CHURCH UPDATE:

While our live worship services are temporarily suspended, we invite you to enjoy our online content for adults, youth and children available at hillcountry.life. Additionally, we have just launched two new initiatives that we’d like everyone to consider... Hill Country at Home and Hill Country Outdoors. For more information about these new ministries, you can watch the video below or read this note from Pastor Bryan.

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Hey there Hill Country family...

I have some really exciting news for you! We have been pleased with our ability to send quality instruction in God’s Word to your home (for adults, youth and children). However, there have been two dynamics of church ministry that have been missing. The first is corporate worship –being together with other Christians to sing and praise our Lord. And the second is fellowship – just hanging out with other Christian brothers and sisters in Christ.

As our leadership have brainstormed how to best accomplish this sense of corporate worship and biblical community, we’ve come up with two ways to make these things a reality. The first we’re calling Hill Country at Home. The other will be a gathering known as Hill Country Outdoors. Let me take a minute to explain these two ministries to you.

Hill Country at Home

First of all, there’s Hill Country at Home. Most of our people have been watching the Sunday sermons on their own, or just with their family. But why not gather together with a handful of close friends in your home? We can do this and stay within the prescribed guidelines by keeping the numbers to a minimum, and even maintaining social distancing. Having dialogues with our people, we’ve learned that most families have a handful of close friends they gather with on occasion – whether it’s neighbors, co-workers, extended family, small group members or other friends.

So why not join together on Sunday morning (or any time during the week) for worship, prayer, viewing the message, and discussing the sermon briefly afterwards? Instead of meeting in two locations with a large number of adults on Sunday morning, we can meet in multiple locations with a smaller handful of people at each location. It’s still the body of Christ, just spread out across our city – all worshipping the Lord and staying in community with people within our church family. Many of our people are already doing this. Some are meeting for breakfast together, and then tuning into hill country online for a time of worship and watching the sermon. Others are gathering on Sunday evenings or during the week... enjoying a meal and fellowship together, singing praise songs, watching the sermon, and then having a group discussion on how to apply the message using our provided Sermon Discussion Guide. The feedback we’ve received from these individuals has been overwhelmingly positive.

So let me encourage you to think of a few people you’re already spending time with... and invite them over to experience Hill Country at Home. You’ll enjoy a sense of community similar to what we had when we were meeting live on Sunday mornings, and you’ll find the experience of worship to be more powerful than simply singing on your own.

Hill Country Outdoors

In the book of Acts, it says the believers met from house to house, but also in the temple courts. They recognized that there’s a need for the body of Christ to meet in homes, but also to come together as a larger group... for worship and a greater sense of community and belonging. And that’s why beginning on August 16, at 7 pm, we will be hosting what we’re calling Hill Country Outdoors.

God has blessed us with 27 acres where we can meet together and spread out on our property. This will provide a safe place for the body of Christ to gather for worship, fun and fellowship. We’ll have a large tent with fans and each family can bring their own lawn chairs and spread out across the property. The advantage to being outdoors is that it’s easy to wear masks and maintain social distance outside.

The plan is to spend some time visiting with our brothers and sisters in Christ and singing worship songs together. And then, once that time is over, we’ll provide an opportunity for families and individuals who wish to stick around longer, to continue to visit together as the sun sets and things cool off. This will be a kind of “after party” hangout, with live music in the background and fun, safe activities for the family. Hill Country Outdoors is really an opportunity for the whole church to come together as one.

So we’re excited to offer these two new ministry opportunities to our church body. We believe that regardless of the COVID virus, the church does not have to stop being the church. God has provided us with the means to experience corporate worship rather than just individual worship, and also to get together with both close friends in our homes and the family of believers here on our property this Fall.

So I hope you’ll prayerfully consider joining us for Hill Country at Home and Hill Country Outdoors.