Karen is the wife of Brook and mother of Sarah. She is a second (at least!) career pastor. Prior to entering the ministry, she worked in the food business in restaurants, moving into specialty food retail and finally into sales and distribution. In the Columbus area, she worked at Deibel’s, Ground Round, Katzinger’s Deli, and Michael’s Finest Market.

Losing her job at Michael’s in 1996 sent her into sales and distribution, and more importantly on a hunt for a real God, rather than the “gods” she had made of her career and her own life.

Daughter Sarah was born in 2000, after 3 years of God intensely working in Karen’s life to heal her own image and to help her see her image through God’s eyes. Karen said yes to God’s offer of unconditional love, acceptance and forgiveness, and began to work to be shaped in God’s image rather than the images she’d conjured up from the world. Taking Disciple 1 the first time was formative, and she ignored a call to seminary following the first class session. While taking Disciple 1 for the second time along with Brook and “church baby” Sarah, she explored seminary in Delaware. Full-time studies began officially in fall, 2001.

In 2004, she graduated from The Methodist Theological School in Ohio and began to serve her first pastorate at Westgate UMC on Columbus’ west side.
Westgate was a wonderful first appointment serving in an urban setting and seeking to address systemic and immediate concerns of poverty in the context of a middle class urban congregation. An existing passion for mission and outreach continued to grow in the context of Westgate UMC.

Karen was ordained an Elder in The United Methodist Church in 2007, and appointed to Hilliard UMC and Warehouse 839 in July, 2008. Warehouse 839’s vision of God’s Unconditional Acceptance, Your Unbelievable Growth, and Our Unlimited Outreach parallels Karen’s faith journey and only increases her gratitude for having the privilege of serving here.

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David Ziegel came to Hilliard United Methodist Church in 2006, with a heart for teaching, preaching and leading to help individuals and church discover and live the life Jesus intends for us (since he’s trying to grow up and do this, too). David embraces with passion the church’s vision to be a community in which anyone will experience God’s unconditional acceptance, God’s desire for their unbelievable growth, and God’s intention that everyone person be engaged in serving in a world desperately in need of new life that Christ came to save.

A native of southwestern Ohio (Eaton), David grew up in the Presbyterian Church, and had first glimmers of God “messing with his life” as he struggled as a junior in high school with the discovery that he “was becoming a person he didn’t want to be.” Through undergraduate education at Indiana university (sociology) and a year-plus of law school at Ohio State, David “wrestled with and resisted” what he says was the “hounding of God” for decision and commitment. Along the way, David’s girl-friend-then-wife Ann introduced him to Methodism. After experience as a law student, juvenile court bailiff and probation officer, and working as a church youth group leader, the “hounding” became irresistible, and David left law school and entered seminary at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, a United Methodist seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

Since graduating, David has continued to wrestle with the leading of God, and through spiritual ups and downs and doubts and confusion and growth feels more alive in Christ and as in love with God and others as ever. Through 31 years of ministry, David has served as an associate pastor at Grove City UM Church, 11 years as pastor of Scioto Ridge UM Church (Columbus/Hilliard), and 15 years as pastor of Parkview Church in Miamisburg.

David has been married to his “college sweetheart” Ann since 1972. They have two sons Aaron (and wife Audra) and Adam. Aaron and Audra are both professional musicians, Audra a flutist and Aaron a pianist, currently working on his doctorate in music history at the University of Illinois. Adam is an undergraduate at Ohio State.

David loves reading, hiking, biking, traveling, eating out, going to movies, and playing games with family and friends, especially ping pong, pinochle, and Euchre.

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