“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
(Mark 12:30-31, ESV)
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. We realized from the start that effective online ministry had to be situated in a physical place and not just in cyberspace. One implication of this was that we realized we need to be more intentional about being a church of neighborhoods. We’ve long been conscious of ministering God’s love in our city and region and even around the world. In the last while we realized that we also need to be ministering in the neighborhoods around our church building and in the neighborhoods of our church family.
Aerial photo from 1998
This isn’t just about extending our ministry online from our place here in Medicine Hat. It is also about us “waking up” to the reality that the city has grown up around us. When we first moved out to 13th Avenue, we were on the edge of the city.
Now there are neighborhoods all around us. The growth is really amazing. Since we’re no longer on the outskirts, we need to be way more intentional about what it means for us to be a good neighbor to the neighborhoods that have grown up around the church building.
Satellite image of the neighborhoods around the church from 2021
As we think about this, we’re not talking about doing a whole bunch of new things, but more about re-orienting ourselves to our neighborhoods with more intentionality. There are some really practical things we can do, like making sure that our sign is inviting people to church whether they are approaching from the north or the south. As a staff, we are continuing to look for ways to practice and model being the church in our neighborhood.
Lots of you already know about being a good neighbor. You’ve been practicing loving your neighborhoods for years. We’d love to hear from you. Maybe it is organizing an annual block party. Maybe it is doing a prayer walk. Whatever it is that you’ve been doing to minister God’s love in your neighborhood, it would be great if you would pass that on. Send us a letter or write us an email to tell us the ways that God has used you in your neighborhood.
Expect to be hearing more about being a church of neighborhoods over the next six months. The staff have some plans for our Fall Focus and Pastor Steve will be sharing more about this as things start to become more firm. It would be great if we could include your stories as we continue to pray and plan for what the Lord has for us as we make disciples of Jesus Christ and give everyone in our area an opportunity to have a personal relationship with Him.
In His service,
Pastor Glenn
Our Mission: https://www.hillcrestchurch.net/our-mission
Online service: https://hillcrestmh.online.church/
General email: info@hillcrestchurch.net
Personal email: glennr@hillcrestchurch.net
Mailing address: 3785 13th Avenue SE, Medicine Hat, Alberta T1B 1J2
Office phone: (403) 526-4010