Unexpected Blessings

Just FYI, every friend of ours who has planted a church has given us a few pieces of information and advice that are similar. 

• It will be difficult
• It will be the best time of your life
• It will stress you out
• You will find MANY unexpected blessings
• God will meet your needs to the exact dollar at times.
• God will make you wait on Him.
• It’s God’s church not yours.

Soooo, all are right or are proving to be right. But this last couple of  weeks has been really special for me.

As a background, you should know that it was a frustrating and stressful time.  People who we hoped would be involved were bowing out.  People who we thought might financially contribute to our church backed down.  A large church that we have a long relationship with that had made many statements about supporting us in the past, decided to stop supporting as many church plants and let us know that they “might” be able to give a “one time” gift, but basically not to expect much, if anything.

This was a real bummer to us.  Me especially.  It hurt. 

As I was frustrated with this decision and situation, look what happened.

A young, unemployed friend that I had met only a couple of times in the area who wants to be on our launch team, called me to ask specifically if he could meet up so that he could give his first tithe to us.  A few friends and family, a couple of whom we haven’t seen or talked to in years came through with thousands of dollars.  A young couple decided to support Brandon’s salary fund in a large way.  A small church plant where the pastors are pulling a very meager salary let us know that they took a collection for us. A church planter across the country shot a gift into our paypal account when he got our support letter. 

Let me tell you what I am learning and starting to believe based on these recent blessings and unselfish, cheerful giving and generosity.  It’s a lesson that is one of those, “let those who have ears to hear it” messages where you don’t get it until God gives you the situation and perception that allows you to truly hear and echo of what He hears and see a sliver of what He sees.  It’s a kingdom perspective that I have never had the privilege to see until now.  It’s based on what the Bible clues us in on when Mark and Luke talk about Jesus’s flip’d Kingdom, and the economy of widows and mites. 

I truly and honestly believe that the gifts and generosity that we are seeing will be more of a blessing to Hillside Church, the people of our community, and the Kingdom, even though it may be a lower dollar amount, than the thousands of dollars that the large church could have given.  Somehow, in yet to be uncovered ways, these gifts will impact lives because of the heart and graciousness of the people who have given them.  Though the dollar amount is less, the blessing will be larger.  Though it won’t buy as many things, it will go further.

I have never seen things in this way before, but these gifts, some large and some small, are investments in the lives of others.  They are far more sacred to us, and I believe to God because of where they are from, and what they will be used for.

Because of this, our commitment at Hillside is even stronger than before.  We will use these gifts to see changed lives.  We will account and answer for every dollar spent.  We will see our jobs as Pastors here as a sacred post provided by the most kind and generous friends and family that anyone could ask for. 

I hope that for those of you who might read this.  It might inspire you to consider what your gift might mean to the Kingdom, to the community and to Hillside Church.  We still have a great need, and a wide open mission field.  If you wish to make a gift to our seedling of a Church, please feel free to do so:

You can give through paypal by entering our email address giving@thehillsidechurch.com as the recipient, or by mailing a gift directly to us at:

Hillside Church, 6529 36th St NE. Marysville WA 98270.

Call anytime if you need more information on how we handle gifts and finances.  425-835-3523

Needs List

Several of you have asked us what our needs are and if there is anything you can help with.  Here is a quick list of some of our current needs as we prepare to launch Hillside Church.

 

Thank you so much for being interested in our needs. In order for Hillside Church to get off to a successful launch, we will need to have the following things in place. (Actually, there are hundreds of other things that we will need, these are some of the larger, big ticket items that we will need to acquire early on that we are asking supportive friends, family and churches to help provide.) Several of the needs like Printer Ink and Paper are obviously constant needs.

Needs

A New Desktop Computer with a Large Hard-drive to be our “Homebase Church Computer” that can hold all publishing, video and graphics stuff.

A place to store the church trailer (nearby)

A person or vehicle to tow the church trailer on a weekly basis.

 

Church Supply Needs

Pens with Church Name/Address

 

Sound and Video System

Amplification for a Sound System

Wireless Microphones

32 Channel Mixer

Video Projector

 

Office Supply

Printer Ink for HP OfficeJet 6500 Wireless

Printer/Copier Paper

Stamps/Postage

 

People Needs

Volunteers for Childrens Ministry

Photography and Video Help

Places to print mailers, signs, bulletins for a discount

Artists

Musicians (rock, bluegrass, strings etc)

A Screen Printer (that can print large signs, t-shirts etc)

 

Mike and Kim Family Needs

Financial support for Kim's Salary

A car (just a “get around town” type of beater)

Dental Costs

Eye Care Costs (glasses and contacts for the family)

 

Brandon Needs

Financial Support for Brandon's Salary

A Reliable Car

Meeting Coming up in January

Sunday, January 10th at 6pm, we will be having our first Launch Team Informational Meeting.  We want everyone to know that they are invited to show up and hang out with us.  We’ll eat dinner together and then have a short, NO PRESSURE presentation on the values and vision of Hillside Church.  It will be fun, informal, and hopefully extremely informational.

We will have child care for the kiddos and will feed the whole family.

The meeting is at 6529 36th St NE in  Marysville. If you’d like to be there, RSVP by emailing mike@thehillsidechurch.com or call us at 425-835-3523

If This is Your First Time Checking Out TheHillsideChurch.Com

If this is your first time checkino out our site, here is some quick info:

We will soon have a fully functional site up and running where you can view our progress and find more ways to get involved and stay informed.  

For the short term however, this site will be the place to look for updates on what we are doing and how things are coming with HillSide Church here in Snohomish County. 

If you would like more information on Joining Our Launch Team, or Contributing Financially, please click on the links at the top of the page.

Thanks for checking in.  If you have any questions please shoot an email to mike@thehillsidechurch.com

Why “Hillside Church?”

A lot of people have asked us why we like the name “Hillside Church.”  A great question with a fun answer…

 

When Jesus gave the sermon that ended up being possibly the most important and revolutionary teaching in history called “The Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew Chapters 5-7, He went up on the hillside and taught His disciples and the crowd.  Because Jesus had already been healing and teaching He was getting a reputation.  Due to what people were already hearing about him, the crowd that was following were not only His disciples, there were:

People who were sick who heard that Jesus was a healer.

People who had been dismissed by religious teachers in the past.

People who, because of their past, were told they would never find favor with God.

People who had big moral, religious and philosophical questions.

People who were skeptical of Jesus.

People who were dying to prove Him wrong.

Perhaps the words “sermon on the mount” sound too serene, and perhaps because some of these teachings have been repeated in ways in which we forget their original context, we fail too often to remember that these words of Jesus were a revolution that gave hope to people who had been told that God would never have interest in them.  This ragamuffin group on this hillside were hearing for the first time that God loved and wanted to bless them as much as those religious people, who Jesus pointed out, weren’t so perfect anyway.  They were told that even though the religious elite were judgmental, that they were called to love even their enemies!  They were told that even though they had imperfections that they were allowed to have a conversation with God through prayer.  They were told that though they were poor on earth, they might have riches in heaven.

This teaching was groundbreaking, revolutionary, it was bold and stood in the face of authority.  These were the same teachings that made people so angry at Him that they would eventually kill Him. 

When Jesus gave these teachings, it was a gift, and the people sitting on the Hillside that day were surprised by the gift and surprised by God. 

I am very confident that was have much in common with those people who sat on that hillside that day.  Some of us need the healing, physically, emotionally, mentally, in our lives, relationships, marriages, families.  Some of us have been convinced that because of something in our background, we are not good enough to have anything to do with God.  Some of us have some pretty big questions that keep us from believing that these teachings can be real, questions about the state of the world or the truth of scripture or the existence of God.  Some of us have been made to feel like second class citizens because of our race, gender, sexuality, disability, or religious past. 

I truly believe that if we put ourselves on that Hillside, God will surprise us too. 

That’s why we will be Hillside Church.  So that we can experience the Surprise; and so that Every Person in Marysville/Lake Stevens will experience that surprise  communicated to them through our Actions and not just words.

On Purpose: What Kind of Church Will We Be? Part 1

I’ve been neglecting writing this blog post for a while because I feel like it is going to be a sixty page document, both because of the gravity of the subject and because I can’t write anything without being somewhat unnecessarily wordy. So I am just going to take it one chunk at a time. 

Here is a disclaimer… These posts are not here to limit us and put us in a box.  These thoughts on our future, these are not the final doctrinal statements of our church.  These are glimpses into what we are doing and why we are doing it.

I am going to start a bit by looking at our Purpose. 

From John Chapter 17

1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
    "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

If you have time, go check out this scripture in context.  In these chapters of John, Jesus is pouring out His passion for His disciples and the people that they will minister to.  I consider much of what He says to be prophecy for these friends and followers, and much of what He is saying is giving them a focus and a feel, a purpose and reason for what they are to do after He is gone; and a bit of prophecy about how He will continue to be present with them through the Holy Spirit. 

In Jesus’ prayer here and through the entire chapter 17 His words clearly are passionate about people “knowing” God.  It’s clear that this knowing is not just a knowledge but a relationship.  It’s also clear that this relationship is God’s purpose for us.  This is truly the start toward the fulfillment of what God wants us to be, of the purpose for which we are created. 

As a church, we can not be God.  We can not be the relationship.  So what can we do?  What are we called to be?

Later in John 17, Jesus is praying for His disciples, He prays: ^{17Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.}

^{I believe that Jesus wants His disciples to be carriers of the truth.  There are many interpretations for what this means.  Does it mean that we will find everything that is untrue and refute it?  Does it mean that we will shout our truth louder than the lies are being broadcast?  Does it mean that we will make truth look more appealing than the lies by packaging it and marketing it better?  Does it mean that our church will be a shelter away from the rest of the world where no lies can break in?} 

^{I’m not sure that any of those answers encapsule what I believe what we should be and what God is calling us to be.  I believe that God is calling us to live by His truth, the truth found in scripture, in the middle of this world which is full of many lies.  One of my favorite songs about this is by Ken Medema who calls it: “a call to live like fools, by another set of rules.”  Certainly we will look as fools to some, but we will be living by the way that God says is true.  Like Jesus says earlier in chapter 17: 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.}

^{This is not to say that our goal is to be hated, and I don’t believe that Jesus is saying that everyone in the world will hate His followers.  What I believe that He is saying is that with the way the world is set up, if we live by “the word” we will not have the rewards of “the world.”  The world is not limited to just people, but also to the systems of the world.  Living by the “way of the world” will get us the rewards of “the world” and living by the “way of the word” will forsake those rewards.  There will be another reward for those who live by this way.  We don’t know all of what it will be, we won’t experience all of it in this life.  However, I do believe that we will experience the reward of purpose, passion, meaning and mission.  Which are all HUGE missing pieces in the lives of those who live by the “way of the world.”  They are the missing pieces that cause so many to feel that they never have enough pleasure, possessions or popularity to be satisfied.} 

^{It will be our purpose and passion as a church to bring people from our community into this relationship with our creator, with our savior.  It will be our hunger and mission to share this truth with people.} 

^{Simply put the truth that we will be desperate for people to hear is a truth that most are unaware of:  God created You.  God knows You better than you know yourself.  God loves you anyway.  God loves you so much and desires a relationship with you so desperately that He became one of us and allowed Himself to be murdered in the most gruesome way by us.  He did this not only to show His power over death, but to communicate love to us, through the ultimate sacrifice.  If we believe that God is an all powerful God, we believe that He could have created a universe where we don’t have free choice, or a universe where He could have forgiven us and called us to be in a relationship by a snap of His fingers.  But the truth is that God loves us so much that He gave us free will to choose Him or to choose not to.  He desperately wants us to choose a relationship with Him and He shows this to us through the way that communicated the highest level of love and sacrifice from Him.}

^{That’s the Truth that we will be passionate about communicating.  Our Passion to communicate this needs to be the hallmark of our church.  It is my desire that the Ethos of Hillside Church forms from our desire to welcome as many as we can into this relationship.}

Why Start a New Church?

Many church planters tell me that they hear this question a lot.  They have people telling them: There are plenty of churches, why don’t you work with them instead of starting your new church?  I remember having a conversation with a guy who was kind and helpful.  I thought that he would be excited that I was a pastor planting a new church.  His first comment after I told him that I was a church planter was:  “Aren’t there plenty of churches around there anyway?”

A couple of answers to these types of queries:  First, simply, No, there are not nearly enough churches.  and Second, there is a drought and desperate need for the kind of church that we are going to plant.

The truth that far too many people are not aware of is that new churches bring a disproportionately larger number of people to a new relationship with Christ.  When it comes down to it, this is my desire, goal and purpose.  Established churches are busy placating the people who pay their bills, and keeping the attenders happy by offering the right kind of classes for them.  A new church offers what they offer on behalf of the people who are not even in the door yet.  A new church looks and the community and culture as they are now and presents a format and strategy to minister to people as they are now.

This is what we will be about.  We will be all about responding to this place around us with a real purpose and a real passion for real people.