Men’s Ministry

MONDAYS

  • Bible Study at 6:30pm – with Randy Fox.  Currently meeting at A Place For Friends at 212 Edgewood Rd NW and is next door to Roscoe’s Pizza.
  • Men’s Connection & Trivia at 6:30pm –  with Gary Sager.  This group usually meets at Whiskey River in Palo but it is best to double check the bulletin for location information.

WEDNESDAYS

  • Bible Study at 6:30am – with Alan Crandall.  Meets at the Crandall home: 231 McKinsie Ct NE., Cedar Rapids, IA
  • Bible Study at 8:00am – with George Young and Gary Mills, Gathering Space @ Cedar Hills Church (every other week), includes work projects.
  • Bible Study at 6:30pm – with Pastor Kent, meeting at Cedar Hills in the Red Room

UMV 2025

UMV 2025

We are excited again to host the annual gathering of the Upper Mississippi Valley network. Our gathering will be June 13-14 at Cedar Hills Community Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

REGISTER NOW

(Hotel accommodations and special pricing reserved through May 14 – see below)

June 13-14, 2025
Cedar Hills Community Church

Friday, June 13 – Evangelism Workshop

If you ever wanted to explore ways to “think outside the box,” join us on Friday, June 13th to hear from Verlon Fosner. Verlon is the Founder and Director of the Dinner Church Collective (dinnerchurch.com) and is bringing the gospel to the people of Seattle and beyond with new approaches to reach small, medium and large communities.  You won’t want to miss this.  The first session will focus on the role of pastors and church staff, we’ll have dinner then the next session will focus on pastors, lay leaders and members and how they can make a difference in outreach.

  • 2:00pm-5:00pm – Training
    Seeing, Reaching, and Communicating with the unengaged” with Verlon Fosner, for pastors and staff.
  • 5:00pm – 30-minute break
  • 5:30pm – Meal
  • 6:30pm- 9:00pm – Training
    “Leadership and Outreach” with Verlon Fosner for all leaders.

Saturday, June 14 – Annual meeting

8:00am-9:00am – CHECK-IN/BREAKFAST

  • Check-in
  • Continental Breakfast, and Fellowship.
  • Registration Open

9:30am-10:15am – KEYNOTE SPEAKER

  • Greg Alderman, Alliance of Reformed Churches

9:00am-9:30am
WELCOME, WORSHIP, DEVOTIONS

10:30am-11:25am
BREAKOUT Session #1

  • A.I. and Ministry (Chuck Huckaby) Empowering Outreach, Operations, and Weekly Worship without Selling Your Soul!
    Discover how local churches in and outside the ARC are using AI tools to enhance their outreach, streamline office work, and multiply the effectiveness of their discipleship efforts. Get your AI questions answered!
  • Reaching the Next Generation (Steve Poole and Frankline Tshombe) Learn tools and practices to reach the next generation.
  • Evangelism for Non-Evangelists (Ben Ingebretson) Because engagement precedes evangelism, this session will focus on introducing a wide range of evangelism methods. Transferrable, field-tested approaches relevant for all churches.

11:30am-12:00am – Business Meeting

  • Alliance Update
  • Budget Review
  • Update on Board Members and Election
  • Five-year Review

12:00pm-1:00pm – Catered Lunch

1:00pm-1:50pm
BREAKOUT  Session #2

  • Dinner Church (Verlon Fosner and Scott Stephan) Discover a practical tool to reach your community and discuss its implementation with practitioners who have seen its fruitfulness.
  • Four Fields (Thomas Cellilli and E3 Partners) Explore an evangelism framework to engage in outreach with experienced leaders.
  • Discipleship Pathway (Ben Ingebretson) Look at models and methods for discipleship that will re-ignite the priority of discipleship.  A crisis in discipleship usually precedes a crisis in ministry – come discover why.

2:00pm-2:15pm – Closing Thoughts and Prayer

PRESENTERS

Ben Ingebretson is the Director of Church Multiplication and Vitality at CORAM DEO. He is husband to Karen, father to three adult kids and their families, and lives in Grand Rapids, MI. Since college and seminary days in Minnesota and Scotland (Bethel St. Paul and then University of Aberdeen) he has been a bi-vo church planter, pastor of a multiplying church and served as new church development director with two denominations: the Reformed Church in America  and the United Methodist church).

Over those years he has taken part in the development of over 200 new churches in rural, urban, suburban and multi-ethnic contexts. Ben has published several books: Parent Church Landmines, Multiplication Moves, and most recently Plant Like Jesus, the church planters devotional. In his down time he loves to tandem bike with his wife, hang out with his growing family and sail the Great Lakes!


Verlon Fosner
is the Director of Dinner Church Collective. Verlon and Melodee Fosner have been in church leadership for 44 years in Seattle, Washington. After several years in their tenure as lead pastors the church went into decline and they faced a decision: move to the suburbs or become an urban church. After much prayer, the leadership felt called to not only stay, but to dive further into the urban neighborhoods of Seattle.

What began as a single urban church plant quickly grew into a multi-site Dinner Church, and then expanded into a national Dinner Church Network. Then in 2016, Verlon and Melodee joined the Fresh Expressions team to lead the Dinner Church Collective.


Greg Alderman
serves as the Executive Director for the Alliance of Reformed Churches. Greg was born and raised in Southern California and is a lifelong Dodgers fan. He received his BA from UCLA and M. Div from Fuller Theological Seminary. Prior to joining the staff at the Alliance, Greg served for 8.5 years as Lead Pastor at Centerpoint Church in Sioux Center, IA and 15.5 years as Senior Pastor at Christ Community in Carmichael, CA. After his time serving at Christ Community, Greg founded a non-profit, One Voice Board, in July 2022 to help churches and other non-profits in board governance at no cost.

Since 2022, Greg has served as an interim pastor at Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church and then at First Reformed Church in Orange City, IA. Greg lives in Denton, TX with his wife Veronica. Together, they have four adult children and four grandchildren.

OTHER PRESENTERS

  • Ron Fischer, UMV Network Leader
  • Kent Landhuis, Pastor of Teaching & Leadership, Cedar Hills Community
  • Steve Poole – Pastor of Youth & Young Adults, Cedar Hills Community
  • Frankline Tshombe, Director of Children’s Church, Cedar Hills Community
  • Scott Stephan, Senior Pastor, CrossView Church
  • Thomas Cellilli, Lead Pastor, New Life Community, IA
  • Chuck Huckaby, Lead Pastor, First Reformed Fulton
  • Leah Carolan, Worship Pastor, Cedar Hills Community

RSVP NOW

HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS

We have reserved a block of 10 rooms at Tru by Hilton Hotel, which is a short drive from the church. The group rate is $135.
Check-in is at 3 pm Friday.  Check-out is at 11 am Saturday.
This block will be available until May 14th at 12am.

Women’s Ministry – Thursday Throwdown

WOMEN’S MINISTRY IS HEADED TO THURSDAY THROWDOWN

Thursday Throwdown @ Koru Aronia Berry Farm (1685 U Ave, Homestead, IA)  – Thursday, May 29, 5:00pm-9:00pm. Join us at Thursday Throwdown with Bryce Janey Duo at Koru.

Typically, there is a food truck and drinks for purchase.  It will be a fun night of live music and fellowship in a beautiful setting. Bring a chair, we typically sit in the grass area.

As we get closer, we will coordinate carpools.

Men’s Connection


Monday, May 5 will be at Whiskey River in Palo.

MONDAY MEN’S CONNECTION – All men are invited Mondays at 6pm to for drinks and trivia.  The group rotates between different area bars and pubs.  Check the weekly bulletin for the most updated location!  Contact Gary Sager for details.

 

Graduate Recognition


GRADUATE RECOGNITION SUNDAY – 
Sunday, May 18 we will recognize all of our high school, degree, college (and beyond!) graduates with a special presentation.

If you are celebrating a graduation this year, please submit your information online by Sunday, May 11 to be recognized at our celebration. There will be cake!

COMPLETE THE INFO FORM – Due May 11

Matthew 25 Transform Week

Monday, June 23 – Friday, June 27.  Our group from Cedar Hills will work in two teams (Mon-Fri). You can join us one or more of those days as you are available.

No skills are required; you can join us one or more of days as you are available.

Register using the form on the Matthew 25 website. Indicate “CHCC” for the organization. After completing the registration, contact Wayne Josifek and let him know which days you signed up for, this will help plan our projects.

Contact Wayne with questions also: 319-632-1343 or [email protected]

All Church Picnic

PICNIC AT CHERRY HILL PARK –  Sunday,  May 18 will be our Annual All-Church picnic at 5:30pm at Cherry Hill Park.

Hamburgers, hotdogs and drinks will be provided.

Bring a side or dessert to share and your favorite lawn chairs or picnic blanket. There will be chairs and tables available also. Plan for a bags tournament!

We will be celebrating our High School and College Graduates in services earlier that day, so will have extra cake for the picnic as well.

Worship Jam 2025 – Signup

RSVP NOW

At the 11am Easter worship service, we love to fill the stage with all our worship team members, family members, and anyone who loves to sing or play an instrument! Kids included!

Practice for the 2025 Easter Worship Jam is Monday, April 14 at 6:30pm in the Worship Center.

Please kindly RSVP for the jam so we can prepare music and space on stage for you!

The Worship Jams are a safe place to play your instrument or sing without the worry of being plugged into the system. A great place to also get to know our worship team members, what its like to be on a team, and a starting point to joining a team.

RSVP NOW (due Sunday, April 13)

Maundy Thursday at Cedar Hills

MIDWEEK SERVICES – On Wednesday nights until Easter (except for the week of Maundy Thursday) we have midweek worship services at 6:30pm.  These will run approximately 30 minutes with a meal beforehand.   There is also a meal served prior to the service 5:15-6:15pm.  Please kindly RSVP weekly to the office or on the bulletin response if you plan to attend the meal.

MAUNDY THURSDAY – Thursday, April 17 at 6:30pm we will meet for worship to look at the last hours of Jesus’ life, worship and celebrate the Last Supper by taking communion.  This service will run approximately 40 minutes. Dinner served prior 5:15-6:16pm.  RSVP on the bulletin response.

EASTER WORSHIP – Sunday, April 20 at 8:30am & 11am.  The 8:30am service will feature the traditional Easter hymns with choir and organ. The 11am service is modern worship.  There will be no Sunday classes on Easter Sunday.  Special kids’ Easter activities at 9:45am (including an egg hunt!)

Love. Belong. Serve.