which was “The Christmas Song” when Nat King Cole first sang it, but never mind.

There’s plenty of room to bemoan some of these cultural developments, but let me tell you what the good news is in all of this. For many years, I think we’ve been too comfortable with assuming that society is taking care of teaching Christianity to our young, and reminding the more mature of the meaning of the story, not to mention the “reason for the season.” The good news, the Good News out of the new day we find ourselves in, is that we now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if we want our children to learn the story and meaning of Christmas, we’re going to have to teach it to ‘em ourselves. The Gap isn’t gonna do it, Target won’t get it done, and the mall doesn’t care. And ya know what? I’m not sure they ever did.

As to the comment “but we’re in the majority, we shouldn’t let a minority take away our Christmas,” here’s an observation that isn’t good news, but is a good challenge as we go into our annual meeting Jan. 26 and Christian Ed planning Jan. 9: on Christmas Eve, we were rightfully pleased to see around 165 in worship. But Hebron has around 2200 residents, and if the four churches in town averaged about the same, that’s 660 souls in church, on a pretty churchgoin’ night of the year. We’ll average about 101 in worship through the year (up from last year, to be sure), and even if you use the 250 that attend at least five times a year, or “active members”, and call that an average of the four Hebron churches (which would be generous), that’s 1000, or less than half.

We’ve got a ways to go before we can really say that a majority of Hebron, or almost any other place in the USA, is truly Christian. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Are we ready to reach out to the unchurched in the Lakewood area? See you at the congregational meeting and dinner after worship the 26th!

In Grace and Peace,
Pastor Jeff

* * * * * * *
Your Family History:
A Story Worth Telling

Pastor Jeff will present his program on oral history and telling your family story at the Hebron Library on Sat., Feb. 1, at 10 am. The talk and discussion will last about an hour and a half, and is open to all!

* * * * * * *
Books and Coffee
Jan. 25, Feb. 22, 10 am

At the old parsonage meeting room on the fourth Saturday of the month this winter, you and your friends are invited to sit down with a cup of coffee and a good book. Waldenbooks is helping promote this series of discussions, led by Pastor Jeff. The January book is “Johnny Tremain” by Esther Forbes, and February is “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Selections for Books and Coffee are fairly short, available in paperback, and generally can be gotten at the library in either our church or down at the Hebron branch, or you can go buy your own and bend the covers back all you want! Invite a friend and join us through May; we will also have a Wednesday Bible Study mornings through Lent, starting Ash Wednesday.

* * * * * * *
Friendly Class on the move!

The adult class will be moving for the next few months to Fellowship Hall; we’ll meet around tables with coffee in hand and maybe a munchable item or two, along with the lectionary-based Bible study. Come join the assembly at 9:30 in the sanctuary, and then drop downstairs for class.

Booster East cover 12-29
Jacksontown Community Breakfast
By Jeff Gill

Are you hungry?

If it’s the first Saturday of the month, and it’s after 11 am, you have only yourself to blame. Nobody who passed through the Jacksontown United Methodist Church for breakfast has room for much more than a cracker until evening.

For eleven years next month, the Community Breakfast in Jack-town (as most locals call it) has been an institution, drawing folk in every first Saturday from all around Licking and Perry Counties, and even from farther away.

Last month, the December breakfast dawned bright and cold, with nearly 50 cars in the church lot just after 7 am. The couple collecting $4 apiece at the bottom of the steps to the basement thought turnout was a bit light because of the temperature, but the room was warm and full to a casual visitor's eye.

Working along a buffet line of crock pots and friendly faces helping serve bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, fruit cups, and cups of coffee, a patron carries a now loaded tray in search of a seat in either the main area or one of two Sunday school rooms that serve as dining areas these Saturdays.

It’s hard not to find a familiar face for most visitors here, or at least a smiling one. As you sit down and dig in, conversation around you indicates that your fellow breakfasters are from Alexandria and Somerset, from Columbus and even Cincinnati. You can end up in conversations about installing culverts, calving season, teachers’ conferences, nursing shortages in OR’s, or comparing download times from internet services. One story going around is that a fellow with family in the area times his visits from Tennessee to coincide with the Jacksontown Community Breakfast.

None of this surprises Keith Cotterman, who has helped lead this program of his church since the beginning, along with his wife Dottie.
“We start a week before each first Saturday putting together everything we need,” says Keith. “We buy our meat from Al’s Meat Market in Newark, the eggs sometimes are donated locally, and everything else is brought in by church members.”

The idea began with a similar, smaller breakfast in Thornville, and when that program began to wind down, Keith went down to visit with Don Royer to see how they’d done it. That was January of 1992, and they began at Jacksontown United Methodist Church the next month. . .and haven’t stopped since.

At 5:30 am, winter or summer, light or dark, Keith and a few of what will end up being a 30 person crew unlock the church building, set out the crock pots, and start the coffee urns. 7:00 am is the opening, and there’s always a line waiting to get in when they start. By the 11:00 am wrap-up, the church will have served breakfast to 400 to 475 people.

“The church has used the proceeds over the years for a variety of ‘over and above’ projects,” says Pastor Bob Beyer. “We’ve made some building improvements, including increasing our handicap accessibility to the basement. Our administrative council will decide where the money from the January 4 breakfast will go, and they have allocated the December dollars to the new ‘Water’s Edge’ ministry in Buckeye Lake plus some seed money for a new church start in the district.”

Keith and Bob share a variety of causes and concerns the breakfast earnings have supported, including youth camp fees and for a Russian missionary who’s been in town to preach. The breakfast has also brought in at least ten families to the church over the last five years, they estimate.

“I have never had to recruit help,” says Keith. “People just show up and start working.”

Among the long-time regulars, he points out Bonnie Lovejoy as gravy maker, Bud Lovejoy for pancake flipping, Ruth Wilson on fruit cups, and Dick Beard with potatoes and sausage. This particular breakfast, a number of the youth group members have sacrificed sleeping in to help with their Santa hats as servers, part of their support of the youth programs with Water’s Edge.

The congregation, with a classic old wood frame building and graceful spire visible as you drive south on Rt. 13 into Jack-town, has two worship services on Sundays at 9:15 and 11 am. With around 150 in worship between the services, they have about 20% of their active membership directly involved in the community breakfast program.

“This is a real unifying experience for the congregation,” says Pastor Bob, “but we do it because we really like seeing all the happy faces together to start a day like today.”

They would love to break the 500 mark someday, but doubt that Jan. 4 will be the day, guessing that many Ohioans will be up late the night before. On the other hand, we agree that a good solid country breakfast will be just the thing however the Fiesta Bowl turns out.

The Jacksontown Community Breakfast is every first Saturday of the month at Jacksontown United Methodist Church from 7:00 to 11:00 am, just south of the intersection of US Rt 40 and State Rt 13. The next breakfast is Jan. 4, and the cost is $4 per person. Proceeds go to support the mission, outreach, and ministry programs of the congregation.

Hebron Crossroads 12-29
By Jeff Gill

Hebron Village trash pickup is on Monday, and the one after Christmas is always a sight to see!
The mounds of bags, black plastic or festive shredded gift sacks; the piles of boxes wedged tight against the winter winds; white plastic kitchen garbage liners bulging with the remnants of good cheer gone south. It can all “pile up” as a commentary against the excesses of the holiday season.
But every time I’m tempted to react too negatively against the commercial and disposable side of the Christmas season, I remember the refugee families I’ve had the honor and pleasure of working with through the years in churches. From Cambodia or Laos, from Armenia or Somalia, one thing they all had in common: they loved the malls and the grocery stores.
Sure, they were a little scary, and yep, they usually couldn’t buy two things there even with some financial help (at first), but the sight of all those consumer goods, in great supply and vast selection. . .and without armed guards standing near the produce aisle, or government officials waiting to stamp your “permission to buy a radio” book! Over and over I’ve heard refugees say, “This really is a free country, isn’t it?”
And they know it isn’t “free” as in “not paying”, but free as in, if you have the money, you do what you choose with it. Looking at 47 varieties of salad dressing, where I see one more annoying decision I have to make, they see freedom and democracy even when they can’t afford to buy it. They know they’ll be back, and they want the Ranch Bacon Fat free, but all in good time.
So enjoy the excess as long as you appreciate what it means, which will probably make you a little less wasteful and a whole lot more thankful when it comes right down to it.

Speaking of which, with Christmas right behind us, it’s not too early to start reminding ourselves that the food pantries and aid programs often clean off the shelves to give families a boost through Christmas Day, and the winter will continue. If you’ve given generously to a local pantry or service group who see the needy each day, try to help ‘em out a bit each month right on through the year. Same goes for blood drives right after the holidays, which is as bad as the summer for keeping stocks up; check your local fire department or municipal office for a blood drive near you.

This is the big week for Buckeye fans, with not a few of our local folk leaving the Crossroads for the big trip west to Tempe. We hope the big screens in the hotels there have as good a picture of the living room TV’s in Hebron, as tickets are still sounding scarce (insert unnecessary hen’s teeth reference here). But there’s so much natural history and scenery to soak up in Arizona that I’m sure football fans won’t mind not getting into the stadium. Don’t forget the Spanish missions, the world-famous Desert Museum, the Lost Dutchman Mine, side trips to the Grand Canyon. . .
Somehow, I’m guessing that this isn’t helping. But have a great time everybody, OK? At least you won’t be scraping ice from your windshield.

Well, we’ll see you next in a new year; we’ve got restaurant openings, the “Mine + Nine” campaign, “Books & Coffee,” Statehood Day March 1, new library programs and wagon trains along the National Road, et cetera. 2003 looks like a fun and full year at the Hebron Crossroads! Come join us on down the road.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a local columnist; if you have news, info, or just “stuff” for the column, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 12-22
By Jeff Gill

The time has come!

Christmas Sunday, Christmas Eve on Tuesday, Christmas Day on Wednesday; the time to gather and celebrate and give and receive is now upon us. If you’re looking for places to join in the celebration, here are some of the observances going on this week around the Hebron Crossroads.

Jacksontown United Methodist Church is having only the 9:15 am service this Sunday, with baptism and confirmation part of worship, along with a youth cantata. On Christmas Eve they will hold a candlelight service at 7:00 pm.

Hebron Christian Church on West Main will celebrate Christmas Sunday at 10:30 am, and on Christmas Eve the candlelight service with communion starts at 7:30 pm, following a concert of piano and organ music by David Ford from 7:00 pm.

Hebron United Methodist Church on East Main will share a cantata at the 10:00 am service this Sunday, and hold Christmas Eve worship at 7:00 pm.

And out on Beaver Run Road, Licking Baptist Church will hold services at 10:45 am Sunday and their Christmas Eve will start at 7:30 pm.

On Sunday afternoon, the entire community is invited to "Blues Christmas" at 4:00 pm in the Lakewood High auditorium. Sponsored by Jacksontown UMC, Hebron Christian, and Hebron UMC, this special musical program, free to the public with refreshments after, includes folk, a little rock, and of course blues-themed Christmas music. A number of churches plan to carol to their home-bound members later on that evening, and this program should get us all in the mood for singing. Load up the minivan and come to listen and sing, and chase away the holiday blues with "Blues Christmas." (No word on Elvis sightings.)

If you are looking for Christmas company, there are some meals open to the public in Licking County that are intended for anyone just looking for some extra faces and voices at the table. On Christmas Eve, at Central Christian Church on Mt. Vernon Road in Newark, a holiday meal is open to all from 4:00 to 7:00 pm when their Christmas Eve service begins. I hear that Steve and Connie Crothers have had so much spare time on their hands since her son A. J. Voris graduated from Lakewood (he’s a very active guy, we all know), that they wanted to take that new-found energy and cook dinner for however many hundred show up. You could come eat, or you could come help cook!

And on Christmas Day at noon, in the cafeteria at St. Francis de Sales’ Catholic Church just west of downtown Newark, Homer Curry and his (extended) family make dinner for all comers as well as carry out for all the police and fire crews working Christmas Day. It was my pleasure to "join" that family for a number of years (that was BC, or "before child"), and I can assure you that the fun and fellowship is there in full measure on both sides of the counter.

On the "cocooning" front, we’ve already seen "White Christmas", but all true Bing Crosby fans know that he sang Irving Berlin’s classic song first in "Holiday Inn" released in 1942. You can hear in some of the incidental dialogue the talk of mobilization and preparation for the war not quite begun, but already all around.

When I was a student at Purdue University, one of the vice-presidents who did the lobbying down at the statehouse told me a story while driving to a hearing on higher ed about walking onto the set of the closing scene in his new lieutenant’s uniform. His dad worked for the studio, and he had just finished basic and wanted to surprise his family by showing up unannounced, and the gate guard sent him over to a soundstage where the "film within the film" was being shot.

"Holiday Inn" was already one of my favorite films, but now whenever I see it, during that last sequence I visualize my friend as a young man, khakis still crisp, standing just out of sight and about to make his father jump with delighted surprise.

Oh, and of course, it was July, and the AC wasn’t helping at all as the bleached corn flakes fell and Marjorie Reynolds pulled her fur coat tight! But Bing shook his hand, Marjorie kissed him, he had one more meal at home, and went off ready to win the war single-handedly. Sixty years later, it still has that effect.

May your Christmas be full of joy and hope, family and friends, promise and fulfillment. . .and may you take the opportunity to help at least one other person this holiday season. The gift you give will be the only one you really get to keep.


Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and your Hebron Crossroads correspondent; if you have news to share from the area, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net. Please remember that there is often a two week lead time before printing, so don’t delay, and send your info in now!