Wellington Heights Community Church
By Wellington Heights Community Church
Wellington Heights Community Church Apr 14, 2024
Embodiment Sunday: Flourishing Neighborhood Index (04/14/2024)
Check out the website for more information: www.wellingtonheightscommunitychurch.org/flourishing-neighborhood-index
Second Sunday of Eastertide - April 7, 2024
Mari Hunt Wassink is a farmer, educator, and activist. She owns and operates Black Earth Gardens, a small-scale regenerative farm that specializes in growing vegetables, herbs, and fruits that are culturally important to Black communities in Eastern Iowa, with a focus on dismantling food apartheid and expanding food sovereignty locally. She is also a Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition, where she advocates for federal policies that promote equitable land access for beginning and BIPOC farmers. Mari grew up in Marion and graduated from Coe College. Today, she lives with her husband and their dog in Wellington Heights. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, reading, and calligraphy.
Easter 2024
On this day we celebrate the resurrection of Christ from the grave. The broader season of Easter, or Eastertide, begins today and lasts fifty days in which we celebrate and look for God's liberating activity in our midst. Let us consider how we may embody the holistic Good News in our daily life.
He is Risen indeed!
Good Friday 2024
Maundy Thursday 2024
Link to video referenced by Pastor Stephanie: The Black Eyed Peas - #WHERESTHELOVE ft. The World (Video) (https://youtu.be/YsRMoWYGLNA?si=wkzhxmsEGPXQhj2R)
Lenten Prayer 2024: Lectio Divina 03/27/24
This week we pause to engage in Lectio Divina, an ancient practice of prayerfully reading and listening to scripture.
Lectio invites us to slow down and engage with scripture with our whole selves with intent to live more deeply and find the presence of God more readily in the events of each day.
Please join us as we engage in Lectio Davina.
Palm Sunday 2024
Lenten Prayer 2024: Meditation on Rev. Dr. MLK “I Have a Dream
Lenten Prayer 2024 - Lectio Divina 03/17/2024
Lectio invites us to slow down and engage with scripture with our whole selves with intent to live more deeply and find the presence of God more readily in the events of each day.
Please join us as we engage in Lectio Divina.
Lenten Prayer 2024: The Welcoming Prayer
This Lenten season, we are leaning into the practices of prayer, fasting and generosity. We invite you to utilize The Welcoming Prayer as a guide this season. The Welcoming Prayer guides us to bring our whole selves - our needs, thoughts, wants, emotions and circumstances into God's presence. The Welcoming Prayer is a helpful guide for us utilize to acknowledge our emotions, rather than avoiding them or trying to suppress them and to invite God’s presence and power into, so we can experience wholeness through the action and power of the holy spirit.
The Welcoming Prayer by Father Thomas Keating
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,
situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open myself to the love and presence of God and
God’s action within.
Amen.
Lenten Prayer Practice 2024: A Prayer of Blessing
Lent is the time where we can consider how transformative love can seep into our lives more and more, so it may overflow in all we do. One practice to consider incorporating is a prayer of blessing, especially for those with whom we consider an enemy or in other words, someone with whom we are out of step with.
WHCC 4th Anniversary Celebration - 03/03/2024
Here, there is no Us or Them,
Only We,
Only All,
Only Welcome.
Empower each of us to find our place
In the movements of God’s Spirit at work happening among us.
Grant that we may know ourselves and each other well,
Encouraging each other to flourish.
Give to those who share their time, effort, and resources,
Rest and renewal,
Purpose and energy
Support and connection,
Joy and flourishing.
For each person who joins in Your work among us,
We thank you.
For each person who contributes as they are able,
We thank you.
For each person who understands the weight of the work of Justice,
We thank you.
For each person who must, at various times, rest and receive the community’s love,
We thank you.
May your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven,
Amen.
Lenten Prayer 2024: The Examen Prayer
Lectio Divina (Lenten Season)
Lectio invites us to slow down and engage with scripture with our whole selves with intent to live more deeply and find the presence of God more readily in the events of each day.
Please join us as we engage in Lectio Davina.
Lenten Prayer 2024: Guided Prayer of Lament
First Sunday of Lent 2024
Ash Wednesday
Sabbath: As a Communal Act
Alice has been a teaching pastor for the past two decades and loves teaching the Scriptures in a way that makes God's truth accessible and relevant to daily life. Alice was a teaching pastor at Orchard Hill Church in Cedar Falls for 23 years and is now the Teaching Associate at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Waterloo. She has a heart for the marginalized and is enamored with the grace of God in Christ. She and her husband Chuck have been married for 37 years and have raised three kids who are now thriving adults. They have a great, old chocolate lab named Stella and love to laugh, read, and contribute to the flourishing of their diverse community.
Sabbath: As Resistance
The practice of Sabbath rest is a gift, reclaiming our and our neighbors' Belovedness is an act of resistance to the status quo, offering us a whole new way of ordering our lives to sustain in God’s good work for the long haul.
Sabbath: The Gift of Rest
This New Year we are extending an invitation to step into vibrant rest together as a community to embody the spiritual rhythm of Sabbath.
This six week series will allow time for communal gathering and embodiment of God’s invitation to regular rhythms of work, rest, and renewal.
Love Thy Neighborhood with L.D. Kidd & Nora Heaton
Christmas Eve 2023
Advent: Week Three
Advent: Week Two
Practicing Wonder
Beyond Charity - John 15:5
Beyond Charity - Laura Hoy
We continue in our Beyond Charity sermon series with special guest and longtime CCDA Practitioner Laura Hoy.
Beyond Charity - Authentic Church
Beyond charity holistic approach
A New Thing
Beyond Charity
Vision Sunday - Neighborhood Development
Vision Sunday (Reconciliation)
Vision Casting 2023 - Worship
Sabbath Sunday
Jenny Chadima - Romans 12:1-8, CEB
Visio Divina 08/20/2023
Divine Reverberations
Artist, Christina Farrell, features two young people in the role of protectors of our future. The person on the left tends to a narrow-leafed milkweed – a plant that is endangered in Iowa and supports the life cycle of monarch butterflies. The person on the right holds a red-shouldered hawk, also endangered in Iowa. They each emit a radiant light to represent their unique spirit and the power of the divine that exists within each of us. This ancient spiritual imagery is paired with symbols of science (light, circuits, photons, etc.) to demonstrate how we can use our intellect to imagine new solutions. Community members contributed to the mural by adding a “galaxy” of images that represent special things that they care about. The community also added circles (symbols of interconnectedness and the divine) to the bottom section to represent the unity of the Wellington Heights neighborhood. Follow Christina at: www.christinafarellart.crevado.com and www.theoughlinearts.org
Stories Among Us - Jon Doerrfeld
Stories Among Us - Jenny Chadima
She has served in a variety of volunteer roles in various non-profit organizations within our community for more than a decade. Jenny currently volunteers with Fresh Start Ministries, a jail volunteer program that goes into the Linn County Correctional Center to provide bible studies and church services to those incarcerated.
In addition, she offers her time as an adult mentor for the RISE program (Reintegration for Safety and Empowerment), which helps guide newly released incarcerated persons toward a bright future by connecting participants with resources and services post-release.
She recently completed a 9-month internship at Wellington Heights Community Church for spiritual direction. She is also part of the board of directors for Mission of Hope.
Stories Among Us - Tang & Kylie
The impact of Tang and Kylie, alongside their family and the dedicated WHCC staff, has fostered a profound sense of camaraderie and mutual benefit within the community. Their rapport with Pastor Keeyon exemplifies this sentiment as they collectively narrate the tale of interdependence and shared prosperity. Their aspiration is to continue the creation of enduring neighborly connections and bonds they have forged.
Welcoming Prayer
Stories Among Us (Briana Clymer)
Stories Among Us (Marianne Abel-Lipschutz)
Marianne Abel-Lipschutz and her husband Harry work as farmers in Cedar Falls, Iowa and serve as advocates for children and families in Guatemala. Hearing the testimony of Dr. John Perkins and other presenters at a NE Iowa CCDA conference in Waterloo in 2016 inspired Marianne to seek her place in the beloved community and come alongside others in faith no matter where she lives. She has facilitated a monthly prayer team online for WHCC since October 2020. Marianne has also published nonfiction and features about faith and the humanities in a variety of journals.
John 17:1–11, CEB
Mother’s Day 2023
Living as People of the Risen Lord
The Art of Creation Care with Pastor Keeyone & Stephanie Heifner
WHCC Easter 2023
What is Easter? Easter is one of the central holidays, or Holy Days, of Christianity. It honors the resurrection of Jesus three days after His death by crucifixion. For many Christian churches, Easter is the joyful conclusion to the Lenten season of devoted prayer, fasting, and penitence.
Our mission at Wellington Heights Community Church is to be a multi-ethnic community joining God in the reconciliation of all things through worship, reconciliation, and neighborhood development.
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