Jesse Bills began working on plans to connect with families right around the time he was expanding his own.

Bills' wife, Julia, gave birth to their son, Judah, on Aug. 1, five days after he became the senior pastor at High View Church of God.

Bills had previously served at Pequea Evangelical Congregational Church.

"My wife and I had just felt from the Lord that it was time," Bills said. "We were at Pequea for four years and just was sensing that it was time. The Lord had kind of released us from there. We wanted to stay in the eastern Lancaster County region but wanted to find just a place that had some more opportunities to reach families and children. When we saw High View was looking for a senior pastor and that they had the preschool, that was what really drew us here."

He noted that the location of the church, 2470 Leaman Road, Ronks, is ideal. "We're at the center of the L-S, CV and Pequea Valley school districts, so we have an opportunity to reach a lot of different areas," said Bills. "That's really what drew us here. This is just a nice facility to reach families from."

Despite Bills' hectic schedule, the transition has been smooth. "It's been great so far," he said. "We're working to make the connection better with the preschool and connect with those families there and invite them into the church with maybe some parenting and marriage seminars coming up in the future and fellowship events that connect with those families. We're seeing guests and first-time visitors, and people that have not been here for a little bit since maybe the pandemic have come and been visiting, so it's been really great start so far."

Bills plans to start holding family nights in October. "The whole family will be invited, kids, youth, and then their parents to come and have like a time of devotion, snacks, and some fun games, to hang out," he said. The congregation recently funded a new playground set. "That was a large investment, and they're continuing to invest in those types of things to welcome families and just be more welcoming in general," said Bills.

High View services are held Sundays at 10:15 a.m. "We've introduced more of a contemporary style of worship, and that's been well received," said Bills. "That doesn't always go well in churches, but that has been really well received here, and they've been open to that. ... In the past, they had two services. We would love to get back to that if we continue to grow. Right now, we want to continue to move forward and just continue to reach families, I think is a big priority for us."

Julia will become more active after Judah gets a bit older. "She has gifts for leading worship and using her skills, so she'll be throwing that in the future," Bills said.

Bills and the congregation are starting to look a little way down the road. "In the next year, we will be working through like planning strategically and doing like a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis," said Bills. "People from the congregation are able to fill out (a questionnaire), and then we kind of pile the data and can create a three-year strategic plan moving forward. That is part of the process. We're going to be looking through our core values." Bills expects the congregation to agree to a new mission statement - Helping People Find and Follow Jesus.

Bills, who currently resides in New Holland, grew up in Gap and graduated from Pequea Valley High School in 2009. He sold vehicles for five years. "It was during that time I got my calling to ministry and then went to Evangelical Seminary in Myerstown," he said. "I just got more involved in my local church as I grew up and grew in my faith, and opportunities were just presented to teach and preach, which is what I really felt called to initially and loved about it. And as that grew and I had more experience, I had this sense from God that He was leading me to do that full time. Then others outside of me confirmed that calling and that I had gifts for that."

Bills worked an internship which turned into his first ministry job at Grace Community Church in Willow Street. "I did a year-long internship there and two years as their discipleship pastor, which was my first role in ministry," he said. "I was able to learn and grow a lot there, too."

Bills stated that he plans to remain at High View for a long time. "We were looking for a place that we could grow our family and raise our family with, and we think High View fits that bill so we want to be here for the long term. We really wanted to stay in this eastern Lancaster region, so we don't see ourselves going anywhere else as the Lord leads."