Hcn issue 3

Hill City

Vol.1 Issue 3

News

What’s inside: Letter from the Editor Pg.2 Reach Revival Recap Pg.3 Open Mic Night Pg.4 My Testimony Pg. 5 HCFellowship Pg.6

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his summer Hill City Women’s Ministry prepares for the first “Women’s Retreat” held on August 7th-8th near the St. Pete/ Clearwater beach area.

“I’m excited about going to the women’s retreat,” Nikeya Williams said. “ I’ve been wanting to spend some extra time with my sisters at Hill City.”

The retreat will consist of one seminar, a prayer walk, spending time with the sisters, and other fun events. “ We want the ladies at Hill City to have time to spend with God and their sisters,” Melissa Choe said.

The women’s ministry at Hill City started out as the prayer group Two Or More (TOM). In 2013, Melissa and Teresa Tran decided to start TOM to provide women at Hill City the opportunity to join in faith and prayer in a community of love, acceptance and encouragement.

“There was a need at Hill City Church to have a ministry that would help sisters develop unity in Christ and spiritual growth in partnership with one another,” Choe said.

A year after starting the prayer group, Choe became the discipleship intern at Hill City, and she’s been working hard to grow and stabilize the women’s ministry.

Since taking the position as a discipleship intern, Choe has been feverishly developing the women’s ministry at Hill City Church. The retreat was one of the first events that Choe wanted to make sure that the women ministry has every once year.

Choe says that this year’s women’s retreat will set a good precedence for the women’s ministry, and she’s looking forward to seeing the ministry grow abundantly in the future.

The prayer group TOM still gathers every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. to pray for prayer requests and Hill City Church. To have TOM pray for your prayer requests, please submit your prayer requests in the prayer box in the sanctuary.

For more information about the Women’s Retreat, please contact Melissa Choe at melissa.choe1989@ gmail.com.

Written by: Nikeya Williams

Letter from the Editor so much on outward appearance of beauty, and believe me this is easy to do…I find myself stuck in this place frequently. Spending so much time in the mirror making sure that I look “perfect,” don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it is a sin to want to look good.

I’m saying that the same amount of time that I Hi Hill City!

I can’t believe that we’re publishing our third issue of Hill City News. Wow, time is definitely flying, and I’m sure excited about this issue. I hope you’re excited about this issue too! A lot has happened at Hill City since the last issue. For starters, Hill City’s Women Ministry has been busy serving, praying and planning for their first retreat. It’s so encouraging to see Godly women modeling after the Proverbs 31 woman.

In today society, women are defined by their dress sizes, facial features and hair textures. There isn’t much focus on the inward appearance of woman.

In Proverbs 31:10-14 says a Godly woman is “ A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm all the days of her life.

She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships bringing her food from afar.”

I can confidently say that sometimes it’s hard to be a Proverbs 31woman, to be honest it’s hard to remove the depictions that the media feeds me everyday about beauty. Although I say that my beauty is found in God, I still struggle and wrestle with the idea of beauty and if I’m deemed as beautiful, but I know that as I grow older my outward beauty will change, but my inward beauty will remain.

The inward beauty is the most important part of all this, that’s the one thing that will stay even as the outward appearance changes. The world focuses Pg.2 HCN

spend on looking good outwardly, I need to spend time with God building on my true beauty from within. My true beauty inside is what really matters to God. Building righteous character found in God isn’t only something that the ladies should focus on, but building Godly character is something that all believers should be working to build everyday. It’s so easy to focus on the outward appearance, but inward beauty will last for eternity. In my mind, eternity is a long time, and I know that I’m so far away from perfect. But each day as I live, I’m going to try to the best of my abilities to make my inward beauty shine for my savior.

As I end this letter, I want to encourage you to build on Godly character daily. I know that sometimes getting caught up in the mundane things in life makes it hard to build on Godly character. But remember that God knows our hearts, and He loves us, and as you are walking with God he will help you build a righteous character.

I want to leave you with another one of my favorite scriptures.“ We can’t allow ourselves to get tired of living the right way. Certainly, each of us will receive everlasting life at the proper time, if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:9 I hope that you enjoy this issue!

Nikeya Williams

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each Revival

Recap

Photos by: Sophan Theam

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Photos by: Nikeya Williams

en M

Op A

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bout a month ago, I adventured out with my cousin Mike Jones to “Open Mic Night” at the Ybor Daily Market. I honestly, I wasn’t expecting much to happen the first time I came out to “Open Mic Night”. It just seemed empty in the performance area, there weren’t a lot people in audience, it was only me and my family sitting and waiting to see Mike perform.

It’s was almost 7:30 p.m. when Mike took the stage to sing and perform songs from his new album “ Be True”. Before Mike started singing, I thought to myself…good thing my family and I are here to support Mike.

As I sat there watching Mike perform, I looked around and I noticed that people started to come in and sit down to watch and listen to Mike’s performance. I thought surely they wouldn’t stay long…well…because now in days people seem to be so offend when you say the name of Jesus Christ, especially in an ultra secular place like Ybor where gay bars are all over the place, and people are already dunk before they get into the night clubs.

But no one in the audience seemed to be offend as Mike sang the his song “ I Love Your Presence” and the lyrics go something like this “ I want to do your will, I want to bring new life, restore, and to heal. Sing hallelujah, holy are you, Lord. I love your presence.”

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I like the fact that Mike doesn’t shy away from sharing God’s truth with none believers. It’s so easy to keep on preaching to “the choir” so to say, then to go out into the world where people live rough hard lives, and the share gospel.

This what I admire most about Mike, is that he isn’t afraid to face people who may hate God or make fun what he believes in, he stands up and defends his faith. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t disrespectful to other’s situations or beliefs. He looks for ways to make disciples, and find the spiritually lost.

Finding the lost and making disciples is what the Christian life is about, it’s not about staying within the comfort of our four church walls and hanging out with our friends every week. Being a Christian means that we step out of our comfort zone, and go to the places where we have to depend on God for the next move.

I don’t know if people will get saved from Mike going to the “ Open Mic Night” at Ybor Daily Market, but I think it’s good that he goes each week. Who know maybe one Wednesday night Mike can actually have a conversation about Jesus with one of the perforers or someone in the audience.

My

Testimony

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Written By: Solomon Kang

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ince I’ve only been coming to Hill City Church for a few weeks I figured it would be a good way for everyone to get to know me better if I shared my testimony of how I came to put my trust in Christ.

My mom became a Christian when I was very young so I grew up following her to church ever since I could remember. I was raised being taught the Bible and believed with all my heart that it was the Word of God and that it was the Truth. Even while I was studying mechanical engineering in college and learning about all the scientific theories and claims that opposed the Bible my heart never wavered in doubt.

All of this faith and belief was great, but there was still a serious problem - my heart’s sinful condition. Even though I knew the truth and I knew God’s commands I could not obey them. Trying harder to keep His law only intensified my guilt whenever I did eventually fall again. Over time this vicious cycle of sin and guilt was blocked out by my hardened heart, and my conscience became numb to my sinfulness. I chose to ignore the Holy Spirit’s convictions and indulge in my selfish desires.

In the midst of my self-gratifying lifestyle, I was coerced by someone I met (who is a good friend now) to start doing a Bible study.

I reluctantly agreed because (to be brutally honest) I didn’t want to let that person down.

During that Bible study, Jesus showed me what true faith was, and that it would cost me something - my life. He called me to repent, and turn away from my own sinful life.

He called me to follow after Him, and the life He had for me. I didn’t want to accept this

reality at first, and my instinct was to fight it and live the way I wanted to live. Eventually, my heart was convicted and I decided to surrender to Jesus.

This was back in 2007, but every day I am still learning to trust in Jesus more and allowing Him to mold me into His image. By His grace, I believe the work He started in me will be finished one day.

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Photos by: Nikeya Williams

HCFellowship Written by: Nikeya Williams

HCF Outreach Encourages USF students In May 2015, Hill City Fellowship (HCF) got together and assembled encouraging bags for last week of finals for the students at the University of South Florida (USF).

The encouraging bags were filled with candy, granola bars, and a scripture verse that was neatly hand-written by each person that volunteered to put the bags together.

“The day before when we were preparing I felt like there unity within our group members,” Julius An said. “You can see [the] hearts of [the volunteers] really shine during the time of preparation.

Pastor Julius An, who leads HCF the small group meetings on USF campus, said that the moment that he and the volunteers started giving out the encouraging bags and flyers for the revival, he could see the students’ face were full of joy.

HCF plan on to continuing to reach out to USF, they are hoping to get more involved with the summer

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orientations on the USF campus.

“Hopefully, we are able to get a great turn out from these orientation days because we want to recruit the incoming freshmen as much as possible,” An said. “ Definitely, giving them flyers to let them know who we are and really engaging these students that HCF offers a Christ-centered community.”

For more information about HCF and the outreaches, please contact Pastor Julius An at pastorjuliusan@ gmail.com.

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