Is a Church Online a Real Community?

What makes for genuine community? Everyone had to wrestle with that in 2020 when community as we had thought of it was abruptly severed. Four years later, we continue to grasp for the precise answer to the question in our moment.

The Casaba Melon Church (November 12, 2023)

This week’s sermon:

Rules, hypocrisy, conflict—those are the words people most often reach for when they describe the church, and if we’re honest, we’ve sometimes given them reason to. Galatians 5 doesn’t flinch from that indictment; it sets the works of the flesh against a vision of the church so different, so beautiful, that it could only come from one source.

Shaving Away Unity (March 20, 2023)

This week’s Steadfast:

Jesus calls us to be the body of Christ together, yet through bits of fixation there and preferences here we start to divide.

This Week at Little Hills: Third Anniversary (March 16, 2023)

Pastor Tim takes us back to Zechariah for a few thoughts on the third anniversary of Little Hills’ first ever livestream in 2020.

This Week at Little Hills: Zephaniah (March 2, 2023)

Pastor Tim takes us to Zephaniah and the prophet’s judgment — and promises — for God’s people in this week’s minor prophet.

Killer Hamsters and the Peace of God (June 5, 2022)

Sunday night’s message:

We’ve all stepped into a conflict hoping to bring peace and walked out having made things worse—turns out we didn’t understand the system as well as we thought. Jesus calls the peacemakers blessed in Matthew 5:9, promising they shall be called sons of God, so the question worth sitting with is: what kind of peace does He actually have in mind?

The Lasting City (August 16, 2021)

What is our mission today as a church and as individuals? How does it affect what we do in our daily lives?

Tip for Getting Live Streaming Up Quickly

A know a lot of churches all over are scrambling to implement live streaming thanks to the coronavirus situation. I thought I would share a suggestion that may not help for tomorrow’s services, but will help for the weeks ahead when live streaming remains an unusually important part of worship. In a word: Mevo.

We have been using a Mevo live streaming camera at FaithTree for several years now for our worship nights and will also be using one at Little Hills (including for a live stream event this Monday). You can see FaithTree’s Mevo in the photo above — it’s the tiny white and red camera on the tripod. I had been intrigued by the concept and nabbed one for a great price on Prime Day 2017. The great thing about it is that all it requires of you is that you put it on a tripod (or something else of appropriate height) and connect to it via an app on a phone (your phone or an old phone you don’t use any more but that can connect to Wi-Fi) or iPad.