We are grateful that we’ve been able to minister the Gospel as we follow Jesus together even with the restriction on numbers throughout the fall and winter. Our staff and volunteers have been serving together to minister to the different age groups in our church: children, youth, and our adult groups.
I don’t know about you but I am more thankful than ever for the Scriptures; all of the stories and songs and teachings that have been faithfully recorded for us and passed on over many centuries. The Scriptures have come alive even more for me during this pandemic season. Every verse I read seems more relevant to me today than it ever has before.
As I pray for renewal and revival in my own life, I find that the Lord is revealing issues within me that he wants to address and work on. And that has led me to wonder, should I fast or not? And I wonder if any of you are experiencing the same thing. There is a lot going on in our world right now. And perhaps there are some very personal or painful experiences that you are walking through. You might be wondering, “Should I fast and pray about any of these situations?”
God has invited us into a great story. His story. It’s a story about how God created us and made us and “it was good.” Then God watched as human beings rejected Him and began to stumble and falter and go their own way.
It is often said that church is not the building, it’s the people. But place matters too. We minister together in and from a certain place. If that wasn’t clear before, it has become clear in the last couple of years as we learned to extend our ministry online. We are so thankful for the technology that has made it possible for us to have our services and ministry more accessible to more people.
Ironically, deciding to extend our ministry online led us to explore what it means to be a church in a certain place.
This Sunday marks the first time in a while that there will be no mask mandate for church worship services. To this news, some folks are cheering, “Hallelujah! It’s about time!”
I’m sure that many of us have been patiently (or impatiently) waiting for the removal of pandemic restrictions (especially those related to church worship). And the good news is… it all begins this Sunday!
As we continue to look ahead with hope to a new year with new expectations and freedoms, I want to give a bit of a sense of some shifts we have been making at the church. At last year’s Annual General Meeting, we presented the latest version of our mission for the affirmation of Hillcrest Church members:
Making disciples of Jesus Christ and giving everyone in our area
opportunity to have a personal relationship with Him.
Relationships are under greater strain right now than at any other moment in my lifetime.
Relationships have always been challenging. There is always a certain amount of stress in our friendships, our family relationships, and our work relationships. Yet these relationships have provided so many benefits for us as well.
We are grateful that we’ve been able to minister the Gospel as we follow Jesus together even with the restriction on numbers throughout the fall and winter. Our staff and volunteers have been serving together to minister to the different age groups in our church: children, youth, and our adult groups.
Throughout the Covid pandemic, our #1 priority as a church has been to lift up the name of Jesus and continue to help people come into a relationship with him. We have seen many people come to know the Lord through this time, and for that, we are grateful. Early on, we made it our goal to work with whatever health restrictions were put in place, so long as they did not hinder the work of the gospel. To this point, churches have been allowed to meet, whether online or in-person with limited capacity. We have pledged to hold as many in-person services as possible. If our three current services ever reach the capacity limits, we would add more services so that more could worship in-person. So far, it seems that people have been content to use both online as well as in-person services, as we all navigate this season together.
I don’t know about you but I am more thankful than ever for the Scriptures; all of the stories and songs and teachings that have been faithfully recorded for us and passed on over many centuries. The Scriptures have come alive even more for me during this pandemic season. Every verse I read seems more relevant to me today than it ever has before.
As I pray for renewal and revival in my own life, I find that the Lord is revealing issues within me that he wants to address and work on. And that has led me to wonder, should I fast or not? And I wonder if any of you are experiencing the same thing. There is a lot going on in our world right now. And perhaps there are some very personal or painful experiences that you are walking through. You might be wondering, “Should I fast and pray about any of these situations?”
