Greetings from Hillcrest Church. We want to update you on how things have been going here at the church and to give you a bit of a picture of what is ahead of us as a church body.
Pastors’ Reports
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. Pastor Cindy is especially thankful for the way that long-term and new volunteers have stepped up to minister to the kids in our church and our neighborhood. Besides from our regular bible studies, many small groups have been able to continue to connect with one another by using the Church building to meet.
Baby Dedication
As well as our regular get togethers we also enjoyed several special events in the last 6 months:
Fall Kick-off gave us a chance to reconnect with one another and with our weekly ministries.
Our youth were able to do a day long youth retreat with about 28 students and 15 leaders. These retreats give the youth significant time to learn what it is to follow Jesus together as they get away from their busy schedules and focus on spiritual growth.
We also presented a live interactive Christmas play, Journey to Bethlehem, for our community. Dozens of volunteers were enlisted to play various parts as attendees were taken on a tour throughout the building to visit key locations from the Christmas story. Many good memories were made that day and we continue to hear of the positive impact it has had in our community.
We all miss getting together over coffee and CBs during Hub Time and look forward to its return. Currently, we have been able to open up our space throughout the week for people to connect during adult Bible studies, small groups, and community sports. We are continuing to add new church members and we are grateful for everyone who has joined with our congregation on Sundays, in small groups, and in volunteering for our weekly ministries to children, youth, young adults, and care and support groups. Thank you.
We are so thankful for the Gospel Legacy of the founders, builders, and maintainers at Hillcrest. We honor our seniors through our various chapel ministries throughout the community, by visitation, and hospice care. It is so good to be part of a congregation where Legacy Adults continue to follow Jesus together with the rest of the congregation.
It has been good to have Pastor Steve back from his surgery and sabbatical. This fall Pastor Steve has been leading us in searching Scripture—finding Jesus. Our Sunday Morning worship team has been learning what it is to “worship in Spirit and truth” so that they are better able to lead the rest of the congregation to give their attention and affection to God.
Our online service has become more focused this fall. We have one hosted online Sunday morning service at 10:00 am (chat starts at 9:50). We continue to livestream on Facebook and you can check our website to watch services anytime. We are continuing to explore what it is to fulfill our mission together with people who are unable to attend church on-site; whether because of distance, work, current COVID limits, or limited accessibility.
Installing the solar panels
Around the Church
The solar panel project was completed and is online. We are thankful for safety for the installers. We expect to see utility savings in the early spring as the longer days return to Medicine Hat. Putting in solar panels is kind of like planting a tree: the full advantage to our congregation and our community may take several years to show, but we are thankful that we were able to secure a loan so that we didn’t have to fund raise for such a large capital project.
What’s next
Finances
We’ve yet to do a full reckoning, but it looks like we will end 2021 in the black. We are grateful to God for his provision through the faithful giving of so many in our church family. We have planned for a balanced budget for 2022, but this has required some hard decisions and personal sacrifices. We have done some staff cut-backs through attrition and will be under a hiring freeze until the summer. As well, a number of the staff took a payroll reduction to help give some room to sort through what the future looks like. Thank you to the staff who participated in this way. We’ll give fuller details on our budget at our upcoming Let’s Talk on February 27th.
Loving our neighbors
Over the next year, we are looking to become more conscious of ministering to and in our neighborhoods. We want to love our immediate neighbors around the church building. And we want to be known for the way we show love to our neighbors throughout the city. Expect to see more details in our pastoral letters in the months ahead. We’ll also be exploring this at the Let’s Talk planned for February 27th at 4:00 pm.
In His service,
Pastor Glenn
Online service: https://hillcrestmh.online.church/
Past services: https://www.hillcrestchurch.net/sermons
General email: info@hillcrestchurch.net
Personal email: glennr@hillcrestchurch.net
Office phone: (403) 526-4010