by Olivia Hamilton, Missioner for Lifelong Formation
I want to share with you a story about my friend Grant from St. Andrew’s in Pickerington.
Grant’s story involves an ancient fragment of paper found in a cookie tin and the makings of a modern day evangelist. Grant’s story is about the way that faith transcends time, connecting us to a reality of love and grace far beyond what we can see or touch, but which we know to be true in our bones. Grant’s story is about healing; not the miracle of a body that will live forever, but the blessing of belief in a wholeness that exists far beyond what is mortal.
I met Grant and his wife Maureen this summer. Maureen had been my Facebook friend but I knew little else about her, and certainly not that her husband was terminally ill and that she believed (who wouldn’t?) that acquiring a kitten might serve as a source of comfort and delight for him in this season. As luck, or providence, would have it, a slinky grey adolescent kitten showed up on my doorstep in Cincinnati around May, affectionate and starved. “KitKat,” as my kids called him, was and is the sweetest. The kind of cat that does figure-eights through your legs even when you’re carrying in a load of groceries. The kind of cat who radiates affection, and gratitude for every small can of Fancy Feast that we’d remember to put out for him. But it was hot, and he was desperate to come inside, and our two rowdy dogs would not have it.
Naturally, turning to the wide world of Facebook to find him a home (and more importantly, a family) I was overjoyed when Maureen commented that KitKat was just the sort of companion they’d been looking for, but could I bring him to Pickerington, please?
The next day, cat carrier in hand, I arrived at the Patterson’s doorstep in Pickerington. Wanting to give the kitten time to acclimate, I sat down to chat with Grant and Maureen as KitKat trepidatiously peered under the couch and gazed wide-eyed around the room. We got to talking about my job as missioner for formation, and what an honor it is to help congregations tell the story of the love of Jesus and the transformation that takes place when we name and claim this reality in our lives and in the world. Grant shared about his own journey of faith briefly with me then – the twists and turns that led him to a life of belief, and the way The Episcopal Church had played into the narrative arc.
“I’m truly a born-again Episcopalian,” Grant told me. He’d grown up in the church but it wasn’t until adulthood—until some really good people invited him to play music with them—that Grant began to understand the absolute life-saving depth of the Gospel. And it wasn’t until someone at church invited him to give a pledge, knowing that he and Maureen were barely surviving financially, that he realized the transformative shift that occurs when we begin seeing through the lens of God’s abundance rather than our self-limited scarcity mindset.
Being invited to share his time, talent, and treasure with the church elevated Grant’s faith from one of rote-ness to one of rootedness, as he experienced the joy that exists when we turn away from self-centeredness and turn toward the all-encompassing and unearned grace that Jesus invites us to share in. This grace buoyed Grant and Maureen as they severed their ties with alcohol, navigated choppy financial times, and a vocational pathway that was far less than linear. Through seasons of raising kids, and now beloved grandkids, Grant and Maureen have sought to embody the message at the heart of our faith—that we are loved beyond measure, forgiven without condition, and called to extend that same grace to others.
“Do you have five more minutes you can stay?” Grant asked about an hour into my visit. And of course I did. “I want to show you something.”
He asked Maureen to pull up a video she’d recorded in worship at St. Andrew’s that morning. It was a video of Grant and a few other members of the church (all of whom had dealt with their fair share of life’s “changes and chances”) signing together what is known as the first hymn, the Oxyrhynchus hymn. Tears welled in their eyes and mine as they played the shaky video—what I heard, an ancient song about God’s faithfulness sung by distinctly rich and modern voices in St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in 2025, blew me away. The hymn, brought to life by a group of men who were all facing their mortality head-on, urges us into a holy, cosmic silence so that all creation, from the rivers to the stars, can give praise to the triune God.
Let all be silent
The shining stars not sound
Rushing rivers still
Let the mountains bow down
In awe and wonder
In reverence we come
Who is worthy of all worship?
Who is seated on the throne?
All powers cry out in answer
All glory and praise forever
To our God
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Amen, we sing, amen
The hymn, which was found in a cookie tin in a pile of trash in the Egyptian desert, was at some point mailed to Oxford where it sat, on a shelf, untouched for decades until researchers resurrected it, and its significance was revealed. The hymn has been popularized this year, a version of it having been recorded by Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding.
From ancient voices thousands of years and a world away, the revival of the hymn reminds us that we are connected to a great cloud of witnesses, and that whatever trials we may face in this lifetime, we are never, ever alone. Grant’s invitation to his friends at St. Andrew’s, to sing it together on an unsuspecting July morning in worship, reminds us that we need not have the most robust choir, the most people in the pews, or any other traditional measure of congregational vitality, to be living symbols of the transformative power of our Christian faith. Grant’s witness points to the power of faith to exist beyond fear. And the story of the hymn fragment, nearly lost to time in a pile of trash, preserved for decades in a cookie tin, reminds us that we are precious beyond measure to God, that we are all beloved by God, and that our stories are far from over, even as our bodies may decline. Watching Grant and his friends sing the hymn gave me goosebumps. It spoke directly to my heart and it struck me, in that moment, that I had to tell Grant’s story.
Here in the Diocese of Southern Ohio, we are ushering in a year of telling the story of Jesus. Where have you been confined and contained, on the brink of obliteration, only to be brough back again into the knowledge and love of God’s grace? How can you, like Grant, start where you are, with the resources you have available to you, to tell the ancient story of our faith in new and bold ways?
In future diocesan communications, we’ll be offering formation resources that will help all of us be more adept at evangelism. Stay tuned. In the meantime, let us pray for Grant and Maureen, for their peace and comfort. Let us be transformed anew by the love and grace we know in Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Creator and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen, we sing, amen.
