Freedom Chapel takes different approach to faith

CANTON — The Rev. Eric Hershberger is a married millennial with children.

He’s precisely the demographic churches crave.

But Hershberger isn’t a numbers guy. He is the founding pastor of Freedom Chapel, a new downtown Canton congregation that approaches faith in a way that hearkens back to the early church.

Freedom Chapel, he says, is for seekers; people who have questions, or those who have been hurt by, disappointed by, or disillusioned with church.

“I feel like my ministry is an extension of who I am,” he said. “There were times when I felt like a heretic.”

Hershberger, 32, said he had to grow to learn how to embrace a God of mystery, which moves him toward humility.

“It’s being willing to go to the dark places of the unknown, where we can begin the humble pursuit of truth,” he said. “I had to reconstruct something, basically approaching God as a mystery. I don’t feel like I have all the answers, and that’s OK. But I believe in a God of love.”

The second-generation pastor and graduate of Indiana Wesleyan College said he felt called to the ministry as a youth. Before starting Freedom Chapel, he served as a leader with Love Canton.

“I just had a hard time seeing myself as someone people would follow,” he said with a smile. “God was inviting me gradually. He has all the time in the world ... yet, when I started emerging in the ministry, I found a grace for it once I started accepting this role. I don’t have problems giving up control.”

Housed in the original Shaaray Torah Synagogue in Canton, Freedom Chapel is a plant of Freedom Fellowship in Apple Creek, which is pastored by Hershberger’s father, the Rev. Urie Hershberger.

“We didn’t have a big business plan,” Hershberger said, laughing. “They gave us a lot of freedom to find our own context.”

Hershberger said the goal of the Freedom Chapel is the pursuit of truth, which includes disentangling Western cultural understanding from what Jesus taught. For example, he said, Jesus told his followers they would suffer for their beliefs, which is contradictory to what is sometimes espoused by religious leaders.

“I don’t believe God causes suffering, but he allows us to grow through it,” Hershberger said. “I have been finding that for most it takes us getting to the end of ourselves before we realize our need for a savior.”

Though millennials have been reported as widely rejecting organized religion, Hershberger said, he’s not overly worried about his generation, noting that a falling away tends to occur every 500 years, with the church emerging in a stronger place.