Hillview Family and Friends!
Children’s Ministry will be with the Ministry leader during worship time starting in the fall. Pray with us in our transition. Sis Debbie.
Youth ministry will meet in the fellowship hall at 9:30 am. Youth Ministry will be meeting every 2nd Sunday of the month at 9:30 am.
Please add pocket change in the “Stones of Truth” jar in the foyer. All monies collected will go to offset cost to the Branson 2025 trip.
October is Pastor Appreciation Month.
It’s Boo Tea Time! KC Heartland Events is hosting three Friday evening events in October. See attached flyer for Information.
Mark your calendars now! Your Branson Committee is working hard to make the 2025 Branson trip the best ever. What days will be? Wednesday, July 23-Saturday, July 26, 2025. We hope to see you there!
Oct 17th Pastor Dexter and Sis Karen’s Whites 25th year of pastoring at Hillview.
Oct 19th Board Management Meeting at 9am.
Oct 20th Baptism Sunday. If anyone wants to be baptized , contact Pastor Dexter White.
Oct 23rd Dinner 5:30pm Bible Study 6pm.
Oct 26th Pastor 25 Anniversary celebration Service, 5:00 pm at Hillview. Dinner immediately after service. Please contact Sis La Tanya Dunn at Hillviewchurchofgod@gmail.com
We have been honored and blessed to have a pastor and wife who exemplifies their walk with God through their work and leadership as Pastor of Hillivew Church of God and to our community.
You are cordially invited to join us as we celebrate our wonderful Pastor and his wife in a special Pastor appreciation service to be held on Saturday October 26, 2024, 5:00 pm at Hillview Church of God 701 N 78th Street. Kansas City, Kansas 66112. We will have dinner immediately after service. If you will be attending dinner, please respond by October 21st. You can send your response by email: hillviewchurchofgod@gmail.com or contact LaTanya Dunn by phone (913)299-4406.We encourage you to send cards of encouragement, affirmations and prayer support to our spiritual leader.
Thank you for taking part in this celebration to show our appreciation and honoring.
If you want to volunteer to be on the calling team, please contact LaTanya Dunn.
We will need volunteers to help with cleaning the Sanctuary, Foyer, and vacuuming. Contact LaTanya Dunn hillviewchurchofgod@gmail.com
Happy Birthday and Wedding Anniversary to all family and friends celebrating in the month of October.
Pastor Dexter will be having a 6 week study “Horizontal Jesus” by Tony Evans. If anyone is interested, contact Pastor Dexter White.
Nov 9th Church Clean up, 8am-12pm.
Nov 16th Management Board meeting 9am at Hillview.
November 17 Christmas Craft sale. Plan on picking up your Christmas Gifts. Craft donations are welcomed and all proceeds to Branson “25”.
Offering Envelopes are located on the wall outside of the sound booth.
Church of God News
Solomon is credited with writing this Psalm. I remember back in 2005 when we went to Uganda to build a second house in the Watoto Orphanage, we were told we could put a scripture on a plaque, and it would be installed on the house we were building. Ps 127:1, 2 was the scripture we picked.
This Psalm addresses 3 areas that each of us has pursued, is pursuing, or will pursue. Those three areas are building a home, establishing a career, and raising a family.
Imagine this Psalm as a letter from me your pastor, urging you to check your priorities. Sometimes, if we are not careful, we will allow our home, family, or career take the place of God in our lives.
“No amount of human sacrifice or toil can accomplish much unless God’s blessing is upon His people.”1
We started a Bible study this morning titled Horizontal Jesus. How Our Relationships with Others Affect Our Experience With God. The author of the study is Tony Evans.
“God is a loving Father. His heart is burdened when one of His children neglects the needs of another one of His children. He’s bestowed on each of us different gifts of His grace, whether financial, skills, relational acumen, health, wisdom, or compassion. He didn’t give us these gifts just for ourselves. Rather, they’re to be a conduit by which the blessings we vertically receive from Him horizontally flow to others.”2
If we want to see God’s blessings upon us, we must be a conduit of His blessings to others.
What is the role of the man of the house? To provide for his family by putting a roof over their heads in a safe part of town, to bring home the bacon, and to clothe them. This task requires time, money, and effort. Today, with the high cost of living. Often requires momma to work as well. Add all the activities with the kids and we find there is not enough hours in a day, though in reality there is. Who gets left out or just gets the leftover time in this scenario? The Lord. When God is not included in our plans for the day, we block the blessings He wants to give us.
Verse one of the texts says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” Either you are building with the Lord, or you are destroying without Him. I’ve seen the results of homes where the Lord wasn’t welcome. I’ve also seen homes where the Lord was welcome. Interestingly, I noticed some of the same bad things that happened in the home without the Lord also happened in the homes with the Lord. Allow me to use my family as an example of a family the loved the Lord and tried to include God in our daily lives.
- We had prayer time in the home, everybody could pray.
- We attended church together. We didn’t send the children; we took them to church where we worshiped the Lord together.
- We monitored what the children watched on TV.
- We were involved in our children’s extracurricular activities. We seldom missed church for athletics.
- I worked two jobs so Karen could stay home when the children were small.
- God blessed us with a nice home. Next month we will have lived in our home 44 years.
- Love was present in our home.
- We had several house fires.
- We had several car wrecks.
- We had three rebellious children over time.
- Our house was robbed. Our house was broken in once, but nothing was taken.
- Several dogs died.
You can see bad things happened in our home, similar to what happens in home were God is not included, but there is a difference. The ungodly home is like a house built upon the sand, and when the storms of life come, since the house was not built on a firm foundation, that house is doomed to fail. The godly home, on the other hand, is built upon the rock. That rock is Jesus, and when the storms of life come, and they will come, that house will stand because it was founded upon the Rock.
BUILDING A HOME WITHOUT THE LORD IS SENSELESS. IT IS DESTINED FOR FAILURE. SINCE GOD IS IN THE FAMILY HOUSING BUSINESS, UTILIZE THE RESOURCE.
Verse one doesn’t stop at just the home but expands to a city. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stands guard in vain. Another word for sin is corruption. Corruption destroys from within. We aren’t strong enough to defend our cities on our own, but God is. If we expect the Lord to defend them, we should want His input in building them.
Nehemiah was distressed when he found out the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, the people were in distress, and the gates were burned.
God made it possible for Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem, with the blessing of the king to repair the walls of Jerusalem.
Nehemiah 6:15, 16
15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.
16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.
“Many a child and many a ministry has been lost to the enemy because the watchman did not stay awake and warn that the enemy was approaching. Building and battling go together; this is why Nehemiah’s men had their tools in one hand and their swords at their side.”3
Verse 2 talks about our priorities, we get up early and go to bed late trying to meet the needs of our families. We have coined the phrase there are not enough hours in a day. God created our days with 24 hours. Since God created the day, it is possible to accomplish in a day what is required of us. God grants rest to those He loves. I realize we sometimes encounter extenuating circumstances that prevent us from getting the rest we need, but not every day. In college I refused to take anything that would allow me to stay up later, whether to party or study. I carried that philosophy over into my work life and ministry. For me to get 8 hours of rest means I go to bed at 8 pm. I get up at 4:15 am. I get up early, so I have time with God before I leave the house.
I realize everybody doesn’t need 8 hours of sleep per night. But we still shouldn’t load up our day and neglect time with God.
How was it possible for Jesus to say on the cross, “It is finished.” There was still people that needed to be healed, delivered from demon possession, and to be taught before His death on the cross. He was able to say He was finished because He finished what God told Him to do. By establishing the church, His work was continued through us.
There is a philosophy, if we are not careful, that will have you running around in circles doing things that are just busy work, but not the most important things we need to be doing. That philosophy is called The Tyranny of the Urgent. “If the Christian is too busy to stop, take spiritual inventory, and receive his assignments from God, he becomes a slave to the tyranny of the urgent.”
God is not against hard work. When our work causes us to lose sleep, and or neglect our families might be an indication we don’t trust God to meet our needs. We need to work while trusting God, and rest while trusting God.
Mt 6:25-34 puts into prospective what God expects from us.
25 “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Verses 3-5 deal with parenting our children. Children are a blessing from God. Have you ever said, yeah right!!! God has entrusted our children to us for a season. He has put great value on them, it would be foolish for us to do any less. We are to train our children in the way they should go. Our children also have a part in their up bringing.
Ephesians 6:1-3
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 “Honor your father and mother”– which is the first commandment with a promise–
3 “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
God likens a child to an arrow in the quiver of a warrior. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. I have three children, two grandchildren, and a host of adopted spiritual children. My quiver is full.
“Not everyone is supposed to get married, nor are all married couples able to have children. But all adults can value the children, pray for them, be good examples to them, and see that they are protected and cared for and encouraged in their spiritual upbringing.”
I’m praying for your children, and I need you to pray for mine.
Topic: Including God in What We Do
Text: Psalm 127:1-5
1 Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.
2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat– for he grants sleep to those he loves.
3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
Support Hillview’s Greeting Card Ministry – We have anniversary, birthday, and get-well cards on the table by the front entrance for you to send to others to let them know you are thinking of them. A donation of $1.00 will help cover the cost of cards and postage.
Continue to pray for the sick and shut-ins and their caregivers. Prayer is needed for our entire congregation as we are all dealing with spoken and unspoken needs and requests.
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