Rev. Timothy C. Ahrens was called to First Church in January of 2000. He is the fifth consecutive senior minister from Yale Divinity School and is a lifelong member of the United Church of Christ. Under his leadership, First Church has doubled in membership. Mission and stewardship have doubled as well, and the average weekly worship attendance is now over 400. With the church adopting an "Open and Affirming Statement," First Church's welcome in the heart of Columbus now extends to ALL persons.
Rev. Ahrens has become a strong and respected voice in the community, building relationships with other city leaders to work for improved education, fair housing, health care reform, equal rights, and abolition of the death penalty. He has served as co-president of B.R.E.A.D. (Building Responsibility Equality And Dignity), an interfaith organization working for economic justice and social change, which he helped to found in 1996.
He has served the United Church of Christ at the association, conference and national level. Rev. Ahrens is an adjunct-faculty member and a member of the Visiting Committee of Chicago Theological Seminary and has taught and preached at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, as well as institutions at Lakeside in Ohio and Bay View in Michigan. He is a member of the board of directors of Faith in Public Life, a faith-based national organization that seeks to influence public policy, and also is involved with the Universal Health Care Action Network in Ohio. He is the 2008 recipient of the William Sloane Coffin Award, given by Yale Divinity School in recognition of a person’s commitment to peace and reconciliation.
In March 2006, Rev. Ahrens was one of the founders of WE BELIEVE OHIO, www.webelieveohio.org. We Believe has united diverse religious voices to achieve social justice. Over 400 religious leaders and hundreds of lay people have joined We Believe Ohio's efforts to strengthen the voice of religiously diverse people in the public square.
His comments have appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, The Christian Century, and many Ohio newspapers. He writes regularly for the Columbus Dispatch "Faith and Values" section and is the author of Acts Comes Alive, 12 Keys for Reviving the Church.
Rev. Ahrens was ordained in his home congregation, St. John's United Church of Christ in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Before coming to First Church, he served as Senior Pastor of North Congregational United Church of Christ in northwest Columbus for more than 10 years. Prior to that, he served in four urban settings of ministry in St. Louis, New Haven, Philadelphia and Cleveland, stimulating growth and revitalization by helping congregations to become more multi-racial, more multi-cultural and more accepting and tolerant of all believers in Christ.
A devoted husband and father, he and his wife, Susan, have been married since 1985 and are the parents of three children.