PICNIC IN THE PARK – Sunday, May 16, starting at 6 PM, you are invited to a picnic at Cherry Hill Park. Cedar Hills will be providing hot dogs and hamburgers and leading some group games after the picnic. Click here to RSVP with the number of children and adults coming from your family and plan to bring a side or dessert to contribute to the picnic spread.
In light of COVID-19, we are convinced and convicted more than ever the need to be the church beyond the walls of our physical church building. While our building may be a bit quieter as we wait out the social-distancing rules, our roles as the hands and feet of Jesus increases that much more.
A couple of unique and powerful opportunities for us to continue as a church:
We anticipate an increasing need for food in the next few weeks. It is our desire to keep the pantry open and switching over to a ‘drive-by’ solution where pantry visitors stay in their cars and we go out to meet them and bring the groceries to them. This means we need the help of more able bodies, able to carry groceries (or cart them) to and from the pantry to the front doors. If you are off work due to the virus or have extra time on your hands, this is a perfect opportunity! If you are able to help, please email pantry leader Darlene DeVries.
Pantry Hours: Mondays 5-6pm, Wednesdays 10am-12pm, Fridays 10am-12pm
We’ll be both uploading pre-recorded content and streaming our worship services online, and not physically meeting onsite for worship beginning immediately. Sundays will be live at 11am on Facebook. Our Wednesday Lenten messages will be pre-recorded and released on Wednesdays with announcements and encouragement! As part of our regular worship, we encourage you to give online via the app or website, or to take time to mail a check. Please continue to support the ministry of our church!
If you are unable to catch the live feeds, we post all our sermons online. They can be accessed in iTunes, Buzzsprout, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartradio, and on the website. (There is also a button in the Cedar Hills App – get the app!)
We encourage you to keep worshipping with us on a regular schedule, and taking “Watch Party” pictures of your family or group as you join together to listen/watch online, submitting them in the ‘comments’ of the video feeds.
There are couple of Facebook groups we want to draw your attention to that you might like to join. We believe within these groups we can support each other, hear of needs, and respond from what we have! Toilet paper, childcare, meals delivered, etc. We are especially excited about how we can respond to needs as they arise.
The children ages 3 to 5th grade have been working for weeks on a song they planned to sing Palm Sunday. We would like to collect videos of your child singing along with the song to create a video montage. The recording and lyrics are here. When completed, send your video recording to Leah Carolan by March 29 (email, dropbox, ishare… whichever way you prefer!)
Pastor Steve has created a YouTube channel for the Journey Youth. He’ll also be touching base with the youth via texts and email.
If your small group decides to forgo physical meetings, consider setting a time once a week where you will all login together for a Zoom meeting or other video meeting app. Or begin a Marco Polo group and stay in touch via video messages with encouragement, prayer support and community.
Please call your friends. Check on your neighbors. Connect with those who live alone and let them know they are not alone. Respond to needs you hear as best you can! (Or share them with us in the Facebook groups.). We need each other.
Continue to pray. Join our prayer chain to lift up others in prayer. Pray that God would help our lights to shine brightly as we minister to those around us.
Facebook – @cedarhillscommunitychurch
Instagram – @cedarhillscr
Twitter – @cedarhillscr
We all have a public life, a private life, and a secret life. Authentic faith and sanctification, becoming more Christ-like, is about integrating all three of these lives. Many of us, myself included, have been in a place where all three lives are at odds with one another. Years ago, the thought of allowing someone to move in with me would have caused great distress. A roommate would have seen clearly that my private life was not consistent with my public life.
As I have been drawn towards Christ, my three lives have become more aligned. This leaves more room for gratitude and less scrambling to cover up the messiness that exists. This allows me to invite people into my home as needed, for a dinner, or for a month’s stay. This year we’ve hosted two families (each having two or three kids) into our home, for a month or more.
This is not a result of some great “cleaning up” of my messiness. Perhaps the opposite, it’s that I’m more willing to expose my messiness (my sin struggles) in my public life. Because of this, I’ve allowed brothers and sisters in Christ to speak the healing Gospel into my mess. Hopefully, the families that have lived with us (and have seen my private life in my home) are less than
shocked that I’m a mess.
Lindsey Ungs
Connection and Communication Architect
There are numerous ways to meet with your missional community, no matter what the age of your
kids. The following schedule is just one way to make it work for couples with kids. This particular group meets every Thursday. The first Thursday all the wives gather at one of the homes or at a coffee shop, while the husbands watch the kids in their own homes. The next week all the husbands meet, while the wives watch the kids at home.
The third Thursday, all the families get together, with all their kids in tow. This is a free-for-all, with kids eating popsicles in the backyard or watching a movie in the basement while the adults talk.
The last Thursday of the month, families get baby sitters and the couples go out for a date night, all together.
This schedule flexes as needed. There are occasional sick kids, late work meetings, and other variables that might change a specific Thursday.
However, the parents and kids so look forward to being with each other that they often see each other more than once a week. Often, there are group text messages, inside jokes, and weekend getaways together. There are many ways to make a missional community work with your family.
Lindsey Ungs
Connection and Communication Architect
The idea that the pastor of the church should intimately know everyone, might scare some people and might be an expectation of others. Either way, if the local church only had ten people in it, that would be appropriate. But we have hundreds at Cedar Hills. So how can one be truly known or feel a sense of belonging?
Remaining anonymous by blending in to the hundreds of brothers and sisters on Sunday, is a choice. If you choose to go to Sunday service and never get to know anyone beyond a surface level, you will not be known or feel belonging, especially during times of crisis.
In churches all across America people are showing up on Sunday and remaining anonymous so they never have to be vulnerable. So no one knows if they don’t show up or are struggling with a difficulty.
Being known, finding belonging, becoming discipled (also known as becoming more Christlike) requires vulnerability. Missional Communities are made up of people willing to be known, to be discipled, and to be vulnerable. Consequently, they are your support system when the next crisis occurs.
Lindsey Ungs
Connection and Communication Architect
We started a missional community (MC) four years ago with friends. We got the idea from our pastor that we should consider meeting regularly with others for the purpose of being discipled.
We were friends with the other couple, but not best friends. We had been getting together infrequently, prior to starting the MC. The following is what our evening looks like, when we meet every other Thursday.
We take turns coming to each other’s homes. The host cooks a meal for all of us and we join up around 5:30 pm to eat dinner together. After dinner, the gals sit and talk or go for a walk. The guys do the same around the pool table or in the backyard. The kids roam and play. After a while, we put the kids to bed. Sometimes we put a kid
in the basement bed or the laundry room (in a pack-n-play). We make the space as needed.
Then the four of us head to the living room to have some dessert and coffee. We take time to go over the chapter we are reading or the video we are watching. We share prayer requests, which is an essential way to share in each other’s lives. We’ve been through many ups and downs together including starting new businesses, miscarriages, work promotions, and deaths of family and friends.
This MC has been a core reason that I have moved forward in spiritual maturity. Becoming more Christ-like (than we once were) is the goal for our MC and the MC has been one of the best ways to see this come to fruition.
Lindsey Ungs
Connection and Communication Architect
As the Connection and Communication Architect at Cedar Hills, my role is to equip leaders to make disciples through missional communities.
My primary role is to share my vision to what the ministry will become and to pour the foundation of this work alongside the leaders.
Once a solid foundation is poured, the leaders will carry out the work of the ministry. My role will transition to equipping those leaders as they move forward in making disciples through missional communities. We had our first ministry team meeting in June.
Next up – August 18 – Fall Kick-off!
Lindsey Ungs
Connection and Communication Architect
Contact Lindsey