**PRESS RELEASE – HOPE SPRINGS UNITED CHURCH**
Hope Springs United Church (UC) is a merger of the Alma, Bethany, and Elora United Churches. These historic congregations are amalgamating so they can continue to serve their growing and changing communities.
“I think Hope Springs United Church will develop and evolve into something new and bold,” says Judy Howse-Ward, a lifelong and multi-generational member of Bethany UC. “We also want to honour the important history of each of our joining congregations. This has been a time to pause, reflect, and then move forward with renewed faith. People seem excited about the new adventure/journey.” These congregations began in the 1830s and 1840s. They first met in homes, shops, and schools. Eventually, they constructed their current church buildings: Elora UC’s in 1863, Alma’s in 1875, and Bethany’s in 1876. The Alma and Bethany buildings are now up for sale.
Hope Springs UC will be based in the current Elora UC building at the corner of Church and Geddes streets. Nonetheless, its work will reach far beyond those walls. “Hope Spring’s life and work will continue in the Alma and Elora villages, the Ponsonby-Inverhaugh area, our countrysides, and beyond,” says Rev. Greg Smith-Young “Coming together as Hope Springs UC will strengthen how we share in the healing, reconciling, and life-giving work Jesus is doing in these places.” Smith-Young has been with Elora-Bethany since 2004, is well-known in Alma, and will continue with Hope
Springs UC.
Over the next year, the new congregation’s people will be growing together and getting to know each other. They will explore and discern their new identity and purpose, so they can better serve their growing, diversifying, and changing communities. Christine Grose from Alma UC chairs the amalgamation steering team. She says, “It is my greatest hope that we’ll live into the United Church of Canada’s mission statement: to
be a bold, connected, evolving church of diverse, courageous, hope-filled communities united in deep spirituality, inspiring worship, and daring justice.”
In the meantime, they are doing the meaningful work of ending well. Elora UC will have its final worship service on Thanksgiving Sunday, October 9 at 11:00. The Bethany and Alma congregations will have their closing services on Sunday, October 16 (9:30 in Alma, 10:30 at Bethany). Hope Springs United Church will have its opening worship on November 6 at 10:30. Elora UC member Judy McMullan says, “I’m really looking forward to worshipping and working with people that I already know from our communities and meeting some new people.”
