Our pastoral staff are working together each week to record a worship service for our church family.

The service will be available on the HBIC YouTube Channel on Sunday mornings by 9 am, as well as anytime thereafter. This pre-recorded, online service is available in addition to the in-person worship services at

The Worship-At-Home Resource Page serves as a companion to the weekly worship video on the HBIC YouTube Channel and includes the song lyrics, the sermon scripture, plus some links for children. ...If you have more than one device and you'd like to see the lyrics to sing along, or have the sermon scripture handy to read along, you can have the video playing on one device while you follow along with the worship resource on the other!

If you have any questions between today and tomorrow morning (before 8:00 am), feel free to contact Pastor Hank or Pastor Brie.

...And if you still need to register for one of the August 9th services, click here for 9 am, or click here for 11 am.

We are planning to livestream both the 9 and 11 am in-person services, giving one more worship service option for those who are not able to join us at the park. If all works well, you'll be able to link to both of the live-stream services on the HBIC YouTube Channel: youtube.com/c/HarrisburgBICChurch.

As has been announced, we recently accepted Esteban Nieves’ resignation; Pastor Esteban and Priscilla will be moving to the West Chester area, where he will be serving at a church, and Priscilla will be pursuing her education.

Sunday, August 30 will be Pastor Esteban's last Sunday serving at HBIC. Our church and community have been greatly blessed through his gifts, service, and ministry among us. We greatly appreciate these two years we have had together and are grateful for all that he has done.

We will be more formally thanking Pastor Esteban for his service to the church at our services on August 30th. The congregation is invited to contribute toward a love gift that will be presented to him that day. Contributions toward the gift can be given (by August 26), either online or mailed to the church, marked for love gift.

Pray for Pastor Esteban as he begins serving at a church in the West Chester area in September, and pray for Priscilla as she begins a Graduate Assistantship at West Chester University. We pray that the Lord will continue to bless and keep them!

Since we do not have a weekly worship service bulletin during this time, we are including a Schedule for the Week in this weekly email.

The following will be taking place during the week of August 9 to 15:

If you'd like to participate in any of these and need more information, contact Pastor Hank or Pastor Brie or the church office for the worship gatherings.

Our Food Pantry will have its semi-monthly distribution this Thursday, August 13, from 1:00-2:30 pm, outside the CE Room.

Our Food Pantry ministry provides supplemental food for households, to help with several days of food. If you'd like more information about making use of this resource or about volunteering, please contact Pastor Carmen.

Interested youth will meet Pastor Brie with their bikes at City Line Diner of Harrisburg Friday, Aug 14th at 6pm. They will depart from there to bike the Green Belt!

Youth and parents, please look for an email from Pastor Brie with more details or send her an email: Pastor Brie.

For the months of August and September, we will continue to hold Sunday morning in-person worship services at Lingle Park in Harrisburg. We have the park pavilion reserved for most Sundays in August and all Sundays in September. (The park pavilion was not available to be reserved for Sunday, August 16. We will be holding a virtual Communion Service on Zoom on that date instead.)

The pastoral staff will be leading a Sunday Morning Communion Service on Zoom... In place of our pre-recorded worship service on Sunday, August 16, beginning at 9 am, we will gather together virtually for an online Communion Service.

We hope you'll plan to join us for this special service filled with scripture readings, prayer, songs of praise, a brief meditation, and a chance to share in communion together! (Please note: you'll need to plan ahead to provide the bread and juice for your household.)

In addition to the Communion Service on Zoom on August 16, we also wanted to provide a worship resource on our HBIC YouTube Channel for that day. We're delighted that Pastor Esteban and Priscilla will be blessing us with another video of worship music!

The Worship Through Song video will go live on the HBIC YouTube Channel on Sunday, August 16, beginning at 7 pm, and we'll be sending out an accompanying lyric sheet with that week's Journeying Together email.

And here's more about what we mean by this...

"August Sabbath" doesn't mean that it's a month off for our staff (though some of the staff will be on vacation for some of the time). Each year we take a break in August from everything except our Sunday worship services, things like meetings, Wednesday evening gatherings, etc. It's an annual break that gives our staff and all of our volunteers some time for rest and refreshment, as well as some time for planning as we gear up for a new school year.

Everything's been different this spring and summer, with most of the church's gathering being done virtually. But one thing that will remain the same is that we will continue with our August Sabbath tradition. We will have Sunday morning worship services only (both in-person and online most of the month), no other regular programming or meetings.

As always, pastoral staff will be available for you throughout the month, except during some vacation time for some of them (the vacation schedule is noted in this Journeying Together email each week). You can reach out to the pastors anytime by phone or by email.

Pray for Tonya Van Hove and her family as they grieve the loss of Tonya's mother.

HBIC's Bible Quiz Team will soon begin their practices for the 2020/2021 quizzing year!

If you are entering 6th grade or above and are interested in joining the Quiz Team or in learning more about Bible Quizzing, please contact our head coach, Keegan Asper. He'd love to talk with you about the possibility of joining!

Our virtual VBS offering project for this year is raising funds for a well project in Manipur, India, where the Veinos and their ministry, Northeast India Health and Education Fund (NIHEF) have built a medical clinic. Clean water saves lives!

We're happy to share that to date, $3674 has been given to this VBS Offering Project, plus $1000 in generous matching funds, for a current total of $4674! Thanks to all who have contributed!

Giving to the project is still open, as funds are still needed for NIHEF to be able to complete the well project, with storage for the pumped water, sinks in the clinic, etc. You're invited to join our children in giving to this India Well Project! You can click on the link below to get to the church's online giving page, then select India Well Project, or mail a check to the church marked Well Project or VBS.

Pastor Lynda (8/3 to 8/17) will be taking some August vacation time.

In addition to refraining from contacting staff during their vacations, pray for this to be a time of refreshment for them and their families. ...Please feel free to contact any of the other pastors if you have a need.

During the last couple of months, we've been working on an update to the church directory, which we'd like to roll out this fall.

Over the years, many people have shared that they'd be helped by having pictures in our church directory. So we are putting out a request... Please send a recent photo of you or your family (preferably in color; black & white also accepted) to Pastor Brie. We'll use these in-house, in a printed version and a pdf version of our HBIC Church Directory. Thanks for your help! If you have any questions, contact Pastor Brie.

Mission of Mercy's Mobile Medical Clinic has a revised start date - they will be returning to Harrisburg on Thursday, September 3!

Mission of Mercy is looking for additional volunteers to work with them as they resume providing medical care for many in Harrisburg who struggle to afford the services they need.

As they prepare to return to ministry using our CE Room and our parking area along Greenwood Street, Mission of Mercy is in need of nurses, people to help with registration, and people to help interpret. If you can give a day to serve on the first and/or third Thursday of the month, contact Pastor Carmen to let her know of your interest.