| New roof! New cross! New painting and staining! New slate of officers for a new program year! (Soon to be) New connection to the power grid and new landscaping! Hillcrest is new and renewed! What a joy it is to be worshipping in person again AND continuing our online presence. How wonderful to be seeing new faces (and familiar ones), having new hands and feet (and familiar ones), working in our Outreach ministries and in other ways in and around Hillcrest. Celebrations are returning to our Hillcrest campus—we hosted the retirement party of Judy Stillman, Exec. Dir. of Winter Nights and we have a couple of Hillcrest celebrations coming up soon. It is all of a piece: the joy of being God’s people and of doing Our Sacred Work together. On Sunday June 27 we sang “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You” at the opening of our worship and then we closed our Annual Meeting with the final verse of that hymn. So, it bookended our whole morning. I like to think that that Hymn to Joy bookends all that we do and all that we are as Hillcrest. I will recite it here again, as I did following our Annual Meeting: Hillcrest, join the mighty chorus which the morning stars began; Boundless love is reigning o’er us, reconciling race and clan. Ever singing, move we forward, faithful in the midst of strife, Joyful music leads us onward in the triumph song of life. And let everybody say…AMEN. Thank you for being you and for being part of the song that is Hillcrest! Continued Blessings (!),  Rev. Dr. Fred Weidmann, Senior Minister |
