Food Services Ministries

Sharing a meal or food together is a great way to meet new people and gives you time to share your life with others.  The people preparing the food are blessed as well as the people enjoying it! 

Last year was a busy one in the kitchen:  

  •  8 funeral or memorials.   

  • Snacks for hundreds of kids every week (Youth, Glow Girls, Just Boys, XP 56) 

  • IF Conference:  appetizer, breakfast and lunch with Pumpkin Leek Soup and homemade buns and squares 

  • Legacy Grandparenting summit:  2-day seminar with lunch and snacks 

  • Alpha on Sundays:  yogurt, fruit, and homemade baking 

  • Pajama Jam:  juice boxes and muffins and yogurt tubes 

  • Pancake Breakfast:  This was our biggest year yet with serving nearly 2000 people with pancakes and sausage, and coffee.   And it was fun!  There were vintage pedal tractors, face painting and lawn games to enjoy.   

  • Easter Egg Hunt:  “Bunny Bait” (popcorn squares) was enjoyed by all who attended  

  • Church Family Picnic:  Hotdogs, chips and pop were served as our congregation enjoyed the last single service Sunday of the summer.   

  • Grade One Bible Event: Hotdogs and cupcakes for the Grade one students who also received a new bible from the church. 

  • Youth Grad:  An Under the Sea theme fun event for the graduation students and their families:

    -Chicken and Egg Salad "Crab"wiches 
    -Roasted Baby Potatoes with Dijon mustard and thyme 
    -Tortilla chips with 7 Layer Dip 
    -Snickerdoodle sand dollars 
    -Ice Cream Sandwiches 
    -Fruit 
    -Gummy candies (fish, blue whales, blue sharks, peach rings) 
    -Coffee 
    -Tea 
    -Blue Punch 

  • All Nations Sunday:  Showcasing the diversity of our church family and the different foods from other cultures were enjoyed by all. 

  • Legacy Christmas Banquet:  Mexican Lasagna, Corn and bean salad, cornbread and a baked sweet potato and ending with a fun play with Kings Kids… 

  • King’s Kids Presentation: cookies were served afterwards with baking from the Legacy group 😊  

  •  Youth Christmas 

  • Journey to Bethlehem: with hotdogs (for the long journey) and a star cookie (so that you could find your way home.)😊

Karen Schlamp

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Athletics Ministries

Our weekday sports programs remain a strong outreach, with most of those attending having little to no prior relationship with the church allowing a low-pressure opportunity to get people through the door and involved even in a small way. There is always room for more people to join if you have an interest in volleyball, basketball, floor hockey or pickleball!

In 2021 we were asked by the local Special Olympics to use our gym for practices once a week.  They have continued to use our facility into 2022.

We are so thankful for the way the Lord has allowed us to use our gym facilities to open our doors on a weekly basis to the community.

For more information visit our website: https://www.hillcrestchurch.net/athletics

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Prayer Ministries

The prayer team is a group of people who are committed to praying in the Prayer Room on Sunday mornings. This group of amazing people take shifts in the Prayer Room and pray over the church. We pray for the people who are in the service. We pray for Pastor Steve and others as they preach the Word. We pray for the worship team members and others as they lead us in worship. We pray for any prayer requests that come our way over the course of the morning.

After services, this team is available to pray along with people. We anoint people with oil and pray for the sick. We pray along with people about both big and small needs; whatever burdens people want to share with us.

God has been at work in and through the prayer team. We have seen people healed from long term pain. We have seen God meet needs in many different ways.

I am so grateful for this team of intercessors who pray faithfully for the church. This team also meets once a month to share what we see God doing in the bigger picture of the church. We pray for each other and we pray that God would open heaven and that his Presence would come powerfully into our midst as we worship and praise him! 

Pastor Steve Pahl - on behalf of the Prayer Team.

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Furniture Ministries

2022 was a rewarding year for the Furniture Ministry. Pastor Mike and I worked together to find ways to best utilize the Ministries resources amidst increasing costs and other challenges. The Furniture Ministry delivered furniture and household items to 168 homes in Medicine Hat which is 21 more than last year.  It is our prayer that through these basic comforts of home, the recipients will feel valued & cared for by the love of Jesus.

We are thankful for God’s provision and the generosity of the community. During the year, our volunteers made 162 stops throughout the city to pick up gently used furniture and we are grateful to the many people who have stopped by the office to drop off smaller household items.

As in the previous year, we continued to see bed prices rise in 2022. To offset the rising costs, we came up with the “Trinkets & Treasures” sale which we held in April. We used items that had been donated to the Furniture Ministry that are not part of our usual inventory and set up a boutique/garage sale at the front office. The total sales were $1350.00 which was enough to purchase 4 Double & 1 Twin box spring & mattress sets as well as 10 pillows!

We are excited for the connection that the Ministry has with other community agencies and the opportunity in which that brings to connect others with Jesus! On a few occasions this year we had a housing worker contact us about service times as he had clients who wanted to attend Church and he recommended us because of his relationship with the Ministry.

During the summer, Pastor Jamie and a few other individuals were downtown handing out tracts and speaking to individuals on the street. They came across one gentleman that did not want to hear anything about Jesus, until he found out that the group was from Hillcrest. He was so happy to share that he had received furniture from the Ministry, and he could not say enough good things about it! He was much more receptive to hearing the Word and even took a tract!

The furniture Ministry operates 50 weeks out of the year, thanks to the faithfulness of more than a dozen regular & dedicated volunteers. This year we also added a new team which comes in on Mondays and cleans and sorts the donated items before the Tuesday team comes in to pack. We are so thankful for all that they do, from cleaning, unpacking, packing, moving lifting & praying with the clients.

Christy Wonnenberg

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