Kings Kids

In twenty-twenty-three, we were once again so thankful to have an amazing children’s choir program with incredible volunteer leadership. Between myself (Pastor Wade), Alexis, and Michelle we were able to offer Sheila Reinheller, Eva (Sheila’s granddaughter) and their team the support they needed to offer a successful year of kids choir.

We are incredibly blessed and grateful for Hillcrest to be able to offer this type of program because of volunteer leaders. A lot of parents stepped up and supported the crew in new ways including supervision, administration, organization and serving snacks. We cannot do this without them!

Our goal with the children’s choir is to teach kids from a young age how important it is to worship; to give thanks to God in all circumstances. We want the times that the kids are involved to be more than a performance or a special number, but to be a time of young believers leading our church in a time of worship! We believe that there are life-long lessons being learned, and that these kids will be the future worship leaders in our church. Our desire is that they learn just how amazing God is, and who they are in Him.

The Kings Kids often are involved in special Sundays like Palm Sunday, Easter, and Mother’s Day. They will spend many weeks leading up to these Sundays preparing songs to encourage and lead the congregation with. But, the main event for the Kings Kids was the annual Christmas play. With weeks and weeks of preparation of sets/stage design, technical components, choreography, memorized lines and musical practice over 40 kids performed the musical “Christmas Express”, in which a no nonsense business man learns the true meaning of Christmas. This took place in mid December with hundreds of people experiencing the passion of the children and the message of Jesus over two nights. There were cookies and hot chocolate to follow and proud parents, excited kids, families and the community had an amazing time of fellowship so fitting for the season.

Please continue to pray and support these future leaders. I am so excited to see what God has in store for them!

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Youth Worship

What an awesome year of worship at youth group!

We continued on with our format of being more indirectly involved as staff and allowing volunteers to lead and facilitate the times of worship at youth. Of course we as staff have responsibilities, but it’s more in a support role. I help with the administrative side of things like; making sure resources are there for preparation, scheduling and on-boarding band members, and maintaining the equipment. I also help, guide and mentor the worship leaders and musicians. Levi is there each Tuesday helping with the technical needs and key volunteers like Denver Knodel and Karalee Friesen get to lead the rehearsals, prayers times, and times of worship. They have grown so much and often will give a “mini-sermon” (the youth call it) in which they will do some teaching during worship time about what God is showing them, or some insight into one of the songs.

We have 2 full-ish worship teams on rotation that are led one by Denver, and one by Karalee. There have been some awesome new volunteers that have joined this year. They are in the older youth to young adult age range. It has been an amazing year of growth where both the youth and the band leading get to grow and learn about what it means to worship the one true God. There is a new depth! It is not just “let’s sing our three songs and move on”, but experiencing the things of God in a new way. The worship leaders are leading the youth into the spirit of worship and the youth are responding.

There are a few more special times of worship throughout the year including times of worship at the weekend youth retreat and baptism night. One young girl was baptized after she heard God speak to her through one of the worship songs at the youth retreat. So cool!

We would love to get more young people involved in worship! It is an awesome chance to serve and grow together, to learn some skills, and most importantly to give God the glory that He deserves.

If you know of any young people who might like to get involved, let me know!

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Sunday Mornings

Twenty-twenty-three was a year of gaining momentum, growing in our freedom in worship, and some very sweet moments that we experienced worshipping our good God.

God’s faithfulness and provision was so evident through 2023. I mentioned last year that some key worship leaders had moved on to other opportunities and that this left us with some room for new people to step up and to grow into new roles. And they sure did! As Hillcrest continues to grow and change into what God has for us, that includes new people coming to us with a desire to serve Him and the church. Some of these people come from other churches in the area, or from other cities, and some are new to church in general. I have been so encouraged to meet new people to the church who have a desire to lead God’s people in worship.

We are almost always in need of worship leaders and musicians, and God has provided in such an amazing way! As I look back I remember our team specifically praying for this need, God answering, and then being able to tell the new volunteer that they were an answered prayer. And then in turn have that new volunteer tell me that this opportunity was actually an answered prayer for them. So cool!

We continue to meet on Thursday evenings for rehearsal, including prayer, a book study and discussion. Thursday nights are a favourite part of my job. I love the small group feel of our bands. I love praying and sharing together. I love teaching and learning about worship together. And I love making music and worshipping God. We continue to grow and learn in our understanding of what worshipping in Spirit and Truth looks like through book studies. This past year we continued in the book “Keys to Becoming an Effective Worship Leader” by Tom Kraeuter. Some interesting topics as of late have been; conflict resolution, personality types, and loyalty to leadership.

One significant new thing to us in this past year was developing a dedicated prayer team for the worship arts/tech ministry under the guidance of Pastor Steve. Once a month we will send out on email to our prayer team about up and coming challenges and items of thanksgiving. It is so amazing to know that we are covered in prayer on a regular basis.

Our goal remains to use music and technology to lead and facilitate an atmosphere of attention to and affection for God.

Thank you so so much for your prayers as we do our best to continue to chase after what God has for us. If you’d like more info on anything worship related or would like to get involved, don’t hesitate to reach out.

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