Our Story
For over 220 years, St. John’s Episcopal Church has been a pillar of the Worthington community.
Worthington and St. John’s were founded by a group from Granby, Connecticut. The dream of founding a community based on religious and educational values led pioneers to the newly opened Ohio Country. Land was purchased, the town plotted, forest cleared, crops planted, cabins built, and a large log meeting house erected before the first families arrived. The meeting house served as the first church, school, and gathering place. Items used for church services—a wooden altar, hand-forged wrought iron candlesticks—were brought here by oxcart. Twelve families arrived in the fall of 1803 and the first church service was held. On February 6, 1804, St. John’s Church in Worthington and Parts Adjacent was officially organized.
The founder of Worthington, James Kilbourne, deacon and leader of the pioneers, served the needs of the congregation until 1817 when the Reverend Philander Chase, soon to be named first Bishop of Ohio and later the founder of Kenyon College, was chosen as the first rector (senior pastor).
After twenty-plus years, the people of St. John’s began building their church. Members of the community worked together using boulders from the fields and river, wood from local trees, clay from the Whetstone River (now called the Olentangy), bricks fired in town, and hand-wrought nails made by the local blacksmith. The first service in the new church was held on Christmas Eve, 1831.
Since then, a few changes have been made (stained glass windows, chancel extension, organ, etc.) but the original structure completed in 1831 remains our primary worship space. The congregation has added an education building, now home to St. John’s Early Education Center, and purchased Township Hall and the old barn which stand on the original church lot. Beautiful gardens have been planted and nurtured by the congregation.
St. John’s called its first openly gay rector and rector of color, the Reverend Philip College, in 2007. After his retirement, the first woman rector, the Reverend Gia Hayes-Martin, was called in 2020.
In our parish’s third century, St. John’s founding ethos of a community pulling together for the common good still guides us. As we continue to grow, we balance pride in our heritage and respect for our founders’ values of education, faith, and community with openness to the new thing God is doing among us