Giving God Room: Prayer Focus
Week #2.
God calls us to Love.
One of the great themes of the Bible is God’s love for us.
At the beginning of the Bible, God calls Abraham to follow him. The purpose of God’s call is not only for Abraham’s immediate family, but for all of the nations of the earth. The Lord tells Abraham “All families on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:3)
When Isaiah prophesied about the nation of Israel, he pictured all nations of the earth coming to Jerusalem to worship God. (Isaiah 66:23)
When Jesus came to live as “God among us” he explicitly told us about God’s love. He said, “For God so loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
God’s heart has always been a heart of love for the nations. God loves.
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NLT)
Is there room for God to move?
In the last blog post, I described how the process of “Giving God Room” began.
It all started with a report to Ministry Council about the need to upgrade our physical space. We have been in this space for 40 years. Some repairs and upgrades will need to be made at some point in the near future. As Council began to consider these realities, we also noted the growth in our weekly services. And, the conversation slowly turned to looking at what we wanted our worship space to look like in the future. How do we grow? Do we plant another church? Do we expand the current worship space?
We had all heard rumors the current worship space had been designed with the idea of expansion in mind. Supposedly, the rooms directly at the back of the worship space could be added to the current worship space with no major architectural changes. But, were the rumors true?
We engaged with our architect, Al Fritz. Al was part of the original church building 40 years ago as a young architect. Al was also our architect for the expansion of the current children’s and office spaces. We contacted Al and asked if our worship center could be expanded without major architectural changes. Al dug deep into his files and found the original building plans. The answer was “yes.” We had the option to expand if we felt the Lord wanted us to do it.
We asked Al to draw up some preliminary plans for us. We had no idea what it could look like. We needed more information. So we contracted Al Fritz to develop some options for us to consider.
“Ministering God’s Love to a Hurting World.”
We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (1 John 4:16, NLT)
The longest running vision phrase in our church is a simple statement:
Ministering God’s Love to a Hurting World.
This statement has summarized the purpose of Hillcrest for many decades. The idea of God’s love and the call to bring God’s love to a hurting world is a powerful biblical truth. The reason the church chose to expand in the 1980’s and the 2000’s was because of God’s powerful call to love the nations.
As we sense the working of God among us in 2026, and as we look at the practical call to take care of our building space, we must begin to pray into, and seek, God’s leading. How do we answer God’s call in 2026? How do we respond to what God is doing? How do we make more room for God to move among us?
Let’s pray for God to refresh us with His Unfailing Love.
For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” (Zephaniah 3:17, NLT)
In future weeks, I want to give you a bit more of the story and the process, but for now, I would like to close this blog with a call to prayer.
Please join Ministry Council, Pastors and Staff, in prayer this week as we ask God to reveal his heart of love for our city.
Here are the four things you can bring before the Lord this week.
1. Pray for your own heart.
Pray God would reveal his Love for you. Pray the Lord would minister to your own heart. Where you are hurting, let the Lord heal you with his Love.
2. Ask God to show us His heart of Love for our city.
Pray the Lord would expand your understanding of how much He loves the city of Medicine Hat and its people.
3. Ask the Lord to expand your heart for the city.
Pray the Lord will open up your heart to people in need. It’s tough. Our hearts feel overwhelmed with our day to day needs and problems. Yet, in the midst of our own lives, God has placed us in this city. How can we love people more?
4. Ask the Lord to expand our church’s heart for the city.
Pray the Lord would grip us as a church family with a new love for our city and its people. Pray the Lord would give us an expanded vision to see “His kingdom come and His will be done.”
In His Grip,
Pastor Steve Pahl