About Us

Hope Central Church is called to create counter cultural community as taught by Jesus where we care for each other body and soul, where our liberation is bound together with equity as our north star, and where we can fall into respite and renewal. 

We understand and fulfill our vocation through:

• Worship and Bible study

• Communion including eating together and feeding one another at the open table and at meals together.

• Teaching and learning from one another

• Making art and beauty, story telling, singing and making music

• Play and celebration

• Prophetic work led by love

  • the insistence upon the awakening, noticing, and practice of race, class and gender equity in all our worship, play, hospitality, administrative tasks, projects and tenancy.

  • protest and witness

  • creating theology

• Ministry of Justice and Compassion tithing

• Supporting student ministry and those in discernment for ordination

• Contributing our time, talent and treasure to this vocation.

Hope Central Church was formed in the spring of 2010 through the merger of two church communities: Central Congregational Church, a church with a history of nearly 150 years in Jamaica Plain, and Hope Church, a vibrant young church started 8 years earlier.

Central Congregational Church was founded in 1853 and built our current church building at 85 Seaverns Ave in 1935.

Hope Church was founded in 2002 by Reverends Elizabeth and Matthew Myer Boulton with a vision to be a welcoming, diverse community of people, who could learn and grow together in faith, love, and joy.

In June 2010, Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett began her ministry as pastor of Hope Central Church. On September 24, 2023, Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett gave her last sermon, and retired on September 29, 2023.

Hope Central Church is a member congregation of both the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), two mainline Protestant Christian denominations.

The UCC and the Disciples have much in common such as Jesus’ prayer “that all may be one” (John 17) which is the founding prayer of both denominations.  Both denominations practice freedom of belief, strong member participation, involvement in community needs, and voluntary fellowship along with all other expressions of the Christian faith.

On a national level, the UCC and the Disciples have been ecumenical partners since 1989. This partnership includes ongoing cooperation and dialogue, mutual recognition of clergy, and a shared Global Ministries organization.

Hope Central Church’s association with both the UCC and the Disciples brings together the values and strengths of each denomination in an ongoing manifestation of Christian unity through faith, ministry, service, and worship.