Heartland Fellowship

Here are some things that have happened and are going to happen at Heartland.

• Exploring the Fellowship group has been meeting to discover the basics of what it means to be a follower of Christ. We are going to wrap it up in a few weeks.


• Going Public youth theme concluded two weeks ago with eight youth professing the faith publicly in church.


• Our youth are still get together on Sunday nights and in the next couple of months we will be having Doubt Night. Everyone has hard questions - we are just reluctant to bring them up. Doubt Night is a free for all, any questions about any topic is welcome.


• We have been working within the letter to the Ephesians as we discover aspects of the New Humanity. This has been an rich time of discovery for us all as we discover and remember what being made new in Christ is about.


• We have three new Council members begin their roles as elder or deacon. We were trememdously blessed by the outgoing council members who gave leadership to the church through some challenging times.


• We are going to go on a retreat for Council members to pray, discern and plan for the next year of ministry.


• We are meeting new friends almost every week who are coming to checkout or receive from our gatherings.


• On May 19th, I am leaving for CTS for two courses (hermenutics and reformed theology). I will be gone for 2 weeks. They said these will be audit classes, but the amount of reading and work in preparation are more than just audit requirements.


• Matt and I are planning a site redesign for heartland fellowship. He has some nutty ideas. We're also going to be moving hosts to dreamhost.
  

Tags: Heartland Fellowship, Chilliwack

Church: Instrumental vs. Incarnational

There are two dominate ways to see church. Instrumental or Incarnational. The instrumental church asks, "What are we doing and are we doing it well?" The incarnation church asks, "Who are we becoming and are we more like Christ?"

It's not an either/or. The church needs both, but the question is what is the heart of the church? Is it to build a big ministry or is it to become more loving? Which is first? This is the question the church needs to answer.

You can usually tell how people have answered by looking at their calendars. If the calendar has lots of names of committees or programs, they are bent toward instrumental. If their calendar has people's names and hang out times, they lean more towards incarnational. What's yours look like?

Expert: Pastor's Wives Often Struggle

Here is an article on the toughest job on the planet:

... They can feel trapped, she said, by unrealistic expectations "to live a certain way, to dress a certain way, for their children to behave a certain way."

And ministers' wives often find themselves handling more jobs than they expected to take on, said Becky Hunter, current president of the Global Pastors Wives Network.

"You're not really hired, and yet there is some expectation in most church settings that the pastor's wife comes along in a package deal," Hunter said.

Too often, ministers and their wives are reluctant to seek emotional help from members of their congregations because they're looked up to as leaders, said Lois Evans, a former president of the Global Pastors Wives Network. They can become isolated, lonely and depressed. ...

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