Weekly Hope
We're back with Weekly Hope! This is regular supplement to help our people get more info about the past weeks sermon as well as a glimpse into the life of our church.
Weekly Hope
One Year
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Hey Tyler. What's up? We've made it a year. We've made it one whole year. Goodness gracious. What a year it's been.
SPEAKER_01Hope church, one year old. Man. Yeah. What's been one of your favorite moments over the past year?
SPEAKER_00There's too many to count, Chris.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I need like a real story. Everybody says that. Yeah, I know. How do I pick one?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I could just go on and on. It could be any of them. Oh man, I don't know. There's a there's a few just like sweet moments that have come out of it. I mean, like the cop butt answer is just the relationships, because it's true. I mean, I have significantly more like lifelong friendships and like just community that's come out of it and um just like personal growth that's been a result of the people that I've gotten to meet at Hope Church. So like favorite aspect of it is simply the people. I'm people driven, like conversations is something that like I value so highly. And so to be able to have them with as many people as I have has been awesome. I'd say like the other blessing that's come from it is just how sweet our student ministry has been and how fun that time has been with them, the way that they um have pushed me, the questions that they ask like towards their faith, and even being able to see like where they're at one year later, since we started a ministry of four people, now close to 15 consistently, and those kids like just growing in their faith has been incredibly encouraging to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's awesome. Awesome. It's so cool to see what's happened with student ministry. It's fun, it really is. We've got some great kids. See it growing.
SPEAKER_00It's awesome. Yeah, what about you?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, just too many to count. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, here we go. Yeah, baptisms. I mean, stories of of people surrendering their life to Jesus and sharing that in public profession. It just all those have been absolutely incredible and very memorable. Um, I think being gifted a church building and that meeting. Pretty wild. That was like a fun, fun memory, fun moment. For sure. Uh yeah, I I think those two really are two highlights for me. Oh, Good Friday service. Yeah, Good Friday was really special. Yeah. Partnering with Shadowbrook and Somos. And yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I've never even I've never been a part of a service like that before. Yeah. And so that's what felt so special and sweet was just to see the Lord's like hand and blessing to create an opportunity like that to even happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's really cool. So those are some of my favorites. And uh can't wait to hear stories over the next year of what's gonna happen at Hope Church.
SPEAKER_00Year two is gonna be better than year one. That's what I missed.
SPEAKER_01Kids at school, maybe just get a little bit of a breather here and listen to me and Tyler. Me and Tyler here just sharing cool stuff. So we are glad to have you joining in, though. And it was fun. This week we uh celebrated our one-year anniversary at Hope Church and started a two-week series this week and next week where we've just are talking about who we are and what we do as a church. And really, this week kind of came out of our Bible reading plan from back in June of this year in 2 Corinthians 1, and talked this Sunday a little bit of just who we are as a church, what we want to be known for, and what our values are. And you see in 2 Corinthians 1, as the Apostle Paul is really just kind of sharing this plea with the church at Corinth, um, and he's been attacked and just been illegitimized as an apostle and many things, uh, but he just urges the people in kind of a couple areas. One, he urges them to pray for him, and we said, as a church, we want to we want to be a church that is powered by prayer. Uh, and then as he goes on in 2 Corinthians 1 12, he he just talks about how our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, uh, that we behaved with simplicity and sin and godly sincerity. And he said, uh, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. And there's a little bit of that defense that he has with the people of Corinth of like, hey, this is what we've tried to do, like we try to do the very best of our ability. Um, and I was I read those words and I was really encouraged that Hope Church I mean, I think we exemplify and we model those in such a sweet way. And I just kind of wanted to put a a little bit of like a formality or stamp of like this is what we're trying to do, like this is who we're trying to be. Is like we want to be we want to be people who are intentionally simple and uh that we want to be people who we value like godly sincerity, and so that those kind of three aspects of a church of like prayer, simplicity, and sincerity are are kind of in the DNA of who we are. Sure. And uh man, I just thought I'd kick it over to you, Tyler, and um hear your thoughts or or what you you know, what sticks out to you from that or from the sermon this week.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I mean I love it. I I think you're you're totally right in seeing this verse and and being able to think like what a blessing it is that Hope Church like already has a heartbeat that feels this way. Um this past week I was having coffee with somebody that hadn't been to the church yet, and uh he was just asking me, like, tell me about the church, tell me about you know what it's like, what it would the people, how how your church functions, those kind of things. And like more than than anything else, the thing that was the easiest to share and the thing that I felt was worth sharing and stood out was really this just the the simplicity, the sincerity, just the way our people act and respond. Um there's just a there's a genuineness, there's like an an ease and a kindness and like an attractiveness to that um that I think really just makes Hope Church stand out. Um so yeah, just hitting the sermon the Sunday and looking through it and reading through it, um, it was just just really um just a reminder of those exact things that that I feel we really are. Um I think in that passage it's interesting that these two um aspects come after his talk about prayer and his like emphasis on prayer. And I think really those those heartbeats of personality, of sincerity and simplicity are a product of that prayer and a life that is focused on prayer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the work of the Holy Spirit in our in our hearts for sure and in our lives to like lead us to not feel like we have to live complex lives or you know, that we we have to be something that we're not sure. Oh, definitely have to appear to be something you know perfect or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00Definitely and when like go ahead, sorry, no, then like the work is prayer, and when like the life that we leave is one that has a stature of prayer first. I mean that the the result of that is going to be a dependence on somebody that's not ourselves. And so like if we're depending on God truly with everything, so much so that prayer feels like the most important thing we can do, then that's I mean it's gonna generate a life of of sincerity and like trust in him and like simplicity in our day-to-day lives, just trusting that he is the one that's ultimately in control. Yeah. I think it it's a it completely changes the way every day operates. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's interesting that like Paul starts off verse 11 and he says, You must help us by and I think if you were to like stop that right there and then put a blank space and say, like, fill in this word. Uh-huh. Like family feud style. Like, I think you would come up with a hundred different answers. Give us you must help us by like giving us money, or you must help us by serving, or you must help us by you know doing whatever. I mean a million different things that you can think of. Definitely. And for so many of us, like the last thing that we think to put in there is prayer. And like that's Paul's plea. He's like, please help us. They're like, Well, how do you how do we help you? Pray. Yeah, yeah. Well, that doesn't sound very like helpful. Sure. Like, no, but if you actually believe that God answers prayer and he works through prayer, like that's the greatest thing that we can possibly do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, definitely. It it makes me think of like, I I don't know if you've ever sent out like support letter. I mean, I know you have, but like sending out a support letter for any form of ministry, and it's like the three things you can do is the first one is like prayer. But it's like, but really what you can do. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I can't believe how many of those letterbooks are asking for prayer. And they're like, okay, but are you really asking for that? And I get it. Like you, I mean, we should like we can put the sincerity piece, you know, but uh it's just funny because it's like you you see the standard kind of template for that. And like Paul doesn't ever I mean he does later, but in this passage to the math for money for money later. Yeah, got to that part of the support letter. But you know, I think that it the the truth stands, like man, that's what we need. And we've said, we said in the sermon, if you want to help us, you can help us by prayer. And you can go to hopechurchjc.com slash pray and sign up right there. And uh just literally this morning sent out our first prayer list and prayer letter to say, hey, here's here's five things that you can be praying for over the next week. And we're gonna commit to continuing to do that because we want to build a culture of prayer, and we believe that like the more people that we have praying, the more work God will do. Yeah, and it's it's like we're dependent on that. And so we want to we're gonna have our whole church praying, we want to be known for that. And so the other piece was that that piece of simplicity that we value simplicity. We said that it looks like three particular areas. Um, it looks like margin, clarity, and movement. And so for us, margin is like we want to we're gonna create intentional space into our lives and our calendar as a church to say like we're not trying to do everything here. Yeah, like we're not trying to create like a holy huddle and like have our own church bowling league and our own church softball league and our own church gym league. Yeah, and like whatever it is, uh huh. Like we wanna we wanna be like out and let you be in the community, our people be in the community. Uh, you know, I think of some people in our church that like they have like a dog park ministry and they don't have a dog, they just go to the dog park and they like talk to other people about their dogs, and then they invite them to our church. And we've had a number of families come to Hope Church because this sweet couple just goes and like they call it their dog park ministry. Yeah. And it's like I I want I want that for our people. Yeah, for sure. Not like just come to one more thing and we can fill up our calendar seven nights a week with just stuff for us. Yeah. Um, so margin, we have clarity, clarity in our preaching, clarity in our worship, clarity in our discipleship, and clarity in our mission. That like we know what we're doing, we know what we're preaching, we know where we're going, like there's intentionality that comes to all of this. Um and then we have movement that we're we said this, we we must be content but not complacent. And that's because our contentment is found in Christ, but the work is never done. Yeah, and so we gotta be content, sure, and like not wondering or waiting or why God are we not farther along or or this or that. Yeah, like enjoy the season, enjoy the moment. And that's in our personal lives and as a as a faith family. Sure. Uh, but like, man, keep grinding, yeah, and just keep keep engaging the community, keep working, keep inviting, keep helping, keep serving. Um, because the work's not finished.
SPEAKER_00That's and that's I mean that's so important in like all forms of discipleship and just like personal growth is that idea of being just content in everything and content that with all the Lord has given us, because it's far more than we could ever ask for or deserve, but not being so complacent in that that we just get comfortable in it. Yeah, I mean, like just celebrating one year of marriage, I see that like so exemplified in marriage and just seeing the ways that it'd be very easy for me to just coast now that I'm married, now that I'm good, you know, and just uh be content with with what I have in marriage instead of just growing and growing in my ability to be a husband and ability to like care for Natalie well and do those things. And so I see that in the church life and church world and just how we serve the church and serve God. It's it's the same form of of mentality. Yeah, it's great work.
SPEAKER_01Uh and then we value godly sincerity. And we said that you know, sincerity is really hard to quantify. You know, you can't really you can't really just like checklist sincerity. Sure. Um, like, okay, that's a sincere church. Like look at these boxes. Because then it wouldn't be sincere. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's but it's more than just like a feeling, like you can feel like, man, that's a sincere person. Yeah. And then they're like, totally not. Yeah, like there's that level of like false sincerity, false humility. And so, like, there's this, there's this interesting balance in between. And we said, you know, what what does sincerity look like at Hope Church? This isn't a checklist. Um, but you know, I think there's some some things that that we can say, like, man, we we want to be a church where somebody knows your name. Yeah. And like you can be, you can walk in and be called by name. Uh we want to be a church that shares meals together, that we pray for one another, we we care for one another, like we we do weddings and funerals, you know, over the years. That there's a church where you can know a pastor, you can know a group leader, and like you can you can get help in the hard seasons of life. Sure. And that we that we serve together. We're serving not just serving one another, but we're also serving our community together. And so if you're looking to get started in any of that, then encourage you to jump in. I mean, the only way the only way that can start to happen is like if you take a step to to make it happen. So you can go to our webpage um and hopechurchjc.com and just fill out a guest form, and somebody will follow up and would love to meet with you. Um, but you know, we want to just be a church that's like it's just more than uh a Sunday service. Uh it's it's a faith family. Yeah. And I think that's what sincerity looks like for us because we do. We want to excel in supreme sincerity, is what Paul uh said to the church at Corinth. You know, like supremely so. We we we operated supremely so toward you. And uh I want I want Hope Church to be known for that. That's awesome. So a couple things coming up. This Sunday is a big one for us. We've got um a number of things happening. One is explore Sunday morning before service. Great way to get connected, meet some people in the church, find out more about our mission and values. And so we'd love for you to sign up for that on our events page. Um, and then afterwards, we're gonna have a community group leader training. It's for people who are in a group or interested in being a group or potentially even interested in uh leading a group to come and plug in. So it'll be right after service uh for one hour. We'll have a lunch and talk through next steps in community groups. So those are a couple of the big things that we have coming up. It's also gonna be a really fun Sunday because it's gonna be a little bit like a missions Sunday for us. And we're gonna be talking to our first church plant. Um, Somos. And they'll be there. We'll kind of be doing an interview and talking to them. So definitely gonna be a fun one to be a part of. Yeah. And we encourage you to come check it out, bring a friend as we just share some fun stuff about uh their launch, which is coming up here on September 11th. So gonna be a great, great Sunday this week. So can't wait. Yeah, this has been weekly hope. Um, if you want to know more about Hope Church, you can sign up on our webpage at hopechurchjc.com. Um, love to see you on Sunday at 10 a.m. And if you need anything, please don't hesitate to reach out Chris at hopechurchjc.com or Tyler at hopechurchjc.com. We'll see you Sunday at 10 a.m.