How does Harvest Fellowship help its neighbors in need?
While we don't offer cash assistance (like rent, insurance or utility payments) to individuals outside of our fellowship, we do offer food through our Food Bank program. On the second Saturday of each month, we provide food to 50-60 individuals and families from our area. If an emergency arises during the month, we can provide one-time help to an individual or family in need. Click for more details. What time does your Sunday service begin, and do you have Sunday school for children?
Our worship service begins at 10:00am, and during the entire service time, we have nursery care and Sunday school available for children from birth through age 4. For children ages 5 to 15, we offer Sunday school during the sermon portion of our service. The service and all Sunday school classes end around noon.
Your Sunday service is almost two hours long? What is a service like?
Yes, most weeks our worship service runs from 10:00am to 11:45am-12:00pm. The first hour or so is spent in worship, led by one of our worship teams, and includes our offering time. Our worship teams include instrumentalists and vocalists, and may be as small as four or as large as eight or more. We use piano, keyboard, drums of all sorts, flute, guitar, and bass on a regular basis. The Pastor, Elders and worship leaders look to the Holy Spirit for direction during the service, and may from time to time, lead the congregation in a time of directed ministry and prayer. Also, on the first Sunday of each month, we share in the Lord's Supper during this worship time. After announcements and dismissing the children to Sunday school, the Pastor begins his message. Sunday sermons are normally one of two types - either a chapter by chapter look at a book of the Bible, or a Biblical look at a topic or area of study. You can hear a recent sermon here.
What kinds of fellowship activities are available at Harvest Fellowship?
We believe God has made us to be a part of a Christian community, and that solid personal relationships offer opportunities for growth, healing, and accountability. And on top of that, we really like to spend time with each other at Harvest Fellowship! On a Sunday morning, there are folks who arrive early, and folks who stay after the service (and some do both!) to talk and visit with others. At our midweek Thursday evening events, we offer Kids for Christ (KFC) for kids from 3 to 12, Livin Loud for kids 13 to 18, and a verse-by-verse Bible study for adults. We offer a variety of home groups, some of which are topical and meet for about 12 weeks, and others which meet on a regular, on-going basis. These groups often result in relationships that last long after the home group has ended. From time to time, special short-term groups may form based on congregational need, like a mother's morning class with childcare. Our Seniors meet together once a month for lunch after our Sunday service. Our teens also meet about once a month for a social event, and attend special youth events like Acquire the Fire each year. We hold Men's Breakfast with special speakers about 4 times a year. Twice a year we hold Love Feast Breakfast on Sunday morning - we gather for covered dish breakfast and fellowship before our worship service. We hold an annual church picnic, a missions fund raising picnic, a football tailgate picnic, movie nights, volleyball nights, Christmas caroling, covered dish lunches and other social events with lots of fun for everyone - youngsters, adults, families, and oldsters. You can check out our calendar or by going to the page for the ministry in which you are interested.
How can I serve at Harvest Fellowship?
Service comes in all sizes and shapes at Harvest Fellowship. It can be as easy as being a greeter and welcoming people on a Sunday morning, or something more long-term, like being a Sunday school teacher. Members and friends can become prayer warriors by signing up to receive the weekly prayer letter which includes global, local and specific Harvest prayer requests. You can volunteer to oversee the kids' games at a picnic, or to take dinner to a new mom and her family, or work in our flower beds. We believe that the Christian lifestyle is one of serving rather than being served, and continue to develop these opportunities for our church family.
What about missions? Is Harvest a sending church? A giving church?
Missions are important to us at Harvest Fellowship. We want each of our teens to experience missions on several levels - locally, nationally and internationally, and we also want to provide opportunities for adults to participate in short-term mission projects.
On the local level, we consider our Food Bank to be a mission outreach as each month we strive to present Jesus, the Bread of Life, to each person who comes to receive food. Our teen drama team performs at Christian events, Christian evangelistic outreaches, other churches and almost any other venue they can find!
Nationally, we have sent teams to the Red Lake, Minnesota Native American Reservation to work with the missionary family there. They worked on building projects and ran VBS programs for the Native American children. We also sent work teams to both New Orleans and Mississippi to assist with the Hurricane Katrina clean-up efforts.
Internationally, we have sponsored many teens' first mission experiences abroad through Youth With a Mission (YWAM), Teen Mania's Global Expeditions, and trips we have organized ourselves. These trips give our teens a taste of what being a missionary is like - they must raise funds, go through specialized training, and then actually go to a foreign country and share God's light and love.
As a congregation, we commit 20 percent of the tithes received each month to help support missionaries working on the field. Some are local (a couple who works with area bikers); some are national (a missionary family who works to train other missionaries before they go to the field); but the majority of the missionaries and mission agencies we support on an on-going basis are on international fields. You can find more details about our efforts to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to others on our Mission page.
