All posts by Cedar Hills Community Church

Cedar Chips, Family and Children Ministry, Journey

November Journey Update

Over the year of 2017, the Journey Student Ministry has watched God grow and move our youth group. To kick off the year,  we redecorated our ministry room to reflect the call God has on our ministry to reach those far from Him. Here are some numbers that show the impact God has had on us and we have had on the community.

  • Hundreds of prayer requests prayed for and answered.
  • Hundreds of friends prayed for about faith.
  • Over 50 individual gospel conversations.
  • Over 100 students attend an outreach night at SkyZone.
  • All six of our student leaders have consistently shared their faith and led testimony times.
  • Student leaders lead four outreach days in our community.
  • We’ve had most students attending Journey in the last six years.
  • Doubled our registration for the Lead The Cause Evangelism training event.

God is continuing to move in our student ministry and we are excited to see what happens in 2018!
Jeremy Van Genderen
Director of Youth & Young Adults

Cedar Chips, News, Uncategorized

State of the Church

Sailing Through the Storm

People are afraid that the church is losing influence – or worse, has already lost all of our influence. We’ve lost our voice in the public square and our ability to shape values. We’ve lost our own children. I’ve heard people say, “We are in a storm” and it is not just a sprinkle or even a passing thunderstorm – it is a hurricane.

Not every storm is created by problems ‘out there.’ Some storms are caused by the mess  that comes from our own brokenness. These storms threaten the church from within. If the state of the church is that we are threatened by the storms from inside and outside, what do we do about it? The book, The Disappearing Church by Mark Sayers suggests that in these stormy days, the
church-and the world-needs Christians who thrive in a hostile environment by finding  deeper intimacy with God. When storms blow, we trust in the One who calms the storms. There is another book that has a lot to say about this:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; He lifts His voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” (Psalm 46:1-7).

Resilience in a time of storm comes when we know the one who is our strong shelter, the God who is our fortress. The God who makes the sunshine and the rain. The God who calms the storms. Jesus said,

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love” (John 15:9).

Abiding with Jesus is the best place to be when the strong winds blow and the rain beats down. It is the place we discover the love of God.

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (Psalm 46:10-11).

The state of the church is in need of a shelter in the time of storm, and we have a shelter. As we develop this resilience we discover that we actually survive the storm and that we really do have something to offer to the world. We can offer the world the shelter that they so desperately need.

We do not bear the turbulence of storms alone, we face them together with God as our refuge and strength, our ever-present help, our mighty fortress.

Kent Landhuis
Pastor of Preaching & Leadership

News

Dave Ramsey Preview – Live Event

Join Cedar Hills for a FREE live stream of Dave Ramsey’s Smart Money event.  Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 7pm.  Sign up online here.

Over the last 25 years, millions of lives have been changed through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. This November, Dave will be live streaming his Smart Money event to churches and Financial Peace University classes across the country. We are excited to announce that we will be a host site for this event. The best part? It’s absolutely free for you to attend!

Dave and Rachel Cruze will take the stage on November 7 in Phoenix, and we will stream the event in real time. We’d love for you to join us and learn the steps you and your family can take to live like no one else. Sign up today to be a part of this amazing event.

If you need childcare, please let the office know so we can plan accordingly.

We look forward to seeing you in November!

Family and Children Ministry, Job, News, Uncategorized

Job Opening – Director of Family and Children Ministry

Director of Family & Children Ministry

Family & Children Ministry

Cedar Hills has a opening for a Director of Family and Children ministry! If you or anyone you know might be interested, send them here: www.cedarhillscr.org/jobs for full job description and application details.

Please pray for this process and we accept applicants and discern who God is calling to fill this position.

Bright Spot, Cedar Chips

Bright Spot – CRU

Image result for icon cru.orgOur congregation supports the work of CRU, which is a campus ministry dedicated to reaching students with the good news of Jesus as Savior and Lord. Katie Smith, our CRU missionary at the University of Iowa, shared that they reached over 1,000 students through an outreach event last week called “The Maze.”

Thanks for your support, celebrate their impact, and keep praying for the students Katie is reaching at Iowa and Kirkwood this fall!

from www.cru.org:

“Cru is a caring community passionate about connecting people to Jesus Christ. Our purpose is helping to fulfill the Great Commission in the power of the Holy Spirit by winning people to faith in Jesus Christ, building them in their faith and sending them to win and build others and helping the body of Christ to do evangelism and discipleship through a variety of creative ways. We are committed to the centrality of the cross, the truth of the Word, the power of the Holy Spirit and the global scope of the Great Commission. Cru offers spiritual guidance, resources and programs tailored for people from all cultures in every walk of life through many diverse outreaches.”

Cedar Chips

Growing in Prayer

One of the ways to grow in your prayer life is learning from other practices of prayer. Regardless of the practice of prayer you choose, a good place to start is by asking the Lord to birth inside of you a desire to spend time with Him. The purpose of spending time alone with God is to develop intimacy with Him, secure our orders for the day, and to come alongside the things that are the closest to His heart.

Time not scheduled to be alone with God in prayer or any other discipline will be filled with other things in life. We must make time to pray, even schedule it on our calendars like every other important meeting in our life. Spending regular time in prayer will radically deepen our personal lives as disciples, transform our priorities, renew our commitment to service, and increase our awareness of how involved God really is in our lives.

There is considerable variety in prayer and nearly as many different ways to pray as there are people to pray. Some people  write out their prayers; others prefer more spontaneous praying. Some people pray silently; others pray loud. Some people like praying alone; others like praying in groups like their cells. While it’s true that most new prayer disciplines feel uncomfortable at first, you do grow into them if you stay with them, and often the fruit results in a new and fresh encounter with God.

Because different prayer formats are helpful to different people, refusing to try new ways to pray may mean that you never discover a format that enhances your relationship with God. Visit www.discipleshiptools.org and look at the Disciplines of Prayer for new ways to grow in your prayer life.

J.R. Henderson
Pastor of Spiritual Formation
Isaiah 56:7

Cedar Chips

Journey – October 2017 Cedar Chips

This year the Journey student ministry is dwelling in the Word of God by reading through the parables of Jesus. Each week we pick a different parable and seek to understand what God is speaking to us through this story. We have also encouraged our students to engage in God’s Word by giving them five passages to read and respond to each week. Our hope is that each student will grow in their knowledge and application of the word of God during this year. Please also pray for our Fall Retreat coming up Nov. 10-12. If you know of any student in 6th -12th grade who would like to join us, please let me know.

Jeremy Van Genderen
Director of Youth & Young Adults