COVID-19 Update
We are so excited for today’s online experience. For today’s message notes click here!
Hey there,
I hope you’re having a great week. If you’re like me, you are getting bombarded with COVID-19 email updates from every business imaginable. Here’s one more to add to the stash—except this one involves your church, so I hope it stands out and that you’ll take the time to read it!
I put together a video update for you that we just sent live on our social accounts in the last hour. If you aren’t on social media and would still like to watch it, you can do so by clicking here.
By now, it’s probably obvious that we will be gathering for weekend services at 9:45am and 11:30am online only. We are tentatively planning all of our services and experiences to be online up until Easter at the moment, but if that changes either positively or negatively, we will let you know at a moment’s notice.
Our staff team and Dream Team coaches have been hard at work creating plans for ministering to you in online environments. It’s impossible for us to do everything that we normally do right now, but what we can do is make sure that a few things are done with excellence. With this in mind, I want to let you know about 4 key initiatives that we are focusing on right now.
1. Great Weekend Online Experiences —
We’re leaning into the uniqueness of this season. You’ll notice that this weekend’s services won’t look exactly like a typical weekend. We’re getting creative and trying to create intimacy through our experiences that will translate into your living room. This weekend, I’ll begin a brand new series called, “God Is” that will lead us up to Easter. In this series, we’ll talk about some of the key attributes of God that we need to remember in the midst of trying seasons.
2. Online Kids and Family Resources —
We’re doing our best to raise the level of excellence in ministering to your kids in this season. Tonight, our student team will have church online on Instagram Live (@heartland_students) and then they’ll break out into age appropriate small groups over Zoom with their group leaders. In addition, for our children, we’ll post our curriculum videos and a simple one page teaching tool to help you lead a lesson with your kids. We’ll also be rolling out a ton of resources for parents later this week online including games, tools and devotional ideas for your family.
3. Zoom Small Groups —
We’re going to be leaning into midweek small groups more than ever digitally. Our current small groups leaders are either hosting small groups with social distancing or being trained in technology to lead their small groups online. In addition, we’ll host Zoom sessions for bible studies, prayer services, and even special designed panel groups for moms. We’ll be sending you updates each week with times, dates and links for those online groups as we continue to create them.
4. Love and Life Missions Projects —
The needs of our local community are rapidly changing every day. As we continue to assess these needs and develop action plans for outreach, we’ll keep you updated and let you know exactly how you can help. We are playing the long game in this area rather than trying to create an immediate response. As time goes on, the needs are going to become greater.
We’ll post the links in this email again for the various areas where you might need more information. We continue to pray for you and we love you. Find the JOY in this season. This is developing us and making us stronger for the long haul. We thank God that He carries us in seasons like this!
Full of faith,
Pastors Dusty and Kendra and the HC Staff
We are aware of the issues that are going on with the Heartland app. Subsplash, the company we partner with to build the app, is having some technical difficulties. While they are getting those issues resolved you can watch our live stream at theheartlandchurch.com/live and you can click here for message notes.
We’re all aware of the evolving situation with the COVID-19 virus and the impact it is having on our community and nation. Up until this point, we have resisted writing you because the news has changed daily and we have very much resisted the idea of our church not gathering together in times like this. There is great power in corporate worship and the local church is the hope of the world.
With this in mind and with the consultation of medical professionals and leaders in our church and in an effort to limit the exposure and spread of the virus, we have made the decision to move our entire weekend experience online. This decision has not been an easy one, but we believe it is best in light of the current situation.
Please note: It is very important that you join us for online worship this weekend. In fact, I’m encouraging you to create watch parties with friends and gather together in homes. If you’re in a small group, consider having your small group gather together. The Bible is very clear that where two or more are gathered in His name, He is there!
There is the potential that this virus could keep HC from meeting in a corporate setting for a period of time. With this in mind, we will be presenting some vision to you about how we are planning to respond to this. I am very encouraged and believe that God is going to use this in an incredible way to bring health to the body of Christ.
Below is some very important information that we would like you to know:
VIEWING SERVICES:
There are 4 ways that you can watch services online:
1. Visit theheartlandchurch.com and click “Watch Live” in the top right corner.
2. Visit theheartlandchurch.com/live
3. Through the Heartland Church App (Free download on your phone)
4. On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hcfamily/.
REGARDING UPDATES:
We will be posting regular updates about future worship experiences on this page.
If you’d like for us to notify you any time we provide a new update here, please text HCUpdate to 41411.
PRAYER:
If you need prayer and would like for someone to pray with you directly over the phone about a situation that you are facing, please text the word HCPrayer to 41411. Fill out the form that we will send you and our prayer team will contact you over the phone to pray with you.
KIDS CURRICULUM:
We are currently working on curriculum to disciple your kids with and will update you as this becomes available online.
GIVING:
If you have never given online and would like to do so, you can do so in the following ways:
1. Online at theheartlandchurch.com/give.
2. Text Giving which is explained at the link above.
The last thing I want to say is that our heart is very much with all of our partners but especially those who are medical care professionals, elderly or are struggling financially as a result of what has happened over the last several days. We want you to know that your pastors are standing by to pray, love and encourage you in every way that we can. If you contract the virus or are walking through difficulty on any level, we care deeply and want to know about it. Please email us at info@theheartlandchurch.com and one of our staff team will absolutely respond to you.
I very much look forward to building your faith this weekend online.
Remember 2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
God bless you,
Pastors Dusty and Kendra Dean and the HC Staff