4/27/2025 Sunday Announcements for Presider

1. *WELCOME to HOSANNA! – *Warmest welcome to all of you, especially if you are visiting or re-visiting! Please let our Welcoming Team give you our welcoming gift of a t-shirt and beige multi-purpose bag! Fill-out a yellow newcomer’s contact card so that we can keep in touch! We welcome you into this family of Christ’s loving arms and remain here for you as His body to grow and flourish together!
2. *DISMISSAL of children (kinder to 5th grade) to Children’s Ministry! – At this time, children from kindergarten to 5th grade can head over to Minister Sewon Cho’s children’s ministry – please proceed to the children’s chapel down the hallway to the left! *Preschool worship children should already be in the preschool worship room with Director Rachel, and will continue to begin simultaneously at 10:40am in the preschool worship room.
3. *IMPORTANT CHANGE: SUNDAY WORSHIP START-TIME CHANGING 10 MINUTES EARLIER – 10:30AM BEGINNING 5/11 (SUNDAY) ONWARD – Bethany Korean Church leaders have requested that we move our Sunday worship start-time from 10:40am earlier to 10:30am. After weeks of prayer and deliberation, the ordained officers have agreed to this proposal for the purpose of sharing the Chapel with the youth ministry, whose service will now be changed from 10am to 12pm in the Ezra Chapel. **This also means our worship must end earlier between 11:35am-11:40am, exciting the Chapel completely by 11:45am for the youth ministry to prepare for their worship service to begin at 12pm. The date of this change (5/11, Sunday) will be our Spring Picnic, so this will be a great time to practice the 10:30am start-time. Thank you for your understanding, grace, and support through this change!
4. *TODAY, PASTORAL BREAK – Pastor Chester & family are taking a short break after the Easter season. They will return this Friday (5/2).
5. *THIS SATURDAY (5/3) JAMES families life group, 4:00pm-7:00pm @ Ezra Chapel – The JAMES families will gather to finish their study on Faith, Doubt, and God’s Timing through various Scriptures.
6. *NEXT SUNDAY (5/4) STAFF BREAK & GUEST PRAISE TEAM FROM COLLIN COUNTY CHINESE FELLOWSHIP – Minister Samantha will be on break and has graciously connected us to praise team leaders from her home church who will be coming to lead us in praise. Give thanks for their sacrificial service to Hosanna!
7. *KINGDOM EXPANSION PRAYER – This week’s Kingdom expansion prayers will focus on Minister Dr. Will Zhao’s church-plant in Richardson, TX

 
Scripture:
 
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (ACTS 1:8)
 
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (MATTHEW 28:18-20)
 
 
Prayer (by Pastor Chester):
Heavenly Father, we lift up to You all the new church-plants of Your people across the Dallas area. We especially remember today Your servant and Minister Dr. Will Zhao’s commissioning to the Solid Rock Fellowship in Richardson. Thank you for planting this beloved community of Asian believers to be the salt and the light of Christ to the many who still need to know and encounter You through the Solid Rock Fellowship. Strengthen Your servant Minister Zhao and the Solid Rock spiritual leadership as they dream, gather, and serve to build up Your Solid Rock family. Grant them their needed meeting space. Fill their giving with all Your provisions. Increase their fervor and passion to love one another to Christ, to always carry a joyful and thankful heart for You, fill Your house with tearful prayers and powerful preaching with lives transformed by the grace of Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, with the power that Minister Zhao and the Solid Rock family have received from You, may they be faithful witnesses to the resurrected Christ in their Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. For all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to You, so may Solid Rock led by Your Minister Zhao be making disciples of all ages, starting with baptizing young to old, infant to adult, into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and likewise teaching them to observe all that You have commanded. Behold, You are with them always, to the end of the age, through their Lord and Christ our Solid Rock we pray, Amen & amen.
 

​*TODAY, SPECIAL GUEST PREACHER: Minister Dr. Will Zhihui Zhao, Solid Rock Fellowship & Highland Park Chinese Church – Today, Pastor Chester’s ECO pastoral ordination mentee, Minister Dr. Will Zhao, has graciously come to deliver the Word of God to us. Dr. Zhao currently serves as a resident church-planter at our sister-ECO Presbyterian congregation in the Dallas area, Highland Park Presbyterian Church and in their family of churches, one of which is the Highland Park Chinese-Mandarin Church, led by Rev. Ben Wang. Dr. Zhao has been with HPCC since 2015, and the congregation has grown to plant a new Chinese fellowship in Richardson, TX called the Solid Rock Fellowship, where Dr. Zhao also serves as its primary church-planter. Dr. Zhao was born and raised in China, where he studied and graduated with the Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Peking University in Beijing. He came to the Dallas area to pursue the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he was radically moved to trust in Jesus Christ and came to a saving knowledge of God’s love through Christians on the SMU campus who offered their fellowship and shared the gospel with him. Through this radical transformation of faith and encounter with Jesus, Dr. Zhao immediately gave up his doctoral studies in engineering and enrolled in seminary at Criswell College, where his calling to pastoral ministry began to grow. He graduated with the Master of Divinity degree in 2016, and then went on to Dallas Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 2023 with the Ph.D. degree in Old Testament studies, majoring in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible (especially the books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Song of Songs). Currently, Dr. Zhao is a candidate for pastoral ordination in our ECO Presbyterian denomination for Ordained Minister/Reverend, with Pastor Chester as his assigned pastoral ordination mentor. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Zhao to the pulpit as delivers God's Word, "By the Grace of God I Am What I Am" from Psalm 118:14-29.

**Dr. Zhao, you may come forward at this time.