Union Church of Hinsdale sits on the northeast corner of Garfield and Third Street, a short walk from downtown Hinsdale in DuPage County, Illinois. Founded in 1866 as The Congregational Union Church, it is the oldest permanent organization formed in the village, and its 1917 sanctuary still anchors a campus that includes a long-running preschool, the lower-level classrooms where children gather for Sunday School, and Rowell Hall, named for a former senior pastor. The congregation calls itself the Thinking Church and the Caring Church, words that have shaped the way the people of Union Church of Hinsdale, UCC, ask questions, make music, and reach beyond their walls.
The Thinking Church and What It Believes
Union Church is sometimes known as "The Thinking Church" because Christian life is treated there as something to be lived, not merely assented to. The congregation gathers around a set of core commitments adopted in early 2024. It calls itself a thinking church that asks questions to discern what really matters in life. It strives to live lives of love for God and all people. It believes that God is real and that faith deepens by getting to know God better. It holds that all people are created in the image of God, worthy of love and belonging. It loves children and youth and seeks to raise them with a curious, generous, personal, and socially engaged Christian faith. It believes the church has power and uses that power to make the world more like Jesus would want it to be. It finds meaning, and ultimately peace, through a shared commitment to justice and community outreach. It aims to grow in kindness and generosity with all people.
A welcoming statement, adopted January 28, 2024, affirms that the Holy Spirit gathers Union Church as a congregation in which all persons are invited to participate equally in the life, leadership, ministry, fellowship, worship, sacraments, responsibilities, blessings, concerns, and joys of the community of faith, and pledges to love, encourage, and support one another as the Body of Christ. The denomination is the United Church of Christ, a denomination the congregation describes as often quirky, usually progressive, and a Congregational church in the Reformed part of the Protestant tradition.
Two Sunday Mornings on Garfield Street
Worship happens twice each Sunday, in two very different shapes. At 9:00 a.m. in the Chapel, the Family-Friendly Service lasts twenty-five to thirty minutes and is designed for the busy energy of young children and their parents. Movement, music, and a short message are built into the gathering. Late arrivals are expected and welcomed. The chapel, courtyard, and Sunday School rooms fill with kids, strollers, and coffee cups. While the service is intended as an introduction to Christian worship for young children, anyone of any age or family stage is welcome.
At 10:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary, the larger service brings the whole congregation together, in person and online, for about sixty minutes. The 10:00 a.m. service is streamed on YouTube, recorded, and later made available as a sermon archive. Children are always welcome in worship, and Sunday School is offered during the 10:00 service. Children in kindergarten through fifth grade are dismissed right before the sermon for Bible stories and experiential learning in their own classrooms, then return at the end of worship to join the community prayer, offering, and closing song. Children five and under attend Sunday School in the nursery classrooms on the lower level during the entire 10:00 service. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month.
Reverend Robb Knuepfer describes the rhythm of the day. "Here in Hinsdale we are surrounded by hypercompetition," he says, "for our kids it takes the form of traveling sports, grades, and ultimately college admissions. For us adults it takes the form of professional success, memberships, and social climbing. Here at Union Church we seek to be a bulwark against those cultural norms. We hope to be a community that loves and values one another simply because we are all fellow beloved children of God." Reverend Grant Glowiak, who works primarily with young families, grew up next door in Western Springs and lives in Hinsdale with his wife, son, and two goldendoodles. Both pastors preach and lead worship, with the sermons following at times the Revised Common Lectionary and at other times original series that have ranged from "Broadway and the Bible" to "Strange Love," "Our Whole Lives," and "Jesus for President." The most recent year-long arc is called Soulcraft: The Art of Living, built on the conviction that most people already know the kind of person they want to become, and the work of faith is to practice it.
A Building Built for Music
Music has been part of Union Church since its beginning. In 1866, the founding minister Clarendon Mussey Saunders would lead a worship service in Hinsdale on Sunday afternoon with the Lyonsville choir riding the train over with him, a tradition the congregation still traces. Today, music is woven into both services and is treated as essential, not decorative. The 9:00 a.m. service is led by piano, with easy-to-sing songs so that children can join in. The 10:00 a.m. service on any given Sunday may be led by the organ, by guitars and keyboards, or by unaccompanied voices, and may include music written last week by the church's own musicians or pieces written three hundred years ago by Bach. The instrumentation ranges from a Steinway concert grand piano, organ, guitar, bass, drums, brass, and strings.
The Chancel Choir, made up of a professional quartet and volunteer singers, leads robust arrangements during the 10:00 services from September through May. Union Bells, a five-octave handbell ensemble, brings beauty and praise to worship throughout the program year. The Worship Ensemble, a group of professional musicians called WE, leads the contemporary side of music each week, and auditions are open to youth as well as adults. Children's Chimes introduces children from kindergarten through sixth grade to the chime choir, with no prior music experience required. The annual Christmas Pageant, in which children from preschool through fifth grade take on roles in telling the Christmas story, is one of the highlights of the Advent season and a tradition that draws multiple generations of Hinsdale families. Oliver Townsend serves as Interim Music Director, and Elizabeth Jung leads the handbell program.
Children and Youth
Children are central to the identity of Union Church. Nursery care is available on Sundays from 9:45 to 11:00 a.m. for infants, toddlers, and twos in the lower-level nursery. Sunday School for threes and fours meets from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. in a traditional classroom on the lower level, using the Spark Story Bible to explore Old and New Testament stories. Sunday School for kindergarten through fifth grade runs alongside the 10:00 service. The children's faith formation at Union Church is built around developing a personal, curious, generous, and socially engaged Christian faith, and Sunday School may include art projects, outreach for mission partners, or wondering together about God's creation and the teachings of Jesus.
Gather + Grow Groups meet on Wednesdays from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. for second through eighth graders, with middle schoolers staying until 6:30 p.m. The groups are designed for fellowship, mentorship, and the kind of connection that helps young people put their faith into practice. Vacation Bible School runs for a week each summer; in 2026 it will be held June 22 through 26 from 12:45 to 3:00 p.m. for children age four through fifth grade. Children's Bell Choir Chimes performs at Advent, Lent, and on special music Sundays, and beginners are welcome.
Confirmation is an every-other-year program for eighth and ninth graders that blends formation, worship, mission, and fellowship. Confirmands explore their faith over a year and decide whether to declare their faith in front of the congregation and claim their baptism as their own. Youth Helper Volunteers from middle and high school help with Vacation Bible School each summer.
Adults, Simple Suppers, and the Care Team
For adults, the congregation offers several long-standing ways to build relationships and care for one another. Simple Suppers are small groups of twelve to sixteen people who gather once a month on an agreed-upon evening for a shared meal, friendship, and the stories of their lives and faith. The Care Team is composed of church members who have been trained through the Called to Care program of the United Church of Christ to serve as lay ministers, offering comfort, emotional support, and confidential listening to others in the congregation. The Women's Association, open to every woman who is a member of Union Church, focuses on fellowship and mission and is the umbrella for the church's annual fall Resale, the December Silver Tea following the HCHS Chamber Choir, Rudolph's Boutique for children's holiday shopping, and the Christmas stocking project for inner-city children. Four smaller fellowship units typically meet on the first Thursday of the month, in morning, afternoon, or evening time slots, and Authentic Women meets weekly on Wednesdays for book discussion. The Association also runs a book-discussion group called Authentic Women on Wednesdays. Adult education events such as Spotlight presentations run in the 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. hour in Rowell Hall between services.
Ministry for Change: Local and Far
The heart of Union Church's mission and outreach work is the Ministry for Change, the congregation's expression of what it means to do justice and serve the least of these. The Ministry for Change oversees the Union Church Endowment Fund and other mission and social justice funds, and it is committed to transformative community engagement.
Locally, the congregation serves a wide network of partners. Volunteers prepare a healthy meal that is delivered to clients of DuPage PADS on the fourth Tuesday of each month, shopping, packing, and driving to the Interim Housing Center in Downers Grove. A food drive for HCS Family Services, which provides emergency assistance, a food pantry, counseling, and education to vulnerable families in the area, is held most years in September. The Union Church Soup Ministry, an independent group that meets in the church kitchen each Monday morning, prepares soup that is delivered to San Lucas Church UCC, a small mission church in Humboldt Park, on Tuesday mornings. Sack lunches for The Night Ministry, a Chicago-based organization that serves people who are unhoused or experiencing poverty, are assembled in the church kitchen on the third Sunday of each month after the 10:00 service, then delivered to the organization's Ashland Avenue location. Supply and clothing drives for The Boulevard, a 64-bed residential care center for homeless men and women in medical recovery on Chicago's West Side, happen throughout the year. The congregation also supports A Just Harvest, the People's Resource Center in DuPage County, Pillars Community Health, and Green Halo Scholars, which mentors first-generation and low-income students in the western suburbs.
Abroad, Union Church walks alongside two long-standing partnerships. Through the Illinois Conference of the UCC, the congregation has a congregation-to-congregation relationship with the Peregrinos (Pilgrim) Church in Huambo, Angola, supporting the IECA English Language Institute and the hospital at the Dondi mission, and visiting back and forth across the years. In Guatemala, the church partners with Dreams & Hopes, an organization that supports Mayan youth and children along the shores of Lake Atitlan through scholarships, tutoring, educational support, and career development. A mission team travels to Guatemala each summer to build smokeless stoves alongside host Fredy Perez and to spend time at the Dreams & Hopes youth center. The annual Guatemala trip has become a touchstone of intergenerational connection at Union Church.
Early Childhood Programs
Union Church created a preschool program in 1955 as part of its community outreach. That program has grown into UCECP, the Union Church Early Childhood Programs, a state-licensed, play-based school on site for children up to age six. UCECP offers toddler, mother-toddler, mother-child, 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's preschool classes, plus enhancement options, with the teaching philosophy that children learn by active engagement through their play. Kimberly Choate leads the program as UCECP Director, and Carissa Kapcar serves as UCECP Facilitator and Coordinator of Ministry with Families. Around UCECP, the church has built the Union Church Early Childhood Initiative (UCECI) and the Before We Get to Mars project, an advocacy effort working toward opening a preschool in Summit and pushing for quality early childhood education for all.
Life Events
Weddings, baptisms, and funerals are part of the rhythm of the church. Union Church officiates weddings for all couples, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, and the clergy work with couples over several meetings to root the day in the life of faith. The baptism of both adults and children is offered as a visible sign of God's invisible grace, presence, and promise, with baptisms taking place in the context of gathered worship. Funerals and memorials are led by a minister of Union Church, and the church's care ministry works alongside families to plan services that honor both grief and hope.
A Congregation in Transition
In the summer of 2024, after eleven years of ministry, the Reverend Dr. J. Michael Solberg accepted a call to First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and preached his final sermon at Union Church on August 11, 2024. The Executive Council hired Jan Nolting Carter and Paul Rhebergen of Transitional Ministry Pathways to guide a season of discernment, then called Reverend Timothy C. Rhodes as Bridge Pastor beginning March 31, 2025. Tim Rhodes is a graduate of Elmhurst University and Eden Theological Seminary, the founding pastor of Hope United Church of Christ in Naperville, and the former President and CEO of Lifelink, an international social services ministry of the United Church of Christ. Union Church is his sixth transitional ministry. A Discovery Team surveyed the congregation and held listening sessions through the fall and winter of 2024-2025, and a Senior Minister Search Committee was commissioned in September 2025. By late summer of 2026 the committee was in its final phase of interviews and discernment.
Endowment, Resale, and Giving
The Endowment Ministry, made up of church members with professional financial experience, manages sixteen designated fund categories plus a general fund, with annual distributions measured at five percent of the prior three-year average ending balance and used to support the church's general budget and designated ministries. The Women's Association runs the annual Resale each fall, a community tradition and bargain-hunter's dream that draws volunteers from across the church and beyond. Contributions to the church can be made online through Realm, by Zelle to accounting@uchinsdale.org, or through the annual pledge. Beyond general giving, the church maintains The Common Purse, a fund used at the discretion of pastoral staff to assist members of the community with urgent needs.
A Few Practical Details
Visitors will find a few visitor spots on the right as they come in the entrance off Third Street, with additional parking in any of the lots on three sides of the building, on the street, or in the lots next to the middle school. Dress ranges across the spectrum, from jeans to suits, and worship is grounded in Christian tradition without being terribly formal. After the 10:00 service, many people gather in the Gathering Place for coffee and conversation. People are greeted at the door by an usher and given a printed worship order so they can follow along. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month. Worship services are livestreamed on YouTube, and the sermon archive is available for catch-up listening, with a podcast feed for those who prefer to listen on the go. The church office can be reached at (630) 323-4303 or union@uchinsdale.org.
From its hill just south of downtown Hinsdale, a slope once prized for sledding after Wednesday night prayer meetings, Union Church of Hinsdale continues to ask its questions, sing its songs, and put its faith to work, in its own town, in DuPage County, in Angola, and along the shores of Lake Atitlan.