Three Days to Miracle Weekend

Miracle weekend is almost here everyone. We encourage you to let everyone know about all of the wonderful events that will be taking place this coming weekend. Once again, for a full list of events please take a look at the Miracle Weekend Schedule. We hope to see you this weekend.

Please remember that Wednesday is Halloween. Drive carefully and keep an eye out for the kids.

Have a great week!

Cottage Meeting Presentation

Most of you are aware that we have been holding a number of Cottage Meetings with members and friends of Southern Hills Church in order to inform people about who we are. The meetings included information on our current ministries, our future ministries, some budget information, and a lot more. These meetings have been wonderful times of learning and discussion.

Unfortunately, not everyone has been able to attend these meetings. To compensate for this th Cottage Meeting information was presented during both services on Sunday, October 28. Pastor Steve gave a summary of the information we cover in our smaller cottage meetings. We are placing the audio from one of these presentations here in this article so that we catch as many people as possible with this information. I am also including scans of all the material we shared with people in the meetings and during Sunday's services. I hope that you can refer to those scanned images below as you listen to the Cottage Meeting content.

The information in these meetings is much more important than awareness surrounding the church's finances. The information presented talks about a vision that Southern Hills Church has had to reach out to the world and be the hands and feet of Christ. This vision is becoming a mission for us with the building of our new addition. This addition provides us with so many opportunities to do God's work in our community and city. I pray that you will listen to this information and prayerfully consider everything you hear. God bless.

Mike Colwill

Goodwill Shoe & Mitten Party

Betty Durfee spoke this morning about the upcoming Goodwill Shoe & Mitten Party which will be held at Southern Hills Church this year. Listen to what she had to say about the event.

Miracle Weekend Interview on KNWC

I don't know if any of you caught it, but Pastor Steve and Steve & Vonnie Mossberg were interviewed on KNWC yesterday concerning the upcoming Miracle Weekend at Southern Hills Church. They aired about six minutes, but the full interview is available on KNWC's website. To listen to the interview follow the link below and click the play button.

Miracle Weekend Interview on KNWC

This interview provides some great information concerning the events of Miracle Weekend. I encourage you all to check it out, and let your friends know about it.

University of Notre Dame Glee Club Concert

I recently learned about a musical event I want to share with everyone. This coming Wednesday, October 24, at 7:00 P.M., the Notre Dame Glee Club will be performing at St. Joseph Cathedral here in Sioux Falls. From everything I've heard this will be a wonderful opportunity to take in a quality music performance from a very talented group. Here is a copy of the concert poster, and details for the concert below.

What: Concert by the University of Notre Dame Glee Club

When: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 7:00 P.M.
Where: St Joseph Cathedral in Sioux Falls
Cost: Free (A goodwill offering will be taken at intermission.)

Miracle Weekend

Miracle Weekend is coming. Here is a rundown of the schedule, links to important people or events, and other information that you may like to have for that weekend. Please share this information with all of your friends, or send them here, to the Online Newsletter, so they can check things out on their own.



Friday, November 2, 2007

12:00 Noon ~ Begin Guided Prayer Vigil
6:00 P.M. ~ Free Barbecue (The public is invited to this meal.)

7:30 - 9:00 P.M. ~ Nashville Recording Artist Celia Whitler in Concert (A free-will offering will be taken.) If you go to Celia's webpage you'll get a chance to listen to some of her music. You can also check out Celia's MySpace page, which will allow you to listen to four of her songs from a live performance.

"I love life and love singing songs about life..."

"My life, my music, my work, are all gifts from God..."

"God calls each of us to reach beyond human existence
and live a life modeled after Christ.
Music is my means of communicating that calling --
reaching beyond words to bring healing, encouragement, and joy."

9:00 P.M. ~ Guided Prayer Vigil continues through the night.


Saturday, November 3, 2007

Until 12:00 Noon ~ Guide Prayer Vigil continues.

An Afternoon for Kids
(Southern Hills Outreach Center)

1:00 P.M. ~ El Riad Shrine Clowns (with popcorn, pop, a jump house, and inflatable slide available!)
2:30 P.M. ~ Phil Baker in Concert in the Celebration Space
4:00 P.M. ~ Praise Band Extravaganza

• "Friends" - Southern Hills Church - Sioux Falls, SD
• "Colton Community Praise" - Colton, SD
• "New Day Worship Band" - New Day Church - Sioux Falls, SD
• "Brandon Valley Bluegrass" - Brandon Valley Baptist Church - Brandon, SD
• "Good News Reformed Worship Band" - Good News Reformed Church - Sioux Falls, SD
• "Joyful Noise" - Sunnycrest United Methodist Church - Sioux Falls, SD

8:30 P.M. ~ Angel Dean - Praise & Worship (A free-will offering will be taken.) To hear some of Angel Dean's music or to learn more about him enter the site and check out the "Multimedia" or "Bio" links at the top of the page. Under Multimedia you can
listen to songs or even watch a video of Angel Dean singing "Why Is This My Life".

"The night that I was planning to end my life, God had other plans.
Before that night ended, I was moved by an unexplainable love
and overwhelming feeling of hope
that melted away many years of anger,
bitterness, and resentment."

"I know about despair, loneliness, and rejection,
but more importantly, I know about God's love,
mercy, and grace."

"I am here to share the love and greatness of the Lord with the world.
I am Angel Dean and I am here by God's grace."

Sunday, November 4, 2007

9:00 A.M. ~ Church School for all ages
10:00 A.M. ~ "Hills Alive" Worship in the new Outreach Center
11:30 A.M. ~ Sit-Down Meal by Tony's Catering ($8.50/Adults & $4.00/Children)

Join your Southern Hills friends and celebrate the miracle of our new Outreach Center! We are located at 3400 East 49th Street. Call 371-2065 for more information. Everyone is welcome!

The Poll function isn't working

Sorry, everyone. The poll was only up for a day. I had to remove it as the first answer that anyone would give locked the poll up so that nobody else could place their own vote. Anyway, I will be doing some research into that glitch and see if I can't get it figured out.

I would still like to know everyone's answer to the poll question. I will place the question below, and encourage you to leave your answer by leaving a comment to this post or the original post explaining the poll. Or you can email me directly at kanteker@gmail.com.

Poll Question:

Would you like us to add a section with links to the personal and professional websites of our members and friends so that you can find them easily? Would you participate?

Possible Answers

• Yes, I would be interested in checking out my church family's personal and professional websites.
• No, I would not be interested in checking out my church family's personal and professional websites.
• I would be interested in having my personal or professional website listed in the Online Newsletter.

I look forward to hearing everyone's answers to this.

God Speed,

Michael Colwill

Our First Poll

I've decided to try a new feature on Blogger, the site which hosts our Online Newsletter. They have a polling function which allows us to do small surveys with our readers.

This time I've decided to hunt for more content for our Online Newsletter. I would like to promote and support our church members and friends by listing links to their personal and professional websites. This would be a great opportunity for our church members for a number of reasons. By checking out the personal websites of our church members you'd be able to learn more about the people that make our congregation such a wonderful family. By checking our the professional websites of our church members you can learn about the ways our members interact with the community around us in a professional role. By listing your own professional website you may even draw in some additional business from your friends and family at Southern Hills who may not have known your profession previously.

I want to say all church member websites are welcome, but I will place one caveat on that statement. Please make sure that your website is church appropriate. If you have a MySpace page that is filled with advertising that may not be church related, or may be inappropriate for all of our members to be viewing (don't forget our youth, people) you may not want to include that. However, if you have a personal website, blog, or online community web page I'd love to include it. Likewise, if you own your own business and would like to promote that business to the congregation I'd like to include your website. No, I'm not selling advertising. No, I'm not going to place a large banner advertising your product or services. Just a simple little link to your professional website.

Please take the poll. If we have a decent response from everyone I will send out a request for website URLs, names of websites, etc, so we can get our list put together. Keep in mind, this list is going to look similar to the Links section in the sidebar, nothing fancy.

If your respond with a yes to the poll, and would like to participate with your website, feel free to email me personally at kanteker@gmail.com, and I will keep track of your website information until I start posting the list. Also, if you have any suggestions feel free to leave a comment for this post, or to email me directly again.

God Speed,

Michael Colwill

P.S. If the poll goes well, look for more of them in the future. After each poll has been completed, I will put up the results in another Online Newsletter post. Thanks.

A Letter from Pastor Steve

Friends,

There are a several important things I'd like to share with you before Sunday morning.

• Please remember that Sunday, October 7th is World Communion Sunday and Confirmation Sunday. I pray that you will come to worship and support and affirm our young people who will be confirmed.
• During the worship service, you will also have an opportunity to reaffirm your baptismal vows and renew your commitment to Jesus Christ. My prayer is that many of you will come forward for that renewal.
• The monthly Ministry Team meetings and the Leadership Team meeting have been changed for October. We will meet on Wednesday, October 10, 2007. Ministry Teams will meet at 7:00 P.M. and the Leadership Team will meet at 8:00 P.M. This change has been made to accommodate the "Cottage Meetings" for our Celebrate A Miracle Stewardship Campaign.
• When you are invited to attend a "Cottage Meeting" at the home of one of the members of your church family, I hope you will respond affirmatively and take the time to attend. We would like 100% participation at the "Cottage Meetings" and 100% of our members and friends returning their commitment of support for the ministry of our church.
• We will all return our commitments of support for the ministries of Southern Hills Church on Sunday, November 4, 2007. We will only have one service @ 10:00 A.M. on that day. The service will be held in the new multi-purpose room. Thank you in advance for your careful and prayerful consideration of your commitment for 2008 and following.
• Sunday School on November 4, 2007 will be held at 9:00 A.M.
• Please keep Jaxson Kyler Phillips and his mom and dad in your prayers. Jaxson was baptized at the 9:00 A.M. service on September 30, 2007.
• Please keep Abbey and Jonathan Guenthner in your prayers. They were married at Southern Hills on Saturday, September 29th.
• One of our church families has offered a $2,000 matching grant to help pay our conference apportionments. They would like the congregation to match the grant 5 to 1. That would pay our apportionments in full for 2007. Pray about your response to this wonderful gift. Then get out your check book or wallet and help meet the goal of raising the $10,000 to match this remarkable gift.
• This song was done by the Kingston Trio in the 1960's, but is very applicable to our Stewardship Campaign. Read it. Enjoy it. And then think about how it applies to you and your commitment to our ministries.

Desert Pete

Artist: The Kingston Trio (peak Billboard position # 33 in 1963)
Words and Music by Billy Edd Wheeler

I was travellin' West a buckskin on my way to a cattle run
Cross a little cactus desert under a hot blisterin' sun
I was thirsty down to my toenails, stopped to rest me on a stump
But I tell ya I just couldn't believe it when I saw that water pump
I took it to be a mirage at first, it'll fool a thirsty man
Then I saw a note stuck in a bakin' powder can
"This pump is old", the note began, "but she works so give'r a try"
"I put a new sucker washer in 'er, you may find the leather dry"

"You've got to prime the pump, you must have faith and believe"
"You've got to give of yourself 'fore you're worthy to receive"
"Drink all the water you can hold, wash your face, cool your feet"
"Leave the bottle full for others, Thank You kindly, Desert Pete"

"Yeah, you'll have to prime the pump, work that handle like there's a fire"
"Under that rock you'll find some water I left in a bitters jar"
"Now there's just enough to prime it with so dontcha go drinkin' first"
"You just pour it in and pump like mad, buddy, you'll quench your thirst"

"You've got to prime the pump, you must have faith and believe"
"You've got to give of yourself 'fore you're worthy to receive"
"Drink all the water you can hold, wash your face, cool your feet"
"Leave the bottle full for others, Thank You kindly, Desert Pete"

Well I found that jar and I tell ya nothin' was ever prettier to my eye
And I was tempted strong to drink it, cuz that pump looked mighty dry
But the note went on "have faith my friend, there's water down below"
"You got to give until you get
I'm the one who ought to know"
So I poured in the jar and I started pumpin' and I heard a beautiful sound
Of water bubblin' and splashin' up outta that hole in the ground
I took off my shoes and I drunk my fill of that cool refreshing treat
I thank the Lord and thank the pump and I thank old Desert Pete

"You've got to prime the pump, you must have faith and believe"
"You've got to give of yourself 'fore you're worthy to receive"
"Drink all the water you can hold, wash your face, cool your feet"
"Leave the bottle full for others, Thank You kindly, Desert Pete"

"Drink all the water you can hold, wash your face, cool your feet"
"Leave the bottle full for others, Thank You kindly, Desert Pete"

Thanks to Dave Burns for finding this song and relating it to our stewardship effort this fall. It sure made me think. I hope and prayer it does the same for you.

In the Master's service,

Steve

Promise Keepers is October 13th

Hello, friends. Sorry about taking such a long brake in between announcements. Things have been busy, busy around the church and busy around my house. I wanted to share one more promotional video for the Promise Keepers Web Cast that is coming up on Saturday, October 13. If you haven't decided to attend yet I really hope you reconsider. If your calendar is free I think this is definitely something that would benefit you in so many different ways. I will include the details below.

Promise Keepers
Web Cast
October 13, 2007
8:30 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.
Southern Hills Church
Celebration Space
Cost: $35.00 (includes Lunch & Snacks)
Invite your friends!
Contact the church office to get registered.
605-371-2065