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"It all began with a house, a telephone book, and a short   line of credit." That is how Gene Koth, organizing minister, loves to begin the story of Walnut Hills. Indeed, those were the church’s total assets in the summer of 1989. However, it did not take long for things to start happening. A massive telephone calling campaign was organized, involving 180 people from throughout the Des Moines area making over 25,000 dial-ups. Over 2500 households said they were not active in a local church or synagogue. After a series of special mailings and targeted telephone invitations, opening Sunday came that October 15 with over 300 in attendance at our first location, Western Hills Elementary School in West Des Moines.

Why It Was Started

Walnut Hills was not started because there was a need for another United Methodist church. There were already four in the western suburbs. The challenge was that population statistics showed the suburbs were growing faster than the churches. What was needed was a new church that could reach those not reached by the existing churches. Walnut Hills did it by marketing itself as (in the words of its Vision Statement) "a community moving beyond the traditional, in touch with the life styles, needs and resources of people today." That "in touch" meant a simpler, more informal celebrative worship, more short-term commitments, fewer long-term commitments, small groups to get acquainted, and opportunities to make a difference in the world. Because the targeted group was the unchurched, certain things were done to help people feel comfortable. The name, Walnut Hills, was by design non-religious in order not to scare people before they even made a visit. Traditional words like "sanctuary," "narthex" and "chancel" were replaced with "celebration center," "gathering area," and "platform." Celebrative worship was fast-paced with up-beat, contemporary music.

It worked! People kept coming and inviting their friends, family, colleagues and neighbors. Following the opening Sunday, attendance settled down to about 200, and then it started to grow. By the fourth year, it was 250; when the new building opened in 1995, it jumped to over 400. At the time of the 10th anniversary it was pushing 500. The same was true of membership. While membership was not particularly promoted, many participated in the church, whether they were members or not and the membership did grow. From charter Sunday in April of 1990 to the 10th anniversary in 2000, membership grew from 150 to 850. Currently our membership is over 1000.

Why It Kept Growing

Part of the secret to Walnut Hills’ growth was involving people where they wanted to be involved. The Sunday STUB provided people a non-threatening way to get started. The number of times people check things on the STUB has grown to nearly 100 per Sunday. Multiply that by four or five Sundays a month and it becomes obvious how busy the staff and office center volunteers are as they follow-up on everyone’s desire to participate.

Another factor was the focus on children and youth. From the beginning, it was made clear that children were valued. At first the children’s ministry programs were pretty meager with Children’s Church and Christian Learning Time in the cafeteria of the school and summer Vacation Church School with some other churches in West Des Moines. But once Sheryl Start joined the staff as Children’s Coordinator in 1995, the ministry really took off. Wednesday Kids Alive, later called Wednesday Night Alive, got started and kept expanding to include youth and adults. Sheryl and lay volunteers wrote all the curriculum. In January 1999, a month-long seminar on important issues for children, youth and adults was born. In the summer was Wacky Wednesdays, an outdoor adventure day for older elementary children, and in February was "Hoop Days," a month of Sunday afternoon basketball for children in the celebration center. Family events like the Fall Harvest Festival and WH Family Weekend Campout on the church grounds got off the ground. Children were encouraged to serve alongside youth and adults, and they could be found helping serve meals to the homeless, serving as usher hosts on Sunday morning, or joining their new partner friends at Burns United Methodist Church in making May baskets for grandfather and grandmother types in nursing homes.  The program was taken over in 2001 by Pam Deeds, continuing to grow and expand. 

And the same holds true for the youth. The first staff specialist hired by the church was a youth coordinator, Jill Hoffman in 1990. Our youth have been led by several gifted staff members on the intervening years-Laurie Linhart, Peggy Rasmussen, Missy Nance, Chad Waller, Kathy Jacobsen, Pam Deeds and Darren Barrett.  Our current Director of Youth Ministries is Julie Stone.  Together they took a youth program of six or seven youth meeting every other week to 60-70 youth meeting every Wednesday. Add to this, Wednesday youth choir, Youth Servant Team (a core of youth doing a monthly service project), a July work trip, alternative spring break San Antonio trip, June’s junior high Waterloo work trip, Sunday senior high and junior high youth study, and participation in district, state and national youth gatherings… you get the picture. Youth ministry has blossomed.

A third factor in the church’s growth is the music. Growing churches have great music. From opening Sunday in 1989 until 1998, Jim Tener coordinated that music. A University of Iowa music graduate with a degree from Yale Divinity School, Jim brought a level of music, both classical and contemporary, that garnered a wide following. In 1998, Susan Waller came on staff as children and youth music coordinator, and she assumed the entire program when Jim Tener left in 1999. With her music training at the graduate degree level and her gift for working with people, the children’s, youth and adult choirs have grown enormously. To complete the staffing, Alyson Skahill was added as Sunday pianist and keyboard musician in January of 2000, Carl Johnson was added as bell choir director in 2002 and Christy Brown as adult choir pianist 2002.

Forming A Community

The biggest challenge from the beginning was helping people get to know each other. When you start with over 200 strangers, it is not easy to feel at home. One answer is small groups. A month after the church started, Christian Learning Time for children, youth, and adults was started. Four months after the start, there were evening small groups for adults meeting in homes, and Morning Mothers started in the Adkins’ house until it outgrew the space and went to a neighboring church. Soon, youth groups began, along with groups for women (Walnut Hills Women, Women’s Bible, Women’s Spirituality), men (Men’s Roundtable, Tuesday Men’s Support, Men’s Bible), singles (Tuesday Night Together, 40’s-Plus Breakfast), Sunday morning study groups, week-day study, stretch groups, music groups, Label Brigade, and work teams…all bringing people together to build friendships and offer support.

A mission statement drafted in 1999 helps to focus the distinctiveness of Walnut Hills. It begins, "Walnut Hills, a place to call home where we are welcomed and sent forth to serve." To be sure, WH has not been for everybody, but by the 10th year, it became a place in which nearly 400 households of all shapes and sizes called home.

Sent Forth To Serve

Nothing at Walnut Hills ranks higher than the conclusion of that mission statement: "Walnut Hills…sent forth to serve." Nothing illustrates this better than the Outreach Fund begun on the first Sunday in October 1989, whereby one-tenth or a tithe of the Sunday offerings was set aside for outreach to others. At first, the offerings totaled only about $1000 a Sunday, but they have grown over the years. Currently between $30,000 and $40,000 are given to others.

Such a fund enables Walnut Hills to take the lead in service locally, as well as nationally and globally. It helped to fund the two partnerships, Principe de Paz UMC in San Antonio and Burns UMC in Des Moines, in addition to the three yearly youth work trips, local WH work team projects, mission trips to Chile, support of local church social service centers and new church starts, and support of global projects like the youth house in Bosnia and school house in Nigeria.

The two church partnerships have been especially significant. They started in December 1998 when a delegation from Walnut Hills went to San Antonio to meet with the people from Principe de Paz (Prince of Peace) United Methodist Church, a small but highly missional Hispanic congregation. From that visit has grown a program of regular visits back and forth, including a semi-truck load of medical furniture which Bob Start, Steve Soelberg, and Bill Warren delivered in 1999 to Principe de Paz for distribution to free medical clinics across Texas, friendships across great cultural differences, and a special shared outreach ministry in Cassiano Homes, a public housing project on San Antonio’s near Westside.  Our youth are able to experience what PdP faces with the Alternative Spring Break Work Trip when five to seven youth travel to San Antonio and spend five days with them. The success of that partnership led to establishing another one in February 2000 with Burns United Methodist, an African American congregation on Des Moines’ near Northside. While in its infancy, it already has brought the children together for the May basket outreach project, the entire congregations together for a big outreach picnic at Goode Park in the summer, and "pack it out" Sundays at each other’s churches.

Witness and Service

Walnut Hills’ vision statement concludes: "Walnut Hills, a community encouraging witness and service right where we are in our everyday lives." From the start, the church determined that only when its people were engaged in living the faith in their everyday lives could it claim to be the church. The Sunday morning "Living the Faith" stories grew out of this commitment. "Living the Faith" is lay people telling their faith story during celebrative worship. Begun in 1990 with Dick Brown, Faith Dorn, Fran Ganoe, and Todd Purdy, over 100 people have spoken. In addition, similar stories are included in the annual stewardship commitment time in the fall, and in 1999 the ministry was expanded to include the inviting of prominent people in the Des Moines metro area to come and share their "faith in action" stories.

A Permanent Home

All the while the church’s ministry was growing, efforts to find a permanent home were continuing.  Given the cost of land and construction, it was not going to be an easy process. In fact, in 1991 a task force recommended to the church council that because of the huge costs, we should merge with another nearby United Methodist church. No one on the council will ever forget that evening. Finally, Laura Adkins asked the task force what, in their heart, they wanted and her question turned the meeting around. Soon a fund drive produced commitments sufficient to meet the payments on loans for land and construction. A committee led by Daryl Nelsen found the beautiful 16 acres on Hickman and made the purchase.

A second hurdle was the time-table when construction could begin. At a congregational meeting at Windsor United Methodist Church, it was announced that on the basis of past giving it would be eight years or 2000 before we would see a new building. The life just drained out of the people. As the meeting was closing Ivan Lyddon stood to make a prediction; it would be ready by 1995. He had no basis for saying that but in February of 1995, the congregation moved into its new building.

As the new building opened we realized that it was too small. Immediately efforts were begun to expand. But again, costs became a major issue. Then a wonderful thing happened; Marilyn and Wayne Stevenson made a major gift to the project and in February of 1998, the new wing was completed, doubling the size of the church’s building. This was followed by a another gift from Kathy and Kurt Brewer for the new kitchen equipment and the start up costs for the Wednesday Night Alive dinner program.

It soon became apparent that we were outgrowing the new addition and in 2000 we started a capital campaign to raise money to bring down the dept and to build an addition.  In 2003 building started on the office and class room expansion. We were able to move into the new addition in July 2003. 

No one could have predicted the impact a permanent home could have on the church’s growth, but on the first Sunday in the new building, Sunday morning celebrative worship attendance nearly doubled. And, when the new wing was opened the youth groups doubled and tripled, and Sunday morning Christian Learning Time and Wednesday Night Alive expanded greatly. Having a physical place made all the difference.

Staffed To Grow

Walnut Hills has always believed in staffing to grow. You don’t wait until you can afford staff but you go out on a limb, believing staff always pays for itself. Before the doors were even opened in 1989, we had staff in place: Jim Tener, music; Avon Crawford, program; and Gene Koth, minister. Jill Hoffman was added as youth coordinator a year later. When Avon left for full-time teaching in 1990, Anne CuIp joined the staff as office and ministry coordinator. Terri Paulson joined the staff as office assistant in 1995, becoming office center coordinator in 1998 so Anne could focus on the communications and special ministry area of the office. Sheryl Start became children’s coordinator in 1995 and then decided to retire after many years of service to spend time with her family.  Pam Deeds replaced her in 2001.  Mel Hollingsworth started as building superintendent in 1995. In 1996, Angie Arthur was added as single’s coordinator then after six years of service retired to be replaced by Kelli Cross in 2002. Connie McKeen was added as adult coordinator and Mandi Arthur and Julie Stone as office center assistants in 2000. In 2003 Connie McKeen was moved to a new ministry called "New Comers,"  Mandi was moved strictly to Publications, Julie and Terri became joint Office Coordinators with different specialties and Pam Deeds became Director of Adult Studies and Children Ministries. In 2004 Walnut Hills Julie Stone became the Director of Youth.  2005 was a year of growth in the staff.  Sandy Orth joined the office staff as Financial Support and Susan Guy joined the team in a new position as Director of Service, Social Justice and Adult Ministries.   The WH religious preschool got off the ground in the fall of 1998 with Sue Petersen as director and Ann Mattiussi as teaching assistant with 90 children enrolled.

A unique addition was Judy Winkelpleck’s appointment by the Bishop in 1999 as a second minister of the church. In 2002 Gene Koth retired after 12 years of service to Walnut Hills. Because the departure of a founding minister is always a traumatic event, Walnut Hills spent many months in conversation with the Bishop's office about the leadership necessary to maintain and expand the unique culture of our church.  In July of 2002 Doug Peters was appointed Senior Minister after serving nearly 19 years at Solon United Methodist Church near Iowa City. In 2003 we had a new associate minister appointed by the Bishop, our own Pam Deeds.  She had graduated from the School for Lay Ministry and was licensed as a local pastor.  Pam's focus is Adult Studies and Children Ministries.  Judy Winkelpleck retired at the end of 2003.  In 2005 Pam's position changed with the hiring of Susan Guy.  Pam, besides being the Associate Minister, is now Director of Pastoral Care, Children's ministries and a new ministry for Sr. Adults.

Two Special Awards

The fifteen years of life given by God to Walnut Hills are captured in two recognitions the church received. In 1991, Walnut Hills was the recipient of the national United Methodist "Circuit Rider" award for exemplary church growth, an award given each year to three United Methodist churches across the United States. Then, in 1999, Walnut Hills was one of only four United Methodist churches in Iowa receiving the coveted Bishop’s "All God’s Children" award, given for outstanding leadership in reaching out to children in significant witness and service.

These testimonials to Walnut Hills’ growth and outreach summarize well these first fifteen years of the church’s mission and ministry. Thanks be to God.

Appendix:

Some things do not fit easily into the above scenario, but must not be excluded from the story: "Stella’s Diner" all-church party (1990); carrying the WH banner in the "Earth Day" parade in downtown Des Moines (1990); cabaret musicals (1994) later to become "A Night on Broadway"(2000); international children’s choirs from Puerto Rico (1993), Poland (1995), Slovenia (1997), and Finland (1999); the "Flood of 1993" when the gym we met in was used for flood victims so we went from week to week finding places to meet, and at the same time volunteered in mass to help with flood relief; first marriage within the church (Margaret McGowan and LeRoy Law) (1991); the sadness of the first deaths, Phil Humiston (1994) and Larry Gilmore (1995).

Charter Sunday in April 1990, when people lined the gym wall waiting to sign the membership book; men’s basketball, the coed volleyball and softball games, and the August WHIFF (Walnut Hills Invitational Fearsome Foursomes) golf tournaments; children’s spring egg hunts and church ice cream socials on the land; Bob Keck (1992) and William McElvaney (1994) visits; the "caring ministry" program (1993) with the caring training workshop led by Betty Brown, Anne Miller and JoLynne Meskimen; first picture directory (1991); Persian Gulf War when prayers were offered weekly for Pete Adkins, Mary and Paul Peterson’s daughter, and Avis Richards’ son (1991); pancake breakfast on the land (1993) when Wayne Allcott and Phil Hoover taught everyone how not to flip "flap jacks."

Career Transition Ministry (CTM), support program organized by Dick Brown that has reached out to over a hundred people (1992); one-on-one care ministry, e-mail prayer group and the informally organized ministry within WH in time of individual or family need; Woody Walnut Award recipients for service "above and beyond" that went to Mary Grandgeorge and Daryl Nelsen (1995), Tom Caudron and Helen Wilson (1996), Laura Adkins and Ron Roberts (1997), Roland Minshall and Pat Musaraca (1998), and Frank Arbs and Lucy Suvalsky (1999); annual Amy O’Leary scholarship award to an outstanding graduating high school senior (1998); seventy-plus people who volunteer monthly to help with the Churches United "Meals for the Homeless" and the Trinity "Supper Club" (started in 1997); those who worked with Carl Johnson in resettling the Alicices from Bosnia (1995); or the WH work team that repaired and furnished Le Embajada House for Hispanic immigrants (1991), built the playground for OSACS, a training center for low income mothers (1994), repaired Gladys’ house in Valley Junction following the 1993 flood (1994), helped install the swimming pool at Camp Wesley Woods (1996), disassembled and reassembled the donated playground for the WH Preschool (1998), and installed the chain link fence around the playground at Bidwell-Riverside Center (2000).

Art work of Tom Lines (altar table), Rod Kruse (advent candle stand), Avon Crawford and Bernie Coil (communion banner), Avon and Judy Zobel (altar table clothes), Jan Berg Kruse (advent banner and altar table clothes), Pam Koehn and Bill Cotton, friends of Walnut Hills (celebration center banner and walnut altar table cross, respectively), Susan Olson (framed needlework), WH children (three Christmas banners), and Connie Gilmore (quilted celebration center banner commissioned in 2000) In 2004 he stark cross cut from a beam at the World Trade Center was given to the church in memory of NYC firefighter, Johnathan Ielpi. .

Outdoor gardens developed and maintained under Joani Hollingsworth’s watchful eye (1995); name brick patio (2000), new church signs and landscaping (2000), and seeding the north 5.5 acres in wild flowers and prairie grass (2000), flower garden by South sign (2002).

Finally there is the remarkable 1999 when WH lead the effort to raise funds for the new Jordan Creek UMC, led effort to recruit churches for Trinity’s "Supper Club," led the effort to help Oakridge Neighborhood provide a furniture fund for new residences, received an award from Burns UMC for support of their benefit concert, and provided one of the second highest gifts to the United Methodist Des Moines District Nigerian "school house" project. And to top it off, 1999 was the year of the "All God’s Children Award."

In looking back over these fifteen years, who can ever doubt that God has a special place for Walnut Hills in the economy of God’s efforts to bring new life to a creation God loves dearly.

--April 2000

--Updated January 4, 2006

12321 Hickman Road Des Moines Iowa 50323
Phone: 515-270-9226 Fax: 515-270-0838 mandi@whumc.org