God Has Brought Overwhelming Confirmation...!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Dear Hillcrest Church Family,

We have finished counting the response forms from Commitment Sunday and I have some wonderful news to share with you. Our congregation has overwhelmingly confirmed God’s will for our church…!

92% of those who responded to my call to commitment said, “Yes, Pastor Mark, I believe we should follow the vision the Holy Spirit has given you to rebirth our church downtown!” Only 7% said, “No.” In spite of all we have been through these last several years, the God who supernaturally delivered us from debt has now brought us to incredible, Spirit-inspired unity and crystal clarity regarding our future.

A very high percentage of our constitutency participated in this process and a very large majority made the one-year commitment going forward. Our ministry team and I will soon be contacting you who made this commitment so that we can begin exploring new ways to involve you in our ministry outreaches. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your step of faith! I believe with every fiber of my being that we are on the verge of great things. The very best is yet to come for our church family and you are going to be a part of it…!

Several precious people who have life-stage or other issues that will make it impossible for them to regularly attend our services in our new, downtown location communicated their own personal conviction that God is nevertheless calling us to take this dramatic step. I am so very grateful for those of you who did this. Thank you for responding to the prompting of the Spirit and acting in such a selfless way for the good of this local body of believers and God’s greater Kingdom agenda. Your blessing means more to Teresa and me than you could ever know. Your continued prayer support will be a great source of strength to us. God will surely allow you to share in the victories we win for His glory alone. I encourage you to walk with us down this path forward as far as you can. Know that we will bless you from the bottom of our hearts when the moment comes that God leads you to another local church and that we will always consider you a part of our “extended family.” You will always be welcome to come back for a visit or to stay!

I want to speak a word in closing to those of you who do not yet know what the Lord is calling you to do personally. We would love to have you be a part of what God is going to do in this city through our church in this new season. You have unique gifts and there is thus a unique contribution that only you can make to the fulfillment of this vision. I encourage you to continue prayerfully seeking His face for direction. Please be sure to feel free to ask me or any of our ministry leaders any questions you may have. We respect your right and ability to hear from God concerning your own future and we want to be as available to help you in your decision-making process as you would like and to provide you with whatever further information you may need.

If the Lord has already made it clear to you that your season at Hillcrest Church will come to and end when we relocate, I want to thank you for all you have done in the past to help us minister to people in the midst of the storms we have weathered. You helped make it happen! I pray God’s blessings be with you always!

In closing, let me speak a word to every one of you. No matter what your response was on Commitment Sunday, Teresa and I love you! We will always be willing to serve you in any way that we can in the future regardless of whether or not you are a formal member of this church.

Let’s Take the City…!

Pastor Mark Brand

The Antioch Church - A Call to Commitment, (Commitment Sunday), November 6, 2011

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During our Commitment Sunday service yesterday, immediately before I preached, Brandon, a young artist in our church and the son of Pastor David Estrada, along with Aaron and Ashley from our worship team, presented me with a painting illustrating the word David Yeghnazar gave our congregation while preaching on September 18th: "Hillcrest, If you as a church and as a people are willing to suffer and walk the narrow road, God will give you the city." This was a very special moment that took me totally by surprise...! Click on the image below to see it what happened:



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This Sunday is Commitment Sunday…!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Dear Hillcrest Church Family,

This weekend, we are going to make one of the most significant decisions in the history of our congregation. On Vision Sunday, I shared my conviction with you that God is calling us to rebirth our church downtown and I asked you to join me in 90 Days of Prayer leading up to Commitment Sunday. As each member of our church body shares their response to this vision, I believe God is going to speak clearly and decisively through the corporate voice of His people. By uniting around the direction He brings, we will be positioned to move forward into our destiny.

As we have sought the face of the Lord together about this matter over the past weeks, I have thought a lot about the following question: "Why is it so important that we relocate our ministry downtown?"

Four specific convictions have settled in my own heart as answers:

First…We will be following the express leading of the Holy Spirit.

The single most important factor in the spiritual health and fruitfulness of any church family is the degree to which they discern and do God's will together. Strong, godly local churches are not built through human wisdom or ability, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. Human personality and gifting can draw a crowd, but only the Lord can grow a New Testament congregation.

God works most powerfully in and through those church families that allow Him to guide their ministries. Sometimes His instructions seem counter-intuitive to our human reasoning, but He alone knows which hearts are most prepared to hear the Gospel and which places are about to experience unusual outpourings of His power and grace. Following His leading is the path to fruitfulness.

The Apostle Peter discovered this principle after fishing all night and catching nothing in Luke chapter five. Jesus then told him to cast his nets in a different direction. When Peter obeyed, they were suddenly filled with fish. The Apostle Paul failed twice in his efforts to take the Gospel to new places in Acts chapter sixteen. God then spoke to him through a vision in the night, telling him to reorient his ministry toward Macedonia. When Paul obeyed, he was able to plant one of the greatest churches in the New Testament in the city of Philippi in spite of fierce opposition. We have never needed God's guidance at Hillcrest Church more than we do right now. Our destiny will be changed forever by the decision we are about to make.

The Lord could have chosen to simply eliminate our debt without providing us any cash from our equity. Given the economy and the circumstances we faced not many months ago, from a human point of view that would have been a miracle in itself. Instead, God has deliberately entrusted us with an unusually large amount of money to use in replanting our church.

By loosing us from the entanglements and problems of the past, He has given us an incredible opportunity to completely reposition and reorient our ministry so that we are able to reach the greatest possible number of people here at home and around the world. This particular doorway will never open to us again. We must not allow our own personal preferences, comfort level, desire for stability, or anything else to keep us from stewarding this moment in such a way that the Kingdom of God reaps the greatest possible benefit. We must courageously rise up in faith, seize this moment, and do whatever He says.

Second…We will be able to raise up a racially, ethnically, and socially blended congregation.

This is at the very heart of what Jesus Christ is calling us to be and to do at Hillcrest Church. It is not enough for us to simply be a ministry that welcomes people of every skin color, culture, language, economic circumstance, and social constituency. God is calling us to target every sector of the population of Dallas equally. Simply put, unless our Sunday morning congregation comes to look like our city, we will have failed in our assignment, no matter how beautiful a building we might construct or how large our church might become. In order to fulfill our destiny and reach all people equally, we must be accessible to all people equally.

While the Lord is not calling us to plant an inner-city church, He is calling us to plant a city-reaching church…a church that looks like our city…a church that looks like heaven…! A downtown Dallas location will make this possible in a way that simply cannot be achieved from North Dallas. In the genius of the Holy Spirit, He is prompting us to move in the direction of major societal change so that we can reap the greatest possible harvest for many decades to come. A fully blended congregation may not symbolize what America has been, but it is at the very heart of what America is becoming.

Third…We will be able to reach people living in the heart of our city.

With the explosive growth of the entire DFW Metroplex, our city has reached the point that many people are beginning to view downtown living as an attractive alternative to long daily commutes. The number of residents in the central part of our city has begun to grow rapidly over the last decade. New condos and other types of housing are springing up throughout the area. Civic and business leaders have been tracking this very closely and are taking steps to encourage and capitalize on this trend. Last April, for instance, the Dallas City Council unanimously adopted the comprehensive Downtown Dallas 360 Plan calling for massive investment and re-development in seven central-city neighborhoods. Integral to the overall plan are many specific steps designed to greatly enhance the residential appeal of each of these districts. (Visit http://www.downtowndallas360.com online for more information).

As is the case with every part of our Metroplex, there are existing churches downtown, but none have our specific Word and Spirit, multi-racial, highly missionary DNA. The ever-increasing number of people who live in the central part of our city need our unique ministry. Most of our nation's greatest and fastest growing churches were planted in areas which were experiencing significant population growth. By moving us downtown at this time, the Holy Spirit is proactively positioning us to reap an unusual harvest.

Fourth…We will be able to leverage our new location and the city's existing transportation infrastructures to offer Christ-centered answers to some of our city's most pressing needs.

We are not called to be a rescue mission, but the Lord does want us to be His hands extended to people from every part of our city who are dealing with significant life challenges, whether educational, relational, financial, or some other pressing need. Many of these precious people regularly use public transportation to move about the Metroplex. Establishing our congregation's ministries close to a DART stop will make it possible for them, as well as for those who own vehicles, to easily benefit from the outreaches we birth.

When we purchase property close to a major expressway, our city's highly developed network of highways and thoroughfares, coupled with typically light Sunday morning traffic patterns, will allow most anyone living within the city limits or close suburbs to reach our new campus in less than twenty minutes. For those of us who already call Hillcrest Church home, this relocation may require a change of paradigm and a bit more effort, but the sacrifices we make will result in many more changed lives…spiritual fruit that will bring God glory and will be well worth whatever it costs us.

Once we unite together this Sunday in strong consensus around the vision God has given, we will immediately begin a multi-faceted process which includes the following key elements:

• RE-TOOL – We will begin readying ourselves and our ministries for this new venture by taking part in some of the excellent, innovative, highly specific, and proven training programs available for church planters today. Our ministry leaders and team will work with individuals experienced in church re-birthing and planting to clearly identify any changes we need to make in our ministry paradigms in order to reach and disciple the greatest number of people from our new location and target demographic.
• RE-ALIGN – We will examine every aspect of how we currently operate including ministry structures, staffing solutions, governmental functions, financial procedures, and legal parameters to ensure that we are completely focused on fulfilling our destiny as a downtown Antioch church with lasting fruitfulness in the Kingdom of God.
• RE-ALLOCATE – We will set aside a small percentage of the sale proceeds from our past property to "prime the pump" of both outreach and church growth in view of short-term increase and long-term sustainability. Our policy is to function on the income we receive from our tithes and offerings each week without dipping into our cash reserves, but we will make whatever strategic ministry investments from our capital funds are necessary to build a great church in this city and remain debt-free forever. Our goal will be very simple – to use the funds God has entrusted to us to reach and disciple as many people in our city from all ethnicities and backgrounds as we possibly can while continuing to touch the world through extensive missionary involvement.
• RE-IMAGE – We will do whatever it takes to effectively communicate our Antioch vision, values, and ministries to a broad cross-section of our city's residents. As part of our communications strategy, everything will be "on the table" for discussion, including our church name; the "look and feel" of our Sunday morning worship experience; our approach to advertising; involvement in media ministry; etc. 
• RE-LOCATE – We will search for and secure a medium-term meeting location downtown while also moving forward with the process of purchasing and developing permanent facilities. Our parameters for the property searches will be the following: a downtown location; very easy access from DART rail and a major traffic artery; high visibility; room to accommodate future ministry growth; and debt-free acquisition/development. We will be very active and aggressive in this search, but we realize that the most important thing for us as a church right now is not buying property, but re-launching ministry. The momentum this brings will help clarify exactly which properties we should or should not consider for our long-term campus. We will take whatever amount of time is necessary to be sure we are making the right purchase.
• RE-LAUNCH – After moving our church downtown to our medium-term meeting location and having successfully ministered there for a period of several weeks, we will hold an official "re-launch" of our ministry. This will be designed to draw the largest possible crowd to our first official worship service in our new identity and to build maximum momentum in order to achieve rapid church growth. The input I have already received from people highly skilled and experienced in church planting has convinced me that with God's help, the significant resources available to us, lots of hard work, and strategic planning, we can launch "big" instead of "small."
  

Our positive decision this Sunday to embrace the vision God has given us will be the first of many steps forward toward our new identity and destiny. There will be many other important decisions to make along the way, but everything hinges on what we say to the Lord on this Commitment Sunday.


In this letter, I have shared a few more of my thoughts with you. Now I need you to share your prayerful convictions with me concerning the following two questions:

• Do you believe we should follow the vision the Holy Spirit has given me?
• Are you willing to make a one-year commitment to support this vision by attending our services, investing your finances, and exploring ways that you can serve as a volunteer in our church's ministries?

What I have outlined on Vision Sunday and in the two letters I have sent you is not for the faint of heart. Anyone content with spiritual complacency or comfortable with a merely cultural Christianity will not want to have any part in this endeavor! It is too bold, too far out of the mainstream, too different from what others have done, too impossible without God's supernatural help, for anyone to attempt it…and yet, God in His sovereign, inscrutable, and unpredictable way has brought me to the place where I am personally ready to risk everything I have and everything I am to see this vision become reality.

I realize that I am an unlikely candidate for such a call. The past several years here at Hillcrest Church have been by far the most difficult and painful of my entire life and ministry. On a natural plane, nothing we have experienced together during this season would lead us to believe that our future will be drastically, wonderfully, even gloriously different than our past…and yet, deep inside my heart I sense the Spirit saying, 

"Nothing is too difficult for me. I have brought you and this church through this long, fiery trial in order to purify, refine, and prepare you for this moment, so that the things I do in and through you all to shake this city will be for my glory and my glory alone. Dare to believe me! Dare to follow me! Dare to lay down your lives in service to me and I will be able to use you in ways your eyes have never seen and your ears have never heard, in ways that you would never have dared to imagine."

As I typed those sentences, I remembered the prophetic word Dr. R.T. Kendall gave our church several years ago at the end of his sermon in our Sunday morning worship service as he quoted verses from a passage in Haggai chapter two,

6 "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the Lord Almighty. 8 'The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the Lord Almighty. 9 'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the Lord Almighty. 'And in this place I will grant peace,' declares the Lord Almighty."

That is what I sense the Holy Spirit saying to me. Now, I need to know what the Holy Spirit is saying to you.

At the end of our worship service this Sunday, I am going to ask everyone present to fill out a response device bearing these two questions. If you are unable to be with us in service, please download a copy from our church website (www.hillcrestchurch.org) and return it to our church office within the next few days.

The most important thing I need you to do is to be sure you respond exactly as the Holy Spirit has impressed upon your own heart, not as you think I or anyone else will respond. At every point in church history, whenever God has called a people to step out in faith to do something new, there have always been naysayers, gossipers, slanderers, doubters, and finger-pointers. Do not listen to them. Listen to Him. Listen to the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit and then use this response device to communicate your own deepest convictions to me as we trust God together to overshadow the outcome.

I realize your answer to question number one may be different from your answer to question number two. Perhaps your heart resonates with this vision but your life stage or other constraints cause you to hesitate about committing to attend services downtown for a full year. That is not at a problem. It in no way affects my opinion of you or my love for you. Answering "yes" to question number one lets me know that I have your personal blessing to move forward with this vision. That is the most important thing I need to know.

Teresa and I love you very much. Our commitment to you goes far beyond the decisions as I have talked about in this letter. Whatever your answers are to the two questions I am asking, we want you to know that we will always be willing to serve you in any way that we can. We thank God for the privilege of walking together with you on this journey and we are convinced the very, very best is yet to come for us all.

You are important to us at Hillcrest Church. As we build our congregation through reaching unchurched people, we are committed to continuing to provide you with the highest level of ministry possible. 

I look forward to hearing from you and to seeing you in service this Sunday…!

Pastor Mark

P.S. If you did not hear my message on Vision Sunday last August, I urge you to take a few moments and view it online by clicking on the following link: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16499137/highlight/192963.

If for any reason you did not receive the letter I sent to you at the beginning of our 90 Days of Prayer, please be sure and do so before you respond. If you do not have a copy, you can read its contents online by clicking on the following link: http://hillcrestchurch.blogspot.com/2011/09/lets-take-our-city.html.

Let's Take Our City...!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Dear Hillcrest Church Family,

As we walk through these 90 Days of Prayer leading up to Commitment Sunday on November 6^th, my heart is overflowing with anticipation at what God wants to do in and through our congregation. By supernaturally delivering us from debt, He has set us free to impact our city and the world more effectively for generations to come. As we seek His face together, listen to His voice, and obey His promptings, He will position us to bring many more lost and hurting people into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.

In the Old Testament, God instructed the prophet Habakkuk to, “Write down the vision; write it clearly…so whoever reads it can run to tell others...(Hab. 2:2 NCV).” That is what I have done in this letter. I encourage you to read it slowly, thoughtfully, and prayerfully, asking the Lord to speak to your heart through the power of the Holy Spirit about His purposes for our congregation.

On Vision Sunday (Aug. 7^th), I shared my conviction with you that the Holy Spirit is calling us to replant our church downtown. The location I have in my heart is very strategic, with easy access from a major highway. Re-establishing our ministry in such a centralized, prominent place will better position us to build a congregation comprised of individuals from a wide variety of economic circumstances, religious backgrounds, and ethnic identities…a church like the one at Antioch in the New Testament! It will also enable us to birth new forms of ministry targeting some of our city’s greatest needs, whether spiritual, social, or educational. As we reach many new people from throughout our community, neighborhood-based ministries such as LifeGroups will help us disciple them while caring for everyone who already calls Hillcrest Church their spiritual home.

Our calling is not dependent upon any single piece of property. Whether God immediately gives us the particular piece of real estate I have long carried in my heart or whether He gives us some other location - perhaps as a “stepping-stone” to move us in that direction - it is vital for us to put our ministry where our destiny is. Although I do not sense the Holy Spirit leading us to plant an inner-city church, I do sense Him leading us to plant a downtown church… a church in the heart of the city that has the entire city at heart…! Moving downtown will propel us toward our destiny.

On Commitment Sunday (Nov. 6^th), I will ask you to tell me what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. This is an extremely important step in our process of discerning His will together. As much as I want to see us rebirth our church downtown, I am firmly convinced this decision is far too important for me or any other single individual to make. We must do it together, as the Body of Christ, through wisdom and unity imparted by the Holy Spirit. If this is God’s appointed time for this vision, I believe He will bring powerful and vital confirmation of that fact by establishing a strong consensus in our congregation, not as the result of a political process, but through the supernatural work of His Spirit as we prayerfully seek His face together.

I need to make the following very, very, very clear…the long-term vision God has given me has many wonderful, far-reaching implications for our church, our city, and our world, but it is utterly impossible for us to achieve without a miracle.

In this moment we are very much like the children of Israel standing outside the walls of Jericho. God had just supernaturally parted the Jordan River so they could cross over to the other side. It took a second miracle of equal magnitude for the city’s walls to fall down flat. At Hillcrest Church, we have just seen the Lord supernaturally deliver us from debt. We will need His miraculous help a second time to acquire property and build ministry facilities downtown debt-free. Here is the good news…the God of the Jordan is the God of Jericho…! As the Lord brings confirmation through the collective voice of our people and we move forward in faith and obedience, He will help us take our city. NOTHING is too hard for Him…!

During our 90 Days of Prayer, I want to encourage you to do the following:

1.      Prayerfully reflect on my testimony how God dealt with me about moving downtown. If you did not hear it on Vision Sunday, please take the time to watch it online at: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16499137/highlight/192963. If you do not have access to the Internet and would like a video copy on DVD or an audio copy on CD, please contact our office so we can furnish you one free of charge.

2.      Join the rest of our church family in special prayer every Tuesday night. Attend as many of our prayer meetings at Baruch Ha’Shem from 7:00-8:00pm as your schedule permits or pray wherever you are. Consider fasting all or part of these Tuesdays. Fasting helps bring greater spiritual clarity by weakening the influence of our flesh in our decision-making processes. Here are some specific points for prayer:

·         Ask the Lord to let you feel His heart for our city while driving “the loop” around downtown or while looking at a map of Dallas.

·         Ask Him to give you creative ideas on how we can more effectively reach its inhabitants.

·         Ask God to let you know His dreams for our church.

·         Ask Him to help us move in His perfect timing.

·         Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring us into unity concerning His will. When a congregation is poised to take a significant step forward, it arouses Satanic opposition. Rebuke the spirits of dissension, slander, division, greed, materialism, bitterness, and fear!

·         Pray for the peace of God to rule in our hearts and for our “steps” (our decisions) to be firmly established in the center of His will. 

3.      Ask me, our Elders, or our Trustees whatever questions you may have. Encourage others to do the same. Don’t rely on hearsay or second-hand information. It may be inaccurate or incomplete. We will be more than happy to share the insights God has given us into the specifics of His plan. We also value your input. We want to hear what God is speaking to you. He rarely reveals all the details of His plan in a single moment or to a single individual. Some things will only become clear to us as we move forward into His purposes together.

On Commitment Sunday (Nov. 6^th) I am going to ask you two very important questions:

1.      Do you agree with me that the Holy Spirit is calling us to rebirth our church downtown?

2.      Are you willing to make a one-year commitment to help make this happen? (By continuing to attend our worship services, give of your finances, and serve as a volunteer in some area of our church’s ministry.)

Your answers to these two questions will be very helpful to me as I serve our congregation as Senior Pastor. Relocating our church’s ministry downtown is a huge step. I need God’s help and guidance as I lead our people during this time. Hearing from you will help me hear from Him.

According to 1 Corinthians 2:9, God has a wonderful future in store for us, filled with things that are beyond anything we have ever seen, heard, or even imagined. He wants to help us bring many lost and hurting people into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. As we seek His face together, listen to His voice, and do His will, He will position us to do just that.

From the heart of our community we will be able to serve people from every part of our city through such ministries as ESL (English As A Second Language) classes, GED high school equivalency programs, after-school academic tutoring for at-risk students, crisis pregnancy intervention, Bible-based financial counseling, vocational coaching, and a Christian day school like the Coram Deo Academy…along with other creative outreaches based on ideas God is going to give people like you. Close proximity downtown to public transportation including DART rail stops will make it possible for precious individuals who need such ministry free of charge to easily come to our campus. On a spiritual level, establishing a venue downtown for activities including noon-time prayer meetings, Bible studies, and ongoing intercession 24/7 for our city and our world will have a significant impact far beyond the parameters of our single congregation.

To see these things happen and much, much more, we must do three things:

First, we must collectively embrace this vision on Commitment Sunday (Nov. 6^th). In order to move forward, we need the Holy Spirit to bring about a clear consensus in our hearts as we pray.

Second, we must begin birthing new ministries out of our initial downtown meeting location. We have already begun scouting out possible venues and have turned up some promising leads. Like seeds that are planted in fertile soil, our first steps will be small compared to our long-term impact, but we will take them with the conviction expressed by Jesus,

The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree…(Matthew 13:31–32 ESV)”

Third, we must purchase and develop our new, permanent church campus. God wants to help us do this debt-free…! This may mean that it takes longer or that we start smaller than we would do otherwise. It will certainly require humility, faith, and patience, but it will yield huge benefits. Here is the most important…more money will be able to go to into ministry! As we demonstrate to God that we value people over property, He will graciously give us everything we need. In fact, we have already seen signs that we may be able to buy a spectacular piece of real estate downtown for a price far below the market rate. Whether that turns out to be the case or not, this much is sure, as George Mueller of Bristol put it so many years ago: “God’s work done God’s way never lacks God’s supply…!”

We are in a wonderful new season here at Hillcrest Church, filled with promise and new possibilities. We have learned a lot from our experiences over the last several years. God has brought us new resources, including relationships with pastors from some of the greatest churches in America, to help us re-think and re-tool our ministries for greater effectiveness. The Holy Spirit is prompting us to reposition our church downtown at the very time our city’s growth is bringing waves of new residents into the same area.

Once our collective decision is made on Commitment Sunday, we will need to restructure and realign everything we do so that our focus is razor sharp. As we unite around God’s plan for our church family, we are releasing our past and embracing our future. We are no longer trying to resurrect a corpse, we are birthing a baby. A lot of hard work lies ahead, but excitement is beginning to fill the air…!

Teresa and I are grateful to the Lord for the privilege of serving you. We look forward to continuing to care for you. We are glad you are going on this journey with us. You are a valued part of our church family. Hillcrest Church would not be where it is today, poised on the verge of this tremendous opportunity, without your steadfast faithfulness. God is going to open new doors for you to use your gifts in helping our congregation reap a tremendous harvest of souls for His glory alone. Our future together is as bright as the promises of God. As the Apostle Paul put it, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it. (Phil. 1:6; 1 Thess. 5:24 NIV)”

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. We love you very much.

The best is yet to come…!

In Jesus, 

Pastor Mark Brand

 

Let's Take Our City...! Vision Sunday 2011

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Vision Sunday 2011 is August 7th...!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Dear Hillcrest Church Family,

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this unusually long letter and to watch the video clip I have inserted above! We are approaching a very significant crossroads in the life of our church family and I have some very important things I need to share with you for your prayerful consideration...

I am so thankful for the wonderful things that God has been doing in our congregation these past several weeks: We experienced sudden, supernatural debt cancellation. We have moved into our temporary meeting location at the Baruch Ha’Shem Messianic Synagogue and our church ministries are functioning well in their new facilities. Many of our teenagers spent four days and nights in prayer and worship at IHOP Kansas City and returned with a fresh deep new touch of God on their lives. Like the Israelites at Gilgal in the Book of Joshua chapter five, our congregation has been experiencing an important time of healing and preparation for the next season of God’s unfolding plan for us as a people.

Now, the Lord is calling us to rise up and take the city like the Israelites did at Jericho in Joshua chapter six. Like them, we are called to conquer territory that can only be taken with God’s supernatural help. The walls of Jericho were thick and high. The Israelite army was far too small and unequipped to successfully assail them. No human strategy or calculation was sufficient to bring them the victory. Joshua, their leader, was utterly lacking in prior experience at besieging such massive military fortifications. Their only hope was a word from the Lord giving them divine instructions they could follow. As they moved forward in faith and obedience to what God then commanded, marching around the walls each day, refusing to allow the taunts and jeers of the enemy soldiers on top of the walls to penetrate their hearts or sway their spirits, they saw the Lord again do what only He could do. Their God had parted the waters of Jordan, now He caused the walls to fall down flat!

On Vision Sunday, August 7^th, I am going to be sharing my testimony of how God has dealt with my own heart and given me a crystal-clear conviction of what He is calling us to do and where He is calling us to go. I want to encourage you to do whatever it takes to be present in this service. After I have shared the vision God has given me, I am going to call upon you to seek the Lord in prayer about these things over the following weeks. Then, on Commitment Sunday, I will give you the opportunity to tell me what you believe the Lord has told you. Together, through this process of my sharing my heart with you and you sharing your heart with me, God will enable us to discern His will. The destiny of our church is far too important a matter to be decided by any single individual, including me. I believe the Lord is going to speak through our collective voice, showing us very clearly whether this is the right path forward for our congregation. On Vision Sunday, I will also be sharing an update on our church finances.

As the leadership of our church and I have been walking through the process of considering these and other matters, I am especially grateful for the input and help we have received from the leadership of Gateway Church and other apostolic leaders in the broader body of Christ. As the book of Proverbs puts it,

11:14 (KJV) — Where no counsel is, the people fall: But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

Gateway Church’s Connect ministry, for example, led by Pastor Ed Funderburk, focuses on coaching, consulting with, and mentoring pastors and local churches who desire to glean from that outstanding congregation’s experience and expertise as they re-invent and re-position their own local churches for maximum fruitfulness in the Kingdom of God. The ongoing input he has given us has been extremely helpful to me personally as well as to the rest of our ministry team. The strongest and most important recommendations I have received from these sources include the need for me to lead every member of our church ministry team to prayerfully seek the Lord for a fresh, specific sense of calling to our church for this next season as we implement the vision God has given me; the need to restructure our church ministry staff so that it is appropriately sized and configured; and the need to revise our church constitution and bylaws to ensure that we are building upon a foundation of strong, stable, and healthy biblical church government.

During our recent vacation, Teresa and I personally made seeking the Lord for a fresh confirmation of His calling to Hillcrest Church a very high priority, knowing that a multi-year process of property acquisition, architectural design, and facilities construction lies before us. We both made a renewed commitment to Jesus to do whatever it takes to lead our church family forward into our destiny. Upon my return, I called our church leadership to join me in seeking the Lord for a fresh sense of calling to the ministry of this specific congregation. The commitment I made to them was that we would do everything we could to make it financially possible for them to remain a part of our team going forwarded provided they felt the Lord calling them to “re-enlist” for continued ministry here at Hillcrest Church. They all responded with deep sincerity and spirituality and the Holy Spirit has been speaking to their hearts, giving them individualized direction.

Through this process, Pastor Paul Kerr has sensed the Lord leading him to transition off our Hillcrest Church pastoral team and into a new and different venue of ministry. We are very thankful for his hard work during the time He has served the Lord in our midst and we are convinced that God has something wonderful in store for him and Anita as they move forward into their future together. This Sunday, July 31^st, the Abundant Life class will be holding a reception in their honor at 9:00am; we will be praying a prayer of blessing over them in our 10:30 worship service; and we will be receiving a love-offering for them to use in celebrating their upcoming 10^th Wedding Anniversary.

In closing, I also want to address something that happened in the context of our Sunday morning ministry time this last week. A couple in our church who are grieving the loss in membership we have experienced over the past several years, began circulating a petition on Baruch Ha’Shem’s campus in an effort to collect signatures in support of their desire to have me removed as Senior Pastor. When I became aware of this, I offered to meet with them personally so I could hear their hearts and I also encouraged them to meet directly with our collective church leadership. Thus far, they have declined to do so. If you have any interaction with them about these matters, I want to encourage you to lovingly, straightforwardly, graciously, and kindly point them to the biblical pattern of conflict resolution found in Matthew chapter eighteen and also to the very clearly defined process for raising such issues as described in our historic Hillcrest Church Constitution and Bylaws. Both Scripture and the documents which have long governed the legal affairs of our church family set forth processes by which any issue or concern of this type held by any member of our congregation may be given full and prayerful consideration by our leaders in a peaceful manner that does not disturb or divide our flock or negatively impact the unbelievers or baby Christians who attend our classes and worship services. As we move forward into our future, I believe the Lord would have us all heed the appeal of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesian Christians,

4:1 (NIV) As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

If you would like to hear more of my heart concerning the various things I have written about in this email, I encourage you to watch the video I have inserted at the beginning of this message. It is about eight minutes in length.

Teresa and I love you and thank God for the privilege of serving you. We believe with all our hearts that the very best is yet to come for Hillcrest Church and we are glad you have chosen to be a part of it…!

I look forward to seeing you on Sunday as I continue my ongoing sermon series on the Ten Commandments entitled, “Foundation for Living.” This week’s topic is, “You shall not murder.”

Blessings!

Pastor Mark Brand