Hello, Western Hills!

Can I tell you about my day yesterday?

9:00 AM
Emergency staff/pastors meeting. Closing the office and church for two weeks. Making sure we start leveraging technology with our Connect Group leaders – Zoom, Facebook live, FaceTime, etc. Start testing technologies on how to get interactive when we video our services later this week.

10:30 AM
Meet with Rick to talk about video options and live streaming. Discuss how we could help smaller churches video their services to get them online for them.

12:00 NOON
Cullen and I meet with clergy leaders and 501 School Superintendent Dr. Anderson. Look at ways to utilize the faith community to help feed kids in the school district on the free/reduced lunch program. 70% of kids in the system are on this program. 14,000 students in 501. Spirit of cooperation is incredible. Western Hills will be able to partner with Hope Street, Sheldon, and McCarter. Details will be coming.

1:30 PM
Fellowship Bible Church hosts pastors meeting. Close to 30 area pastors (with proper social distancing) meet to pray and encourage one another. Men, women, black, white, Hispanic, multiple denominations all praying for the city, talking through what we are learning and how we can help our city. Spirit of cooperation is awesome.

3:00 PM
Meeting dismisses. News hits about Governor’s executive order forbidding group meetings larger than 50 people for the next 8 weeks. Realization hits that most of the decisions we’ve made up to this point are rendered moot. We now have to rethink everything.

5:00 PM
Church Council Meeting. Prayer. Walk through decisions that need to be made over the next 8 weeks. Thinking through Connect Groups, worship, and all things. Incredible sense of unity and peace. No panic, just a desire to figure out how to do church and be the church in this new normal.

7:00 PM
Family dinner. Workout. Ice Cream. (Because you gotta have priorities.)
Realize that both college kids will finish the semester at home with online classes. Cooper will not walk for graduation, as commencement ceremonies were cancelled.

Here’s what we know and what we’ve decided… so far.

Due to the Executive Order of the Governor of Kansas, we will NOT meet in a large group setting of 50 or more until May 4th. This is a Monday night. Right now, we are planning to worship that night as a congregation in celebration, because who says you have to wait until Sunday? However, as we all have experienced this past week, this could change.

The CDC has suggested limiting groups to the size of 10 or less while maintaining at least a 6 foot distance between social interactions. Our suggestion is to honor this recommendation as well, which makes physically meeting in our Connect Groups ill-advised.

What this means is that we are going to have to reimagine how to be the church. And here’s what we are suggesting as we move forward.

Keep connecting with your Connect Group
We are currently training and equipping our CG Leaders on how to utilize some online tools to make this happen. As a staff team, we’ve been working with these tools, and they work. It feels like you’re in a room together. Check your email or reach out to your Connect Group leader. We are getting this in place for this week!

Join a Connect Group
What? Wait…how? If you’re not in a Connect Group, guess what you are probably going to need over the next 8 weeks? Community. Someone to pray and process with. Someone to laugh and play online board games with. We can still get you connected to a group VIRTUALLY. You can click here and we can get you started down this road.

Sign up for REALM and Right Now Media
REALM is our church database that allows us to communicate with you via email, discussion boards, and chat. This is another great tool for Connect Groups and Ministry Teams to stay connected. Email Jenny for an invitation to join Realm.

RightNow Media is an online resource of Christian training and Bible study materials, movies, and kids’ shows. Text RIGHTNOW WHC to 41411 to create your own Right Now Media account. Both services are completely free resources for you to utilize.

Online Giving
The Council has decided to continue to pay staff and support our missionaries through this crisis. We have some reserves to cover this. However, what we’d like to be able to do is increase our giving to our community through helping food banks and other local churches who may struggle through this time. Your continued generosity will allow us to be a blessing to our city.

If you are a regular at Western Hills Church, the easiest way is through Realm. If you don’t have a login, you can contact us. We’d be happy to help you get set up with Realm.

You can give via text. Text GIVETOWHC to 73256.  Standard text messaging rates apply.

You can login to ACS/Realm’s secure servers for a one time gift.

Online Worship & Trainings
We will continue to post services online WITH our worship team! It’s coming! And you will have the option to either watch just the message and Mission Moment OR the full-meal deal which includes worship through music. (I’d encourage you to take the full-meal deal.)

We are also going to try to do a LEAD night online. Some of our ministry teams are going to continue to meet online as well. We will be putting resources in your hands every day to help you lead worship in your living room, talk to your kids about what is going on, connect with others in the church, and point out some of our favorite RightNow Media studies.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Change is happening quickly, and we will communicate everything we are doing through these three social platforms as well as our webpage.

It’s a new day for us. Change is happening so fast. And what we see as obstacles now, may just be opportunities for us to do church differently. Take this time to look up and see your neighbors. Share resources like online messages and Right Now Media with them. Engage in some meaningful conversation with others about what this whole situation means eternally for them.

Wash your hands, then go wash some feet. Then wash your hands again!