Grateful for Western Hills

It is 11:30 as I write this, but I have been thinking today of the many things at Western Hills that I am grateful for. This list is definitely incomplete, but among the things God has blessed us with are...

• A prayerful and forward looking eldership
• The creativity and passion of the staff that I am blessed to work with
• The numerous volunteers who work to make every Sunday a meaningful experience
• The prayer warriors who are petitioning God to work in powerful ways
• A church that is desperate to get outside of its own walls
• So many who are inviting those they know and love to come and meet Jesus
• The graciousness of all of you who are patient with me as I learn this task called "preaching"
• The generosity of so many that made our beautiful worship center possible
• The numerous new people who are walking into our building each Sunday

These are just a few of the things on my list. What is on your list? What are you grateful for right now?

God Bless,

Scott

Farewell...Again

It has been so great to be back with the family here at Western Hills, but it is time for me to once again head off to college. I have been blessed this summer to see how this church has grown and the vision that it is taking on. As I go back to school I look forward to hearing how Western Hills is impacting the community around it.

Love you all,
Cole

Greetings from Brandon Baker

A video greeting from Brandon Baker, our new youth minister.

New Addition to Western Hills

The Garmons have added a little girl named Katy Elizabeth to their family. She was born on Tuesday, July 17th. She weighed in at 9 pounds, 1 ounce and is 20 inches long. And as you can see from the picture above, she is beautiful!

The word is that big sisters Kendra & Camryn are excited and believe she is a "keeper."

Shelby & Emily are now blessed to be parents of 3 wonderful girls!

We thank God with the Garmons for the blessing of Katy.

If you would like to leave a blessing/note for the Garmons, click the COMENTS link below.


-Scott Seela

Search and Rescue

For the last two weeks our students have been preparing to become a search and rescue team. They are not out saving people drowning in floods (though we did see quite a lot of rain), but they have been preparing to save people who have been drowning in the sin of this world.

Camp Koinonia's theme this summer was Search and Rescue. We began the week by examining our own need to be rescued from the sin that we have been caught up in. Next, we saw that Jesus is the only source of rescue, and all of our attempts to rescue ourselves will always fall short. But the true impact of the week came when we realized that as Jesus saves us, he also calls us to go out and be a rescuer to others. The students looked at and hopefully began to tear down some of the roadblocks that we all have to spreading the incredible gospel story.

My words or pictures will never be good enough to really show what happened at camp, but if you want to experience it, just ask our students. It is from them that you can hear life changing stories and experiences.

Camp Koinonia Update

Several of our Senior High students as well as several adult volunteers are at Camp Koinonia this week. Camp Koinonia is located east of Marble Falls, TX at the Hensel Memorial Camp. Although they have had LOTS of rain, everyone is doing well. A few schedule adjustments have been made, but otherwise camp is running smoothly.

I want to encourage everyone to keep this camp and its participants in your prayers. Senior Week of camp will wrap up Friday evening. Please pray for safe travel for those going to and returning from camp.

Our Junior Week of camp (entering 5th Grade - 8th Grade) begins Sunday, July 1st. Please keep this camp session in your prayers as well!

Camp Koinonia is just another great experience that impacts the lives of our kids and teens. Thank you to all of the many people who help make Camp Koinonia a great experience!

What a Sunday!

This Sunday was an amazing Sunday at Western Hills. God (as he has a habit of doing) showed up and did some amazing things. The greatest thing this Sunday was witnessing the baptism of Hannah Seela by her dad Scott (our Children's Minister). It was a powerful image to watch this Godly father "bury" his daughter in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It was also powerful to be able to see Qwynn (Hannah's mom), whom I could see from where I was standing. Both Scott and Qwynn were caught up in the moment of what God was doing in the life of their daughter. The experience was made complete by standing with the church as we surrounded Hannah and her family and together we sang the song Holy Ground. It was a sacred moment.

God Bless,

Scott

PS - You are invited to post a prayer, blessing, or word of encouragement for Hannah in the comment section of this post. We will print out all of the comments and give them to her.

New Messge Series

This Sunday we will launch into our summer message series. The title is "Games of Life." We will be using many of the games we remember playing as kids as metaphors for the assumptions we make about life. We all play life by a certain set of rules. This series will examine our assumed rules and lay them against God's word. I am looking forward to this series, it should be fun, creative and hopefully very relevant to your life. this is a great time of the year to invite your friends to come and experience a Sunday with us. Just maybe your invitation is the very thing that crank starts some one's relationship with God.

See you on Sunday
Scott

Baptism

This video is one or our recent baptisms at Western Hills. Each baptism is special because it is someone's life changing for eternity. This baptism is unique because it was 2 brothers being baptized by their father. The video includes their testimonies and the church celebrating following the baptism.

God Bless

A Baby Blessing on Mother's Day

Parents, you been blessed with these children. As a church we believe they are a gift from the hand of a loving creator.

As parents, will you partner with God and with the members of this church to assist your children in growing, as Jesus did, in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man? With humility and hope, will you love and nurture them and to lead them to faith?

The charge above is one we gave last Sunday to the parents of our "new babies." We also took on some promises as a church to be a part of the lives of these children and to help them grow in faith.

May God bless all of us as we live out these promises.

Who is church for?

We used this video last summer during our "Mythbusters" series. I thought it deserved one more shot here on the blog. The video is a parody commercial for a church where it is all about YOU! I am so glad that God is creating an atmosphere and attitude at Western Hills where we realize that church is not about us. Church should never be a place where we take our eyes off of the mission and start griping to get it our way. People are LOST and we need to be passionately focused on introducing them to Jesus, after all it is HIS church anyway. May God continue to bless Western Hills and keep us all focused on the mission.

Love Ya Much

Scott

Our New Youth Minister

On Sunday, Rex Baugh announced that Brandon Baker was offered and accepted the role of Youth Minister at Western Hills! Brandon is married to Heidi and they have 3 kids: Emma (almost 5), Mason (3) and Esther (7 months).

Brandon currently serves as the Youth Minister at the Fredrick Church of Christ in Fredrick, Maryland. He has been there for 4 years.

Brandon is originally from Wylie, Texas (Abilene) and holds a Bacholar's Degree in Youth & Family Ministry from ACU and a Master's Degree in Social Work from the University of Houston.


We are excited about the Bakers joining us in August! Please be in prayer for them as they prepare to come. Also be in prayer for the Peacocks as they prepare for law school in San Antonio.


If you'd like to send a Welcome Email to the Bakers, CLICK HERE.


Have a great week.


-Scott Seela

Enjoy

This gem came to me from Aloha Nelson via email. I hope that it is a blessing to you.

Enjoy!

Scott

Preschool Sunday

Last Sunday was Western Hills Christian Preschool Sunday. We invited the kids and families that attend our preschool to join us for worship. Western Hills Christian Preschool is a wonderful outreach ministry of this church. It is lead by the amazing Donna Kelley, Preschool Director. Here's a video we showed Sunday that shows just a few of the great things that happen at the preschool:

Friday Free-for-All

Here are just a few of the numerous things banging around in my head as we charge into the weekend.

1. I am continually amazed at the talent that God has placed here in this church. Anyone who was present last weekend and laid eyes on the "empty tomb" on the pulpit knows what I am talking about. Our own artist-in-residence Patty Thomas created for us a visual effect that left most of us speechless. (Click on the picture to see large version.) Patty is just one of the hundreds of gifted and talented people God uses to bless this church. I am grateful to be a part of a body that is actively exploring ways for people to put their gifts to work to glorify God. You may never notice, but each Sunday morning worship is the net result of tons of volunteers giving their best for God.

2. This Sunday is Home Group Sunday. Home Groups are our way of making a big church small again. It is our strategy to create an environment of authentic community in the lives of our people. Each time Home Groups meet I hear great stories of how our Home Groups are ministering to people and changing lives. If you are not yet in a group just grab a copy of the discussion questions off the website and invite some folks to your home or to meet you at your favorite restaurant. It's that simple.

3. This Sunday morning is also the Sunday that we have invited all of the students enrolled in Western Hills Christian Preschool to worship with us. This ministry has seen some incredible growth over the last couple of years. More than 40 students are enrolled (many without a church home). So this Sunday we will do what we do best and welcome people into our time of worship. It is our prayer each Sunday for God to use our worship service as an avenue to connect with some one's life and introduce them to Jesus.

4. I am more convinced now than ever before that God's greatest dreams for this church lie in the future and not in the past. If we have the courage to hold tightly to His hand there is no telling where this adventure will lead.

Love Ya Much!

Scott

Average Parents

Today we have invited a guest blogger to share some thoughts with us. The essay is by Dave Boivie, one of our members at Western Hills. Dave is a great guy with an amazing story. Dave has a heart for people and a passion for God. May you be blessed today.

Average Parents

Most of you know that I was involved with drugs as a teenager. There always seemed to be some kind of trouble I could get myself or someone else into. As you can expect, I was a difficult person to be around because I was always angry about some trouble I had gotten into.

It is hard to imagine a home occupied by two teenagers being peaceful. Especially when the teenagers are brother and sister who fight about everything. This is not an easy home to bring peace to, and not a nice place for our parents to live either. Somehow our family survived all this confusion. Looking back, I am only now starting to realize why.

My Mother and Father were not perfect. I can remember mistakes they made, but there is one thing I remember even better. In spite of all the trouble I was to them, and the confusion that occurred, my parents loved me and made our home a warm and safe place. I remember my parents, not so much because they fed me and gave me a room to sleep, but because they loved me when I did not return that love. They may be average to some, but they saved my life, and almost certainly my soul as well.

We invite other submissions to be posted on this blog. If you would like to contribute an original article for consideration to be posted simply email it to us in Word Doc form.

Tragedy & Worship

Tucked away in the thousands of stories concerning the tragedy at Virginia Tech I found this blog post on MSNBC.com. I am reposting it here. May it be a blessing to you.

As the thousands drifted away from the candlelight vigil on the Virginia Tech drillfield Tuesday evening, a song rose from a circle of two dozen lights.

"O mothers, let’s go down. Come on down, don't you wanna go down? O mothers, let’s go down. Down in the river to pray..."

A woman in the circle, a generation older than the young men and women, said she had come up from western North Carolina to be with her son, a resident adviser in a dorm, an R.A. just like the first young man killed on Monday. She reached over to give him a hug as they sang on.

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound..."

The group grew to 30, singing from the heart, tears on many cheeks. They all knew
the same songs, the same harmonies.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

Was this an organized group, a church choir? No, she said, "just Christians."

"Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on..."

We wanted to know, what was her son's story? Her name? And how had a son's mother gotten through these days? "I don't want to be interviewed," she said gently. "This is worship. This is giving thanks."

Easter Egg Hunt

It never ceases to amaze me the way God uses this church.

This past Sunday afternoon, we went out and had a joint Easter egg hunt with our friends at Wayman Manor. Due to all the snow we got on Easter day, we had to postpone the hunt, but that did not stop God from using us as His hands and feet. Due to the generosity of this church, we had more eggs than we had hiding places. It looked like a sea of Easter eggs. Thank you for your generosity.


We continue to do things with/for Wayman Manor because we believe it is a place Jesus would spend a lot of his time if he were on earth today. The people who live there have been marginalized, are struggling with just getting by, and do not seem to have a strong relationship with Jesus. We go there to love on them and share the good news of Christ. And I think the message is getting across. Praise God!

The Video from Sunday

We showed this video on Easter Sunday. It is an introduction to our current message series that examines the impact of the resurrection on our lives. If you wish to listen to the audio of Sunday's sermon click here.
We will be in this series for the next 4 weeks. This coming Sunday we will explore what the resurrection has to say about our past failures. So if you have any time or event in your life you regret then this message is for you. Hope to see you on Sunday.

Love Ya Much

Scott

Snow Day

This past Sunday was amazing in so many ways. Obviously the snow was both a beautiful blessing and a curse (for those without power for 24 hours). What was more amazing than the weather was the enthusiasm and excitement that everyone had for worship. Considering the outside conditions we had an awesome crowd participating. I met many people that you had invited and many more who were coming back for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times. God continues to bring people to us, giving us an opportunity to connect with them and connect them to Jesus. Thanks for being so passionate about reaching this community for Christ.