Please Note
With that said, please note that the information below is accurate as of the time of the creation of this page.
Blessings,
Shawn Smith (HCOB Webmaster)
What We do
God’s calling for our team
The Web Team creatively promotes the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the ministries of Hempfield Church of the Brethren 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year on the world wide web. Our team is responsible for innovating, creating, and maintaining the software and technologies that we employ to build up the people of God and to reach those who need the hope that is found in Christ alone. We have used our website and the technologies of the internet to provide our visitors with up to the minute data and prayer requests concerning our missionaries serving in foreign countries. Every week we edit and enhance the sermons from our Sunday morning services and make them available at no cost to users from all over the world. In addition to these more spiritual applications we also facilitate practical and administrative services: we promote church events and offer on-line registration, we provide announcements about activities and when necessary inform users of church closings and cancellations. In fact, you are able to read this paragraph through the efforts of the HCOB Web Team.
What We’ve Done
God’s successes through our team
Jesus said that His followers would be His witnesses both locally and to the uttermost parts of the Earth. We believe that our web presence, with its global reach and local impact is one of the powerful ways that our church is fulfilling this commission.
Local Impact
Locally we have had many families join our church as a result of visiting our website, learning about our ministries, reading our devotionals and listening to our pastors’ messages. Every summer families in our community use our website to learn about our annual Vacation Bible School, and to sign their children up for a week of fun and creative Christian education and enjoyment.
When our members are traveling or wintering in warmer climes, they can stay connected with our church family by listening to the sermons, reading the weekly bulletins, and seeing photos from our events. Likewise, our church family at home has used the website to stay connected to outreach events as close as East Petersburg, PA., and with our missionaries in places as far away as London and Nigeria.
Global Outreach
Our website is reaching out to the uttermost parts of the earth. Our site is being viewed more than 200 times a day, and each month we receive visits from more than 70 countries such as India, Ukraine, Portugal, The Czech Repulic, New Zealand, and others around the world. Last month we were visited 66 times by citizens of the People’s Republic of China, 58 times by people in Bahrain, and 123 times by visitors from Turkey, just to name a few.
Spiritual Connection
Through the website we are distributing hope and encouragement through the Word of God. In the past 30 days our sermons page was visited 126 times, Pastor Pete’s Monday Greetings were accessed over 1,600 times(!), and our Meet God page which explains the Good News about Jesus brought 237 visitors to our website!
Family Reconciliation
Our web ministry has even been responsible for bringing a family back together, allowing two estranged sisters on opposite ends of the United States to reconnect after many years with no contact. Information from our website led one of the sisters to contact our church office and our staff were delighted to reconnect the family and be part of a joyous and long-overdue reunion.
Ongoing Ministry
Our web team ministry is not about cold technology and abstract cyberspace, our ministry is about real people and the tangible power of the Gospel of Grace. We on the Hempfield Church of the Brethren Web team continue to innovate. This year we are adding an entirely new segment to our web presence that is mobile-responsive and will allow each ministry team to update their own portion of the website in real-time with news and information, and with photos and videos.
We are amazed at how God has already used this ministry to His glory and we are very excited to see how He is going to use our website in the coming years.
Who We Are
Our Current Team Members
- Jason Hoffman (Chair)
- Pastor Doug Hinton
- Shawn Smith
How You Can Help
Consider partnering with us
We are constantly striving to improve our website, to create the best online experience for those who visit our site. There are a number of ways you can help us to improve. We’ll outline them briefly below:
Use the Website
We work hard to make this place useful to our church family, to our community, and to the world. Every time you use this site or any of our web resources you validate us. Thank you.
Offer Feedback
We value your thoughts and opinions. If you ever have a suggestion or see an area where we can improve, we’d love to know about it. Please feel free to contact us through the form on the left side of this page. We appreciate your time and concern, and we take your correspondence seriously.
Thank Leadership
If you appreciate the web site in some way, take a moment to let us know (you may contact us through the form on the side). If you really appreciate something on the site, you could let the evangelism team and/or leadership team know by contacting them and telling them how much you appreciate their ongoing commitment to our web presence.
Contribute Content
If you are part of the HCOB family and you’d like to contribute content (pictures, videos, or text) to the website please contact us or your team leader to see if there is a need.
Register
If you are a member of the church you can contact us or the church office to get an HempfieldCOB.org email address and to set up an account for the website that will identify you as part of our church family.
Promote
Tell others about the site and encourage its use. Promote the site because it is the very best tool we have to promote every other ministry of our church.
Pray
More than anything we need your prayers. No matter how clever or cutting-edge a ministry is, it cannot thrive on its own. We believe that Jesus meant what He said when He told his followers, “Without me you can do nothing.” (see John 15:5). Please pray for the web team and the fruitfulness of this ministry. We hope to facilitate the many ministries of Hempfield Church of the Brethren, to grow our church, and to bless the world. We cannot do that with out God’s blessing, and we ask you to join us in praying that He would use all of our efforts for His glory. If you do decide to join us in prayer, won’t you let us know – it would mean a great deal to our team.
We thank you, and may God bless you!