A Night To Shine
What an incredible celebration we had at our largest Night to Shine yet! We had 367 participants and 506 volunteers! It truly was an amazing community celebration.  When it comes to the Breathe Organization, we are currently working on a young adult group who will meet on a day other than Sunday morning to give high functioning adults with disabilities a connection to the church.

Producing A New-ish Team
It's been a busy but productive season!  We've been slowly mocking up, designing, and producing signage with Whatagraphic to update the Atrium.  
Speaking of production, Lance took on leadership of a the newly named Production Team, which includes several departments such as Lighting, Media, Cameras, & Switchers.  We are also including our Church Online team as an official part of the team in order to have the same vision for each team that represents us on Sunday mornings.  That vision is simple:  Whether operating a camera, the light board, or Church Online, we should be worshipping.  We are not serving from a technical standpoint, but serving as a form of worship.   As we move forward with this new team, we are implementing cross training with all serving positions in order to ensure that we have plenty of people who can rotate in and out of all the positions available should someone not be able to serve.  And we're seeing new growth as Church Online continues to not only expand, but diversify into the other departments.

Keeping The Vision Before The Congregation
We tried something new for the 1 Thessalonians Sermon Series.  At Liz's request, we created a weekly bumper to summarize each previous week.  We feel like this helped to keep unity within the series and keep the vision of the sermons as a whole, given the fact that we had three different people preaching the messages.

Heritage Online
We are in the midst of beta testing a method for electronic submission of our Purchase Orders, including monthly credit card reconciliation and reimbursements.

We also helped pull together the photo directory online of staff and leadership for the Heritage website, as well as producing various elements  to assist multiple areas of ministry,  including: Sunday Night Fire, Basic Training, Child Dedication, Ministry Fair, Fam Jam, etc.

The Storehouse
The Storehouse brought in $46,044 in 1st quarter sales (Feb. and March). There’s no January sale as January is designated for reorganization and improvements. The largest first quarter SH initiative was a shift in clothing department management. After 12 years of faithful service, Kippy Adams passed the baton to Tina Stralka and Kathryn Wright. This department alone has expanded to 25 people ranging in age from 16 to 96! In January, we conducted numerous individual and group meetings, restructuring, and training to ensure a smooth transition. New systems, cross training, and streamlining processes have greatly increased efficiency and productivity in this department.

The Storehouse Relief team served 35 individuals or households this quarter including two just released from prison. Both showed genuine gratitude about actually having the opportunity to choose some things of their own. We were humbled to have the opportunity to encourage them in their fresh start.

As Storehouse has been going almost 13 years, we’ve begun to experience the loss of aging members- losing 3 in the last couple of years. Most recently, in February, we lost longtime member, Volina McClain. It was very moving to see how lovingly and faithfully the SH family walked with Ms. Volina and her family in her final months. She lived well, served well, and died well encouraging us all by her example. The SH Family is a great picture of an Acts community that serves, grows, prays, eats, and does life together on a regular basis. We’ve just begun a new small group on the book, The Bait of Satan. It’s about living free of offence. We’re having great discussion around this topic and look forward to growing together.

Mission Partners
Ben Nieman, our HGM to Fort Benning in Columbus reports that the first three months of this year have been “like an explosion of the power of God! Not just in salvations, but with physical miracles and repentance and soldiers dedicating their lives to Jesus. I am constantly wowed by the power of God as I get to lead worship there each Sunday morning!” So far this year, over 400 soldiers have made professions of faith and had the opportunity to connect to discipleship materials and 240 soldiers have been baptized. Ben has gotten permission to hold a huge Easter Service on the parade field and is expecting 2,000 soldiers to attend! It’s truly amazing that our church is able to partner with Ben in this move of God in impacting soldiers as they gather at Fort Moore for Basic before dispersing all over the world!

Another of our mission organizations on the military front, Pride Packages led by Pat Garlick, packed and sent 50 packages to soldiers on active deployment so far this year. She has another packing date planned for April. Quite a few of our people have participated in her packing sessions and have been impressed and encouraged by her vision and organization.

 Global Trips
At the beginning of March, Seth Berl took a team of 20 on a medical/dental mission to Honduras. This was the 38th Honduras medical mission and they served 920 patients distributing medicines at a retail value of $257,000!  In the weeks leading up to this mission, 24 PCOM students met weekly to assist in sorting and packing meds.

At 82 years old, Johnny Ray has already gone to Honduras twice this year installing over 200 water purification systems and educating community members on their use as well as checking in on existing filters.

Our Next Gen team of 22 kids, students, and adults left on March 31 for a Honduras mission with SoloHope, one of our longtime global partners. They’ll do some home improvement in a remote community building a bathroom, pila, stove, and cement floor for a family as well as conducting children’s programs in several communities and visiting 24 homes to deliver basic necessities and encourage and pray for families. This trip is especially exciting because it’s the reigniting of a longtime Heritage Core value- families on mission together. Stephen and Ellis have been great advocates for kids, students, and families to serve together both locally and globally.

Coming Up
On April 11th, we’re offering the opportunity for anyone interested to participate in Secret Church. From 7pm- 1am, we’ll join a livestream led by David Platt for a deep dive into Scripture studying the book of Matthew, hearing from members of the persecuted church, and praying for them. For those who participate, this will surely enlarge our hearts for the world!

Pre-K
As we step into 2025 there are many different things happening in Pre-K Ministry. There will be a change in leadership starting June 2025. Bonnie Harrison has started shadowing this new role and we have been meeting weekly to help with this transition.

Family/volunteers - We have seen an increase of families bringing their children to Pre-K Ministry  and with this growth our spaces have been feeling a bit small. It's exciting to see this growth and see where Jesus is taking us! I can see walls coming down or being created for new spaces!

There have been many new faces joining Team Life, and that has helped fill in the gap in several places.  The increase has really been for the first service, however, so we are working on a plan to help encourage our team or those coming on board to consider serving second service.

As we continue to grow and navigate all the different ministries of Heritage Church it's been beautiful to see Pre-K Ministry sometimes being the first step of our families getting connected. When someone cares for your child, families are moved to come back and to serve!

Kids Ministry
The Kids Ministry at Heritage Church continues to thrive, with an average attendance of 62 children in the first service and 106 in the second, ranging from infants to 5th grade. This past quarter was filled with incredible events, including FAM JAM, a well-attended parent equipping Saturday paired with a kids' equipping event, and Baby Dedication along with preparatory classes.

Our 4th and 5th graders and their parents participated in Basic Training, a three-Sunday program designed to ground them in the gospel and basics of faith. The Bible Skills Team  helped kids to know the books of the Bible, Bible divisions, and 15 key verses while sharpening their skills through Bible Drills. Additionally, several families have been engaging with the "What is a Christian?" resource to guide their children in understanding their faith.

Exciting events are on the horizon! Families will receive a Palm Sunday Holy Week packet, and we look forward to celebrating Easter with a special breakfast for volunteers and their families. We are also dreaming of blessing families with movie tickets to see The King of Kings the Tuesday after Easter—both as a blessing for consistent families and an outreach opportunity for new Easter attendees. We're looking forward to having the  5th Grade Moving Up Mile Marker event, the Slide into Summer family event, and the Change for a Change summer missions initiative.

When it comes to dreams, we are hoping to start family worship nights.  We also want to see more strong believers—including couples and grandparents—investing in the next generation by serving as storytellers, hosts, small group leaders, and mentors to student leaders. Increasing adult volunteers with an eternal vision will help deepen our impact and expand our reach to more families. We also hope to develop small group discipleship training for Kids Club leaders, establish dedicated prayer warriors interceding for children and families during Sunday services, and host more playground gatherings with additions for improved seating, sensory play, and 4-square courts. Additionally we'd like to refresh and organize Kids Ministry spaces and resources, provide more parent equipping and encouragement, and cast a vision for the blessings of a "worship one, serve one" mindset.

Students
The average weekly attendance for Middle School students this quarter was 55, and 47 for High School. We kicked off the year teaching on fundamentals such as fasting, prayer, and quiet time.

In February we taught on sexual integrity where student leaders had an opportunity to teach during our guy/girl nights.  In March we taught on principles from Holy Week. We had a time of communion at the end of March where we had dedicated prayer time to self reflect that led to a powerful night for students to share.

We recently started an FCA club at CCA, and students are leading devotionals every Thursday.  Snowbird camp is currently full and beach retreat signups will open in April.  

Young Adults
We recently kicked off a young adult gathering on Thursdays in February. We have been seeing around 20 young adults join us every week where we have a meal, social time, and a Bible discussion. We finished off March with a teaching on communion and had young adults lead in a time of worship and had 30 participants

Good News In Prayer & Pastoral Care
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to give accurate stats for pastoral care and prayer. But this is good news! Our faith community is getting better and better at caring for one another through serving teams, small groups, or even as individuals. This is the vision we’ve longed for our people to embrace and run with.

Because this is happening more and more, we as an organization sometimes don’t hear about all of the needs and how they’re getting met. Fourth Quarter Bible Study is doing a great job of caring for its members. Because there have been so many needs in this group this year, Fourth Quarter Bible Study has recently formed a pastoral care team of 15 members who regularly communicate about and share responsibility for meeting needs as they arise. This seems to be working well and has relieved some of the pressure off of the leadership of this class who were trying to keep up with it all. For instance, Fourth Quarter Bible Study just recently served the funeral lunch for family and friends of Bobby Palmer.

Storehouse also has a pastoral care team which has been effective in ministering to the needs that arise within that group. Second Quarter small group, Sunday Support teams, and several of our other longstanding small groups are truly shepherding and caring for our people. This is encouraging. It also allows Dawn to focus on serving those who may not be connected or provide additional support where the needs are too great for one group to meet.

Dawn and her teams have served meals to a total of 210 people involved in funerals this quarter. Dawn’s teams have provided meals, cards, encouragement or some type of care for 61 people this quarter and connected 8 with counseling. Dawn is also meeting with two people interested in growing in inner healing prayer and two others desiring training in spiritual warfare.

We’ve had several funerals already this year and quite a few people experiencing serious health issues.  It’s encouraging that the load hasn’t fallen all on one pastor, but has been spread out among our pastors. Mark, Stephen, and Brad have all done funerals this quarter.  I feel like the more we follow this model of plurality of leadership and reflect that from the platform, the more successful we’ll be in ensuring that the load of pastoral care required by our pastors is more evenly distributed.  At the same time, we continue to cast the vision and equip our people, groups, and teams to care for one another.

Prayer
Though it is a relatively small team, our Sunday morning prayer team led by John and Mary Kaye Turrentine is always there and ready to pray for our pastors, speakers, and whoever comes for prayer during the service. In first quarter 118 prayer team members prayed for 50 people requesting prayer. As cultural issues continue to escalate, this is reflected in some of the encounters in the prayer room. We’re currently researching some different avenues of equipping all of our prayer people with more inner healing and spiritual warfare training. Our current teams are doing a great job of dealing with needs and also connecting participants when necessary with next steps of counseling, inner healing prayer, mentoring or whatever the need may be. We have such a passionate and strong prayer culture in our church. We want to continue to grow and to fan the flame and to create on ramps for others to join in.

Another prayer initiative that has formed recently is a team of intercessors who meet in the baptism room and pray on Sundays from 8:00-9:00 specifically for our Sunday morning worship service. This team is led by Jerry and Sandee Williams.

An upcoming prayer initiative is our involvement in the Holy Week Scripture reading and prayer on the Courthouse Square. Heritage will be covering Scripture reading on the platform and Prayer in the 24/7 prayer room on Wednesday, April 16 from 10a.m. to 1pm.  

Paint, Repairs, & Signage
The current focus of property management is to finish up the Atrium project.  We've been refreshing the entire space with paint, sound reduction panels, and now we are finishing up atrium signage.  In the past few months we've had to address the gathering of repairs needed through the inspections report requested from the leadership team.  We are looking over repairs needed and prioritizing them.

One focus has been on storage solutions for various ministries and how to best utilize what we currently have.  We have also been tasked with a future upgrade of atrium flooring, updated atrium bathrooms, and an updated coffee shop to reflect a cohesive design.

Discipleship: Small Groups And Equipping
This Spring semester, we had a successful launch of small groups, with 47 groups and 902 participants consistently involved.

Getting To The Basics With Alpha And Discover Heritage
We offered an Alpha small group for new believers and those curious about following Jesus. It introduced the basics of Christianity, and we promoted it at PCOM, with some students joining. We hope this marks the beginning of an evangelistic bridge with the medical college. Our goal is to regularly offer groups for new believers as more people come to Christ and join our community.

With the support of three small group breakout couples (Cox, Bautista, and Lassetter), Brad and Michelle facilitated our first Discover Heritage group in an 8-week format. The group provided valuable feedback as participants shared vulnerably, confessed openly, and gained a deeper understanding of themselves, the church, and our shared faith. Brad and Michelle were able to draw on decades of experience to answer questions about life at Heritage, vision and values, and theology. After the group ends, they will meet one-on-one with participants to discuss next steps as Heritage members.

Equipping The Church
We are focused on providing regular equipping to enhance relational wisdom and biblical understanding within our community. This January, we hosted a parent equipping session for parents of elementary-aged children, offering practical tools for Christ-centered parenting. We look forward to offering a similar equipping for parents of teens on the first Saturday of May. Additionally, we hosted a Thursday afternoon group for teachers in our church and in the community, focused on developing teaching and preaching skills.

For biblical understanding, we are hosting Secret Church on April 11th, offering a six-hour in-depth study on the Gospel of Matthew, along with focused prayer for the persecuted church. On June 13th-14th, we will host Eric Foster-Whiddon for an equipping on “What is the Bible and How Do I Study It?” with an emphasis on the New Testament.

Worship, Testimony, and Next Steps

Many groups this semester were marked by worship, prayer, and sharing testimonies. Group leaders shared stories of meaningful prayer and worship times and deep connection from members sharing their stories of life and faith in Christ. We also invited participants to fill out a "next step" form, connecting 50 individuals to opportunities like baptism, mentoring/discipleship, inner healing, and growth in prayer and Scripture. It’s inspiring to witness the growth of faith, hope, and love within our community.

Lights, Camera, People?
We’re excited about recent initiatives to develop our Production Team with adding members and training.  We've seen members of the Church Online team step into training for possible new roles, including media, cameras, and lighting.  The Church Online team has now been integrated into the Production Team, which will hopefully lead to even more interactions between the different departments.  While we are still struggling with recruitment of volunteers, we remain hopeful that sharing vision with our current team and allowing them to serve in new ways will help keep the Production Team healthy, which will lead to growth.

When it comes to the technical side, we’ve also done a few equipment upgrades in the audio department that will improve our sound quality in house and to the online broadcast.

Leaders And Growth 
As a result of the Team Life Ministry Fair, Sunday Support gained 7 new team members that are actively serving.

Sunday Support Team Life Leaders met to discuss clarity on "best practices", onboarding, Sunday morning huddles, serving commitments, and position descriptions. It was a very successful meeting.  Each team was represented -  Usher, Offering, Atrium Greeters & Connection Desk, Exterior Door Greeters,  Safety, Baptism, Heritage of the Square, and Atrium Creative Team.

Loved Through Tragedy
One of our team members, Rose Spry, lost a family member. Her Team Leader got together with her team, provided flowers ,and helped with the funeral meal. Rose was so touched and in tears. She said she felt so loved by her church and was overwhelmed with gratitude!

On The Square
Heritage on the Square had an opportunity to pray for over 15 people in our community at 2nd Saturday in January and March. One family that experienced this connection is now attending Heritage!

A New Team For Visitors
We are currently working to build a Visitor Connect Team. This team will help to provide personal service and hospitality to our first time visitors. We've been brainstorming ways of accomplishing this goal.  A few ways for us to provide help will be clear visibility in the Atrium, personal welcome letters, welcome bags, and providing info specific to visiting our church. We currently have one member and a Team Leader being trained. We are excited to see the team grow and create a personal experience for our first time visitors.