Building Inroads to the Community

September 9, 2012 will hopefully go down as a day to remember in the life of Heartland Community Church. It was a brisk and cool morning as volunteers started arriving before 7am to set up some last minute things to prepare for our big celebration. The music equipment took a little over an hour to set up on the flat bed truck. As people drove by slowly peering out their windows to try and see what was going on, we were setting up chairs for the outdoor worship experience in the parking lot just outside the walls where we normally worshiped as a community. The sun was bright and as I looked over the congregation saw most holding up the bulletin to block the sun. But the smiles of joy were evident. The worship team kicked off with some of our favorites; My Redeemer lives and Days of Elijah were among them. I gave the message looking at the history of the church from Acts 3 and 4, focusing on the idea that we cannot stop the message of Jesus from being shared even tying in the history of Heartland. We concluded the experience with the 90 in attendance hand in hand, in a big united circle. Things were far from over. After this we set up all the lawn games including bags, ladder golf, and some minute to win it games. We had a table set up for crafts and face painting. The best part is the countless number of children and adults that took part. We had a bunch of tables for people to eat the gigantic amount of food from the cookout, hotdogs, hamburgers, potato salad, beans and an endless supply of desserts. Inside the church building we had two projectors displaying the Bears vs Colts. Many people came, many faces I did not know but were having fun with the people who invited them. I met more people in a five-hour period than in the weeks previous. There were even people stopping by from other congregations in the community to have some fun. Pastor Mike even came by from the nearby United Methodist congregation. Over the 2 months I have been Pastor at Heartland we have had an amazing presence of God with us. Uniting the congregation together, building the morale of each one. But it seemed like it was something that was building up in us to be more a part of the community that we lived in. It was already seen in our midweek ministries to families, but knew that God had bigger plans. This is just the first part of building inroads to our community, as we build their trust and share the message of the Gospel.