11-28-2021 2:02am

Getting to Know Your Westwood Neighbor: Rev. JT Hills, New Pastor at First Parish of Westwood (Updated)

Darlene Cancell Editor

Photo by Darlene Wong Cancell. Reverend JT Hills performs an outdoor patio service earlier this year at First Parish of Westwood.

The Reverend JT Hills, newly settled pastor at First Parish of Westwood, comes from a line of spiritual leaders. His maternal grandparents were Associate Conference Ministers in the United Church of Christ (UCC) in Nebraska. His mother attended seminary. However, before he officially joined the First Parish of Westwood community this summer, he did not always appear destined to become a minister.

“Because when you’re a pastor’s kid and grandkid, the way you rebel is by not going to church,” he says with a laugh. In fact, at one point, he considered himself an atheist.

He notes that LGBTQ issues have been part of his life for almost all of his life. When Rev. Hills was around 5 years old, his mother left Nebraska to go to California for seminary school and came out as a lesbian. When he was in high school and gay marriage bans began to be discussed all over the country, he felt a “disconnect” between his understanding of the Christian faith and what he was seeing on television.

“All I kept seeing were people who were saying such terrible things about my family without even knowing us. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the church,” he says. “If that’s what it means to be a Christian, I don’t want to be a Christian,” he recalls thinking.

Although he considered himself agnostic in college and an atheist post-college, he still felt a sense of the spiritual. At the time, he could only describe it as “a connection between all of us,” that resembled the Force in the movie, Star Wars. He held the feeling at arms-length.

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When Rev. Hills’s grandfather died in 2009, and as he sat in the memorial service listening to the stories being told of the elder’s life and accomplishments, he wondered what he would do with his own life. He started thinking that he might be a good pastor. . . except there was that problem – he thought he was an atheist.

He had a conversation with a pastor whom he had known as a child and who had officiated when he married his wife, Kelse. He spoke about the connection he felt between people. The pastor asked him, “Couldn’t that be God?”

It was something that had never occurred to him before. The thought opened up a world of possibility. About one or two months later, he quit his job of five years in the grocery section of Walmart and sent applications to seminary schools. Two more months later, he was enrolled at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California and pursuing his Masters of Divinity degree.

Seminary was transformative. Before, he had taken the stance that he would never go to church or think about God. Now he became immersed in both. Once he started down the path in keeping with family tradition, it was no question that his spiritual home would be with the UCC. He cites not only his family history, but also the UCC’s commitment to working for justice as a reason.

Though Rev. Hills admits to being terrible at memorizing the exact words of scripture, he finds a fundamental part of his faith encapsulated in the Bible verse, Micah 6:8. It reads,

“That scripture sits deep within me,” he says, citing it as an important reason that has supported his decision to become a pastor.

Following his ordination in 2014, Rev. Hills moved with his wife and young son to Tell City, Indiana, where he served as a senior minister at a UCC church. His family would expand and they would soon welcome a daughter there. While he enjoyed the people, the culture did not quite fit. He notes it was tough to have a more liberal point of view that did not represent that of the conservative church and community.

With his young son about to enter kindergarten, Rev. Hills and his wife began to think of locations where they wanted to live long-term. The reverend’s childhood was spent moving between his mother’s home in California and his father’s home in Nebraska. He did not want his children to experience frequent moves.

A UCC church in Big Rapids, Michigan appeared to fit the bill. But what initially looked like a good match did not work out for a number of reasons. A year into his service, the church and he were headed in different directions. They parted ways and he moved into a position as Interim Pastor for nine months at a UCC church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

While in his interim position, Rev. Hills looked for long-term opportunities all over the country. His only contact with New England had been a vacation that included a twelve hour visit to Boston. With friends in the area, however, his family decided give the New England area a try.

Westwood was the one that rose to the top, he says. “Certainly the community - as we heard described to us - we thought would be fantastic. And all the conversations we had about the school system were amazing. . . . The community of the church sounded really great. To see that there’s a commitment to justice here and that we’re trying to learn how to live into the idea of being an open and affirming church - what does that mean? I’m excited to be part of that conversation.”

Regarding First Parish of Westwood’s recent vote to adopt an Open and Affirming covenant, he says, “This is something I have lived my whole life, so I have plenty of ideas of what we could do. But that doesn’t mean it’s right for this church at this time.” He says he will do a lot of listening, learning, and discussion. He will hold small groups, book study, Bible study. And of course, there will be time for action.

“What I really love about the church’s Open and Affirming statement is that it’s not just LGBTQ, but it’s so expansive into all sorts of different things,” he says, noting that the statement includes acceptance of different family structures, economics, race and disabilities. “Those are all things that are happening in our culture right now that we need to have discussions about from a faith perspective,” he says.

Rather than dictating a path forward, Rev. Hills says he is taking the next step in the series of steps that brought him to Westwood. He is excited about the sense of innovation to church life that the pandemic has brought with safety adaptations.

He hangs a sign in his office that says, “Failure is always an option,” to remind him of the attitude that he feels is needed in the church. The motto, inspired from the television series, Mythbusters, is a reminder to experiment and try new things. Failure may not breed immediate success. Still, failure can be a learning experience that leads to success down the road.

Rev. Hills’s approach is a collaborative one. Noting that he does not want to shut down opposing viewpoints, he practices deep listening. He says it helps validate a person’s point of view and helps avoid hostilities. He wants to create a safe space for people to share and learn from each other. He enjoys different points of view.

“If we all thought the same thing, it would be pretty boring,” he says. At the same time, he offers a metaphor from the book, Real Good Church by Molly Phinney Baskette. If everyone is on a train to Miami but one passenger wants to go to Chicago, the goal is not to take the passenger to Miami with the group. Rather, the goal is to bless the Chicago passenger on the journey to Chicago.

“Find the stuff we really cherish, and let go of the rest, and see what new we can create together,” he says.

As to what he wants to accomplish at his new parish, love is a hallmark of his ministry, he says.

“We are all loved no matter who we are. . . . And certainly that’s a fundamental part of what we have in our open and affirming statement, but it’s also just the fundamental way that I try to live my life. . . .[] No matter who you are, you are a beloved child of God and worthy of God’s love and our love. . . . There’s always the opportunity to turn to love and turn to building and restoring relationship. If we use that as our basis, then we’re headed in the right direction.”

Not everyone may want to be on that train, however, he notes. “And that’s okay. God gave us the freedom to make these choices.”

Thanks to the Reverend JT Hills for being interviewed for this article.

Updated 11/28/2021 at 2:17 p.m. The spelling of the name of Reverend JT Hills's wife, Kelse, has been corrected from the earlier posting which incorrectly included a "y" in her name.