Feb. 14, 2022

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.

You can check out our website for a little more elaboration here:

Since then, the staff and leadership have been working to clarify our “strategic plan.” We’re quite far along with developing the strategic plan and it is already shaping the work we have been given to do. We are intending to elaborate on our strategic plan more fully at the next AGM, but we’ll start to give some clarity in the upcoming Let’s Talk and in the months ahead.

Not all churches use or need strategic plans, but strategic plans are part of good stewardship for us in these times. They help us to coordinate and communicate the work that we are doing in relation to our mission. The strategic plan is developed by the senior pastors in consultation with the Ministry Council and the rest of the staff.

The main function of the strategic plan is to make sure that people know about and are able to contribute to any shifts in focus or changes in practice. We always want to be open to the Lord’s leading and responsive to the changes around us; a strategic plan helps make sure that we are working with each other as we follow Jesus together at Hillcrest.

When we said to ourselves, before the Lord, that our mission was to make disciples of Jesus Christ, that meant we would be even more intentional about making disciples. When we said, before the Lord, that we want to give everyone in our area opportunity to have a personal relationship with Jesus, that means we have to be examining our own relationship with Jesus and aspire to give even more opportunity in our area.

The word, “area” is intentionally ambiguous. Think about it in relation to spheres of influence. As we were working on the mission statement, we already had a sense of direction from the Holy Spirit that we were to extend our ministry online; not just because of the pandemic restrictions, but also because the Lord wants us to be more accessible to those who cannot join us for worship because of distance, disability, or work.

As we continue to wonder what “area” meant for us, we had the sense that it also means that Hillcrest should be extending our ministry into neighborhoods. This is one of the things that we are praying and planning into. What does it mean for us to be a church of neighborhoods as we follow Jesus together? What do we need to do (or stop doing) so we can help our Sunday morning worship, weekly ministries, and small groups focus on our neighborhoods? We don’t want to lose sight of what it is to cultivate community that cares at the city or the regional level or online, but we do want to be more open to seeing the Lord use each of us in our own neighborhood as we are scattered throughout the city and beyond.

This is going to be a challenge. There’s going to be a shift in emphasis. There’s going to be some new initiatives. There are some things that need to change physically around the building. The most obvious – though seemingly trivial thing – is to make sure that we have a sign welcoming people to Hillcrest Church from both the north and the south. Though it’s a small thing, it isn’t necessarily easy to do – yet this is one way that strategic planning works. It helps us to see the shifts and changes that need to be made if we are going to get from where we are to where we are given to go.

If you want to hear more about this, please join us for the Let’s Talk on February 27. We’d love for you to join with us whether online or on-site. And – as is becoming our custom – there will be a baking draw!

In His service,

Pastor Glenn

Our Mission: https://www.hillcrestchurch.net/our-mission

Let’s Talk: https://www.hillcrestchurch.net/events/lets-talk

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