Every November White Fields Community Church hosts Project Greatest Gift, a home-grown ministry that serves children and caretakers in the foster and kinship care systems in Northern Colorado at Christmastime.
Project Greatest Gift works with the Health and Human Services departments of Weld, Adams, and Boulder Counties to provide Christmas gifts, as well as help with groceries and clothing for families in kinship and foster care at this time of the year. This is a practical way we, as the Body of Christ, can show the heart of God and the love of Jesus to those in need in our community.
Last year I sat down with Christine, the founder of Project Greatest Gift, to discuss its origins, the vision behind it, and how God has used it over the past 10+ years. You can watch that discussion in the video below.
You can participate in Project Greatest Gift no matter where you are located since sign-ups for sponsoring children and caretakers are now completely online!
This week I sat down with Christine Appel to discuss the history of Project Greatest Gift, a home-grown ministry that serves kids in kinship and foster care in northern Colorado at Christmastime.
Every year during the month of November, we partner with the Health and Human Services departments of Weld, Adams, and Boulder Counties to provide for children and families in the kinship and foster care systems.
In this interview, Christine tells the story of how Project Greatest Gift got started, the vision behind it, and how God has used it over the past few years.
Importantly, we also discuss what is different this year in 2020, as Project Greatest Gift expands to an online platform.
We have been monitoring very closely the COVID-19 situation from multiple angles, and are excited to announce that our church will begin gathering for in-person worship in our new building on June 7!
This is consistent with our previously announced Reopening Plan, and is in accordance with the state and federal guidelines.
In preparation for opening on June 7, we will be:
Rearranging our sanctuary and setting up an overflow room to accommodate social distancing
Working out the kinks with live-streaming our services
Setting up audio and video in the overflow room
Having the building cleaned by a professional cleaning company
Hanging our big sign on the outside of the building
Coordinating with our service teams to ensure a welcoming and safe environment for worship
We look forward to seeing you on June 7! Remember that we will be having two services, at 9:00 & 11:00 AM. These are family services, which means that there will not be NextGen classes for children or youth, but there will be a “Wiggle Room” available for parents with niños who need to get out their wiggles, as well as a Nursing Mothers room, complete with a screen where you can watch the service as you take care of your babies!
The wearing of masks is recommended, and we will be disinfecting between services. Those leading from the stage will not be wearing masks while they lead worship or teach, so please plan your seating accordingly if that is a concern for you. Families are encouraged to sit together, otherwise seating will be done with 6 foot distance (2 empty chairs between you and the next person). Hand sanitizer stations will be available.
If you are experiencing symptoms, or are not yet ready for public gatherings, you will still be able to join us online on our YouTube channel, our Facebook page, and whitefieldschurch.com live at 9:00 & 11:00 AM starting June 7. On May 31 we will still be broadcasting our service at 10:00 AM.
But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face – 1 Thessalonians 2:17
We are excited for this new season for our church!
Love and blessings,
Pastor Nick
Sanctuary set up with 50% seating capacityOverflow room adjacent to sanctuaryOur big sign, ready to put hung on the front of the building!
The City of Longmont has closed the St. Vrain Memorial Building for the time being, which means that we will not be able to hold services there for the next two Sundays (which would have been our final two Sundays in the building anyway).
The elders of White Fields Community Church are currently working on a plan to possibly hold a gathering in the parking lot, or even inside our new facility for those who would like to gather and worship and pray together.
This is a time for faith and confidence in the gospel alongside precaution.
We are also working on an online church option Sunday morning via Facebook Live. We will have more information to come on this; please stay tuned for updates on those things.
As we make the move into our own building (see: We’re Moving!), we will be doing a special series on the topic of faith, from March 22-April 5, 2020.
This move is going to be a stretch for our church; it takes faith to give up what you have (in our case: in the Memorial Building) for the sake of what can be, but it’s worth it.
I was recently talking with a pastor friend who has led his church through some big steps of faith, and he told me that he is a bit envious of the position we are in the right now of taking this step of faith and stretching ourselves in order to open up new opportunities for ministry, because every time he and his church have done that, it has led to so much spiritual growth and vitality in their lives.
They are Bread for Us
In Numbers 14, when the people of Israel were supposed to enter the Promised Land, but 10 of the 12 spies convinced the people not to go because it was too hard, because there were giants in the land – it was Joshua who spoke up and said,
If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us.
Numbers 14:8-9a
What did Joshua mean that “they are bread for us”? Joshua understood that: just as we need food to sustain our bodies and keep us healthy, we need challenges and steps of faith in our walk with God in order to stay healthy!
Give me the land with the giants…
Later on, in Joshua 14, the people have entered into the Promised Land – Joshua and Caleb being the only ones from the original generation who were allowed to enter in because they were the faithful spies who were willing to obey and follow God by faith despite the challenges of the task.
In Joshua 14, we read about how Joshua divided up the dwelling places of the tribes of Israel in the Promised Land, and he gave first dibs to Caleb to choose any portion of the land he would like for himself. Here was Caleb’s response:
And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.” Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel.
Joshua 14:10-14
At 80 years old, Caleb wasn’t interested in “taking his foot off the gas” and spending the rest of his years relaxing. Rather, he wanted to live in a beautiful place, where he could continue to fight giants.
Why? Because Caleb understood that following God by faith and taking steps of faith that challenge us, these things are bread to us.
Faith is like a muscle; it needs to be stretched and used and tested in order to remain healthy and grow.
We have such an opportunity as a church in moving into this new facility. May God use it in our lives and in our region for the benefit of many!
White Fields Community Church is moving! From our church’s beginning, we have met in the St. Vrain Memorial Building in downtown Longmont. It’s a large building, and has been a great place to start a church, but as we have grown, we have gotten to the point where it has been hindering more than helping us in fulfilling God’s mission for our church. For example, our Middle School class meets in a hallway, since we have maxed out all of the available spaces for NextGen classrooms.
We have pursued several properties over the past few years, and God has been faithful to lead us by shutting doors, which is exactly what we prayed He would do if those were not the right places for us.
Recently we heard that another church in Longmont was considering closing a second campus they had opened 2 years ago. After reaching out, we felt that God’s hand was in this for several reasons. One is that the day we reached out to them is the same day that they had their official vote to close the campus. One of their prayers that day was that God would bring another church to use the space, and they received a call from us on the way home, within an hour! The other reason is because we were able to work out a deal in which we acquire all of their furnishings – something we would have needed to purchase wherever we moved to, and we will be able to take them with us when we move in the future.
We don’t view this as our final destination as a church; we would still like to own our own building rather than lease, but this will be a good place to facilitate ministry for the next several years. The church is a family, and a building is like the family car: it’s a tool that we use for our family, and it helps to have one that is good and reliable, and in which we all fit!
This new space is going to be a big upgrade for our kids and our youth; there’s a large youth area. It is a place that our church will be able to use for ministry throughout the week, including being home to our Bible Learning Center. It will give us the chance to have special services, such as on Good Friday; something our church has never been able to do. We look forward to filling the space with Bible study, discipleship and worship all week long, as well as having a home for our media outreaches. Our offices will move here, as we have also outgrown our rented office space on Nelson Road.
Please be praying for this new season at White Fields!
Address
2950 Colorful Ave. Longmont, CO 80504
Timeline
Our last service at the Memorial Building will be on March 22, 2020 at 10:00 AM. After service we will move all our equipment over to the new location.
Our first service in the new location will be on March 29, 2020 at 10:00 AM.
We’re excited for what God has planned. If you’re in the Longmont area, come grow with us at White Fields in our new location!
Theology for the People 