First United Methodist Church of Park Ridge stands at 418 West Touhy Avenue, in the center of Uptown Park Ridge just east of the busy Touhy-Northwest Highway-Prospect intersection. Locals have called it the Lighthouse on the Ridge for as long as anyone can remember, and it is reported to be the oldest church structure in the city. The congregation that worships there has been on the same hill since 1856, when the church was founded after years of being served by traveling Methodist circuit riders in the surrounding prairie.
A Sanctuary with Six Windows
The original sanctuary was built in 1857, and part of it still serves the congregation today as the church parlor, the room where coffee is served after worship and where small groups meet around a long table. The current sanctuary was built in 1924 and is the heart of the building. Six stained-glass windows were installed and dedicated in 1940, casting colored light across the pews on Sunday mornings. In 1950 a spacious educational wing was added, and over more than seventy-five years it has hosted generations of children and youth, including a young Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was raised in the church.
The Touhy Avenue doors on the busy street and the Grant Place entrance near the parking lot are both open through the week and especially on Sundays. The main parking lot sits just north of the building on Grant Place, a one-way eastbound street reached from Prospect Avenue. Visitors following GPS to 408 W. Grant Place will land directly in the lot.
Sunday Morning at 9:30
One Sunday service gathers the whole congregation. Worship begins at 9:30 am in the sanctuary and is also livestreamed on YouTube for those who cannot be in the room. Each service includes time for reflection and prayer, Scripture readings, a sermon, and congregational singing. The musical menu is a blend of traditional Wesleyan hymns and contemporary praise songs, led by the Director of Music Ministries at the organ and piano and by a contemporary praise group.
On the first Sunday of every month, the Open Table Communion is celebrated. All are invited to share in the meal, and worshipers who want to may help lead as singers or as liturgists reading scripture and leading prayers. After the children's dismissal, the youngest worshipers head to Sunday school; the rest of the congregation stays for the sermon. After the closing hymn, the parlor across from the sanctuary entrance fills with coffee, small bites, and the easy fellowship the church calls Snack n' Chat.
Children, Youth, and the Whole Family
Children from age three through fifth grade are invited into the education wing right after the children's message in worship. They leave the sanctuary together and head upstairs to Rooms 103 and 104. Parents pick them up from the classrooms after the service ends. The current curriculum is Cokesbury Kids "Big Faith," which aims to help children grow in faith and live as disciples of Jesus, and which supports parents as their child's first teacher of faith.
For babies and toddlers, the nursery is staffed and located in the Education Building on the first floor in Room 102. Parents are asked to sign children in and out. Babies are equally welcome to stay in worship with their grown-ups, and there is a quiet play area at the back of the sanctuary for those who need a little more space.
The REVEAL Youth Ministry gathers students in grades six through twelve for events, mission projects, discussion groups, and outings, all aimed at building meaningful relationships with one another and with God. The current curriculum is "Follow Me: Biblical Practices for Faithful Living," a study that connects Bible stories to the issues young people actually face. Each year the ministry underwrites a summer trip largely through fundraising; youth who want to take part are expected to attend regularly and pitch in with the fundraising.
Adults have two Sunday-morning classes to choose from. An 8:00 am adult class meets in the library before worship, and an 11:00 am class meets after the service. Weekday-evening online classes and topical studies run throughout the year; the church office or the pastor can share the current schedule.
Music that Spans Generations
The Director of Music Ministries leads both the traditional and contemporary sides of the music program. The sanctuary is home to a custom Buzzer organ and a Steinway piano, and both instruments are put to use at weddings and concerts as well as on Sunday mornings. Choirs and the contemporary praise group rehearse under the same leadership. A "Music Task Force" of members meets monthly to help shape the congregation's worship and music direction.
The Peace Vigil and Popcorn Theology
Two recurring gatherings fill the parlor with conversation that runs deeper than the Sunday sermon. On the first Tuesday of each month at 7:00 pm, Pastor Bob Campbell leads a Peace Vigil open to all: an hour of prayer, silence, Scripture readings, songs, chants, and an unhurried chance to speak from the heart. On the fourth Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm, Pastor Scott hosts Popcorn Theology, a casual evening in the library where the group watches short videos from theologians and other speakers and then talks them through together over bowls of the snack that gives the gathering its name.
Sunday Night Suppers
For more than two decades the church has hosted Sunday Night Suppers, a free community meal served in partnership with Saint Luke's Lutheran Church and Saint Andrews Lutheran Church. From September through May, anyone who is hungry is welcome in Jorgeson Hall from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. Each week a different sponsor group cooks and serves. The entrance is on Grant Place, and the parking lot is the same one visitors use on Sunday morning.
Outreach Beyond the Building
The church takes its faith well past the front doors. A long list of partnerships has grown up around the Sunday supper table and the weekly prayers, all shaped by the United Methodist Social Principles.
Members support the New Hope Community Food Pantry by collecting and delivering groceries once a month, and they walk each fall in the Niles-Park Ridge CROP Hunger Walk, an interfaith community effort now in its thirty-fifth year whose proceeds benefit Church World Service and the Maine Township Emergency Food Pantry. With Exodus World Service the congregation supplies a twice-annual "Welcome to America Pack" of household goods for a refugee family settling into the city, provides language and citizenship tutoring, baby care packs, and advocacy. Through Kids Above All they collect backpacks and school supplies for students, contribute Christmas gifts and cash, and pray for the children and families served.
Other regular partners include Justice For Our Neighbors, UMCOR (the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the denomination's international disaster relief agency), Feed My Starving Children, The Night Ministry, International Health Partners, Reconciling Ministries Network, Faith in Place, and the longtime next-door ministry Avenues To Independence, which itself began in the church in 1953 as a small program for people with developmental disabilities and has since grown into one of the area's major nonprofit service organizations.
The church also opens its doors for Green Ministries, a small but active group that tends a Monarch Butterfly Waystation on the grounds, organizes the annual Axehead Lake Cleanup, partners with Faith in Place for the Winter's Farmers' Market, and works to make the building itself a more sustainable place through recycling, reusable cups, energy-efficient lighting, and reduced paper use. Special holiday offerings on Mother's Day, Father's Day, and the fifth Sundays of the month are routinely shared with Kids Above All, Justice For Our Neighbors, The Harbor, Avenues to Independence, and United Voices for Children.
A Reconciling Congregation
The congregation is a proud member of the Reconciling Ministry Network, the United Methodist caucus that welcomes and affirms LGBTQ+ people. The mission statement that appears at the foot of the home page spells out the welcome plainly: all persons are created in the image of God and bear sacred worth and dignity, and all are invited to participate fully in the life of the church regardless of age, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental condition, marital status, family situation, economic standing, or citizenship status. Members have worked actively to support full inclusion of the LGBT community in the life and ministry of the United Methodist Church.
United Women in Faith
The local unit of United Women in Faith (formerly United Methodist Women) and its predecessor groups have met on this hill for more than one hundred years. The current unit is part of a national network that supports missions with women, children, and youth across the globe, and it remains one of the largest women-in-mission organizations in the world. The local group meets monthly in the parlor for study and fellowship, holds an annual rummage sale that fills Jorgeson Hall for two days each summer, and channels special giving days and fifth-Sunday offerings into mission projects.
Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and the Old Troop
Boy Scout Troop 1 of Park Ridge, the very first troop chartered by the Boy Scouts of America, was founded at First UMC and still uses the church's facilities today. The troop meets every Monday at 7:30 pm in the Boy Scout Room in the basement. Venture Crew 1, the high-adventure teen program, meets on the first and third Tuesdays in the third-floor Fireside Room. Cub Scout Pack 1, open to boys aged seven to eleven, holds its monthly pack meetings in Jorgeson Hall on a rotating date. Each year the Scouts are recognized in worship.
The Building as a Community Hub
The same spaces that fill with worshipers and Sunday schoolers during the week also host a remarkable range of community groups in the evenings. Families Anonymous, a twelve-step recovery program for those affected by a loved one's addiction, meets in the parlor every Monday at 7:30 pm. Al-Anon meets twice a week in Jorgeson Hall on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 pm. A Jazzercise fitness group rents the hall on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 5:45 pm. A Toastmasters club meets on the third floor on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. Earlier years hosted a Montessori school and language classes, and the tradition of opening the doors continues through every week of the year.
The sanctuary itself, with its cushioned seating for about 150, its professional audiovisual system, its Steinway piano, and its custom Buzzer organ, is regularly rented for weddings, recitals, concerts, and seminars. Jorgeson Hall, 2,389 square feet of versatile air-conditioned garden-level space, takes groups from twelve to 150 for conferences, parties, recitals, dance and exercise classes, and club meetings. It has its own secure entrance and a parking lot just a few steps away, plus a fully equipped adjacent kitchen.
United Methodist Beliefs in This Place
First United Methodist Church of Park Ridge is a congregation of the Northern Illinois Conference of The United Methodist Church, in the broader family of Protestant Christian churches. The church follows the teachings of Jesus and John Wesley and the mission of loving God and neighbor. Members describe themselves as seeking to live and worship in the spirit of open minds, open hearts, and open doors, and as a community where all are invited to engage their faith through study, questioning, debating, and praying.
The church's foundational beliefs include the mystery of salvation through Jesus Christ; God's reign as present reality and future promise; the Bible as the primary authority for faith and practice; the Holy Spirit as God's work in the world today; the church as the body of Christ; and the understanding that human beings are made in the image of God, with the capacity to love, communicate, and create.
Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors
For more than a hundred and sixty years, the members of First United Methodist Church of Park Ridge have tried to live out their core values of love, compassion, and spiritual growth. They sponsor active homes, work camps in Chicago neighborhoods, the Midwest, Appalachia, and on Native American reservations, and partnerships with Methodist agencies and community organizations on nearly every continent. Boy Scout Troop 1 still meets in the basement. Avenues to Independence, which began in this building in 1953, is now an established nonprofit. Hillary Rodham Clinton grew up in these pews. The light still comes through the stained-glass windows on Sunday mornings, and the doors on both sides of the hill are still open.