Speaker 1: So this morning we have a special guest with us in the house Casey Stanley, formerly Casey Robertson.
Speaker 1: When we hired her fresh out of college at Bethel University a hundred years ago and she was on staff with us for a long time and she and I worked together grateful for those years in the youth ministry.
Speaker 1: For a long time she went away, came back and then went and pioneered her own non-profit, which you know, and probably many of you know it well, the Real Hope Project.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful organization that's grown now to eight states, to eight states, and so it began here in little old Elk River Look at us, you know, not so bad.
Speaker 1: And now it's blossomed and is doing a number of wonderful things with foster care and their hope is, to no pun intended, their hope is to find forever families, what they call forever families for young kids in the foster care system.
Speaker 1: And actually her reach has kind of blossomed beyond even that.
Speaker 1: She's doing advocacy work and all kinds of other things within this state and others around, of course the United States, and so we're grateful to have her here.
Speaker 1: Last week we talked about peace.
Speaker 1: This week we're going to have Casey from the Real Hope Project share with us about hope Would.
Speaker 1: This week we're going to have Casey from the Real.
Speaker 2: Hope Project share with us about hope.
Speaker 2: Would you give Casey some love this morning?
Speaker 2: Thanks, ryan.
Speaker 2: Well, good morning Central.
Speaker 2: It was not a hundred years ago but, like Ryan said, my name is Casey Stanley.
Speaker 2: I was on staff here at Central from about 2009 until 2017, left at the start of 2018 to launch the nonprofit that really was launched out of this church body and this community, the Real Hope Project.
Speaker 2: Just by show of hands, how many of you have heard of Real Hope?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, that's awesome, good to see For anybody who is not aware.
Speaker 2: At the Real Hope Project, what we do is we make videos of kids in foster care who are waiting to be adopted and then we use those videos to try to find a forever family for every child.
Speaker 2: The Real Hope Project is called Real Hope because we make reels movies of kids who are waiting for families, reels movies of kids who are waiting for families, and we try to bring hope to the most vulnerable kids in our society, kids without the protection of home or a family.
Speaker 2: So when Pastor Ryan called me a month or two ago and kind of talked about the sermon series that you guys are doing throughout Advent, he said you can talk about peace or hope or love, and given the fact that I lead an organization called Real Hope, I was like dibs on hope.
Speaker 2: I'll do that one.
Speaker 2: It's kind of my thing, so very excited to be here sharing with you this morning.
Speaker 2: Now, before we dive in and just to kind of orient us to where we are, I want to take 30 seconds and talk a little bit about what is hope.
Speaker 2: I think that's a word that we throw around a lot, but I don't know that many of us could actually define what we're talking about when we talk about hope.
Speaker 2: So here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2: Before we get started, I'm going to ask you to take 30 seconds, turn to whoever you came with and try to come up with a definition of hope in the next 30 to 60 seconds.
Speaker 2: Really off the cuff.
Speaker 2: But before we jump into that, make sure everybody in this room.
Speaker 2: You are a leader.
Speaker 2: You know how to take care of people around you.
Speaker 2: So look around.
Speaker 2: If there's anybody who is sitting by themselves, make sure you wave them over, have them join your group and, in your little groups, talk for the next 60 seconds.
Speaker 2: Try to come up with a definition of hope.
Speaker 2: Okay, one, two, three, go Ten more seconds, five, four, three, two one zero.
Speaker 2: All right, good job everybody.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to ask just a couple of brave souls.
Speaker 2: You don't even have to tell us the whole definition that you talked about in your little group, but just throw out a few of the words that came to mind when you thought of hope.
Speaker 2: Go ahead and shout them out Faith, anticipation, wish, good, perseverance, good, anything else, patience, yes, amen, expectation, yes.
Speaker 2: Well done you guys.
Speaker 2: That was great, okay.
Speaker 2: Well, naturally, as I tried to think about, like, what is hope, what is the definition of hope?
Speaker 2: What am I trying to talk about when I talk about hope?
Speaker 2: I naturally asked ChatGPT.
Speaker 2: I was like ChatGPT, what is hope?
Speaker 2: Here's what.
Speaker 2: Here's how ChatGPT defines hope.
Speaker 2: Hope is a feeling or belief that something good can or will happen, especially when faced with challenges, uncertainty or adversity.
Speaker 2: It's the expectation or desire for a positive outcome in the future, even if the present moment may seem difficult or unclear.
Speaker 2: Hope can provide motivation, help people persevere through tough times and inspire action toward achieving goals.
Speaker 2: It's often associated with optimism and resilience and can be both a personal and collective force, guiding individuals through hardships or fueling broader movements for change.
Speaker 2: Hope isn't about blind faith.
Speaker 2: It often involves recognition of difficulties, but with a sense of possibility or potential for improvement.
Speaker 2: Not bad chat GPT, a little wordy but pretty good.
Speaker 2: Scripture talks a lot about hope and it seems that hope is really an essential element to what it means and what it looks like to be a believer, to be a follower of Jesus.
Speaker 2: Hope is a critical element and I do think hope is kind of a hard topic for Western American postmodern minds.
Speaker 2: I think we conflate hope to be kind of the same thing as positivity or optimism.
Speaker 2: I think hope can feel a little bit dangerous to a lot of us.
Speaker 2: Don't get your hopes up is a thing we often say to one another.
Speaker 2: Now, I think positivity and optimism are beautiful qualities, but I would delineate between positivity and optimism and hope in a couple of ways.
Speaker 2: The first one is that I would say positivity and optimism are pretty surface level and they're often deeply connected to our circumstances, to getting the kinds of outcomes that we want.
Speaker 2: I am by nature a highly positive, optimistic person.
Speaker 2: I've described myself as cripplingly optimistic.
Speaker 2: It like creates real issues in my life.
Speaker 2: How positive I can be.
Speaker 2: I can't help it.
Speaker 2: It's like the way I'm wired.
Speaker 2: I don't have to work very hard to be positive and that's you know we all get feedback throughout our lives on who we are.
Speaker 2: I've always known that about myself, that I come across as very positive, but I didn't realize how deeply ingrained positivity is in me until I was trying to sleep train my newborn baby.
Speaker 2: So we have four kids.
Speaker 2: Our oldest is 19.
Speaker 2: His name is Tez.
Speaker 2: We adopted him when he was 13.
Speaker 2: So we never had to sleep train Tez.
Speaker 2: He's a great sleeper, he sleeps all the time.
Speaker 2: So we never had to sleep train Tez.
Speaker 2: He's a great sleeper, he sleeps all the time.
Speaker 2: Our first baby her name was Taika.
Speaker 2: Friday I call her my girl Friday, when we were trying to sleep train Taika the whole time I was pregnant with Taika, I had a lot of fear around having babies and I was really nervous and I just told myself, like she's going to be a good sleeper, she will sleep.
Speaker 2: She has to sleep because otherwise I will surely die.
Speaker 2: And so I just told myself she's going to sleep.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 2: Taika arrived this is about four years ago and she was a terrible sleeper, terrible, terrible, terrible sleeper.
Speaker 2: And Pete and I my husband and I were, like you know, first time parents of a newborn and we were just committed we will get her to sleep.
Speaker 2: She's going to be on a, she's going to be in a rhythm.
Speaker 2: She's going to have a schedule.
Speaker 2: We've got this.
Speaker 2: We can do this.
Speaker 2: She's one week old at this point and we're like we're going to get her to sleep.
Speaker 2: We bought a sleeping program.
Speaker 2: We like paid money for it.
Speaker 2: We got a swaddle.
Speaker 2: We got a weighted sleep sack.
Speaker 2: We got like spent hundreds of dollars trying to get this baby to sleep.
Speaker 2: On top of that, my husband, pete, is very intense about sleep needs and so he was following this program to the letter.
Speaker 2: So when we would try to get our daughter to sleep, the program said it should be dark in the room.
Speaker 2: So her room is pitch black.
Speaker 2: You can't see your hand in front of your face.
Speaker 2: Pete literally nailed cardboard to our windows to make sure that it was pitch black in the room.
Speaker 2: Sound machine, super high volume.
Speaker 2: So you're basically in like a sensory deprivation tank, like you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't see anything, you can't hear anything, and Taika would not let you sit and rock her.
Speaker 2: You had to stand and rock her, so I'm just standing.
Speaker 2: She's a week old.
Speaker 2: She takes like six naps a day, so six times a day I'm standing for 20 minutes in a sensory deprivation tank just rocking and rocking, trying to get her to sleep.
Speaker 2: Six times a day I would go over to the crib.
Speaker 2: I can't see anything.
Speaker 2: I can't see if her eyes are closed or anything, but she's like I think she's still, and I would lay her down and every single time, for five months, six times a day, I would lay her down and in my soul, in my bones, I would be like I nailed it, like that was perfect.
Speaker 2: She's going to sleep for hours.
Speaker 2: Netflix.
Speaker 2: Here I come and I'd be walking away and I would take two steps and you'd hear whee, and every time I was shocked.
Speaker 2: Every time, like six times a day, I'd be like no way.
Speaker 2: That's insane to me.
Speaker 2: That kind of positivity is very natural to me, problematic at times in my life, but.
Speaker 2: But also that kind of positivity means I am tossed back and forth by the waves, like all of my emotions that are tied to did I get the outcome that I wanted?
Speaker 2: Did I get what I expected?
Speaker 2: That optimism is great and can be a great tool, but when it's tied to circumstances, we get crashed all around.
Speaker 2: Hope, I would say, is much different than that.
Speaker 2: Hope runs a lot deeper than that, and while positivity or optimism are tied to my circumstances and the outcomes that I'm seeing, hope is tied to my future.
Speaker 2: Hope is tied to something much deeper.
Speaker 2: There's an author and playwright and activist from the Czech Republic in the early 1900s.
Speaker 2: His name is Václav Havel and he said hope is an orientation of the spirit For followers of Jesus.
Speaker 2: I would say it like this Hope is a present orientation of the spirit toward a future reality, of the Spirit toward a future reality.
Speaker 2: Hope for followers of Jesus is a present, daily, moment-by-moment orientation of my Spirit toward a future reality.
Speaker 2: I think as Christians we often can fall into kind of two camps when we think about hope.
Speaker 2: The first camp is over here.
Speaker 2: It is the my hope is in heaven camp.
Speaker 2: Like the things of earth shall pass away, nothing here really matters because I know where I'm going and my hope is in the future out there.
Speaker 2: And then over here we have the.
Speaker 2: Jesus brings hope to the earth camp and they think the heaven people are a little pie in the sky, a little woo-woo, and they're like Jesus is all about bringing hope here today, in my day-to-day life, I know about both of these camps because I've been in them in different seasons of my life.
Speaker 2: But the hope that Jesus offers is a much more holistic hope that really encompasses both of these camps.
Speaker 2: Scripture calls it a living hope.
Speaker 2: As you heard this morning, romans 8 says this.
Speaker 2: We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.
Speaker 2: Not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we are saved.
Speaker 2: But hope that is seen is no hope at all.
Speaker 2: For who hopes for what he can see.
Speaker 2: But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.
Speaker 2: Scripture is super honest about the frightening and sometimes painful nature of hope.
Speaker 2: Groaning in the pains of childbirth, that is intense imagery.
Speaker 2: But Paul knows that hope is worth it, because hope is about what comes after.
Speaker 2: I've been in the pains of childbirth a couple of times.
Speaker 2: There's not a lot to feel positive about in those moments, not a lot to feel optimistic about, but there is hope for days, even in the pains of childbirth, because you know what is coming in the future.
Speaker 2: Hope isn't tied to my present circumstances or my present pain, but to a future reality.
Speaker 2: If our ultimate hope is tied to our present-day circumstances or getting the outcomes that we want, hope is going to feel like a really hard and dangerous thing and we will sometimes, if not often, be really disappointed.
Speaker 2: But we were designed for a greater hope.
Speaker 2: God wrote hope into your DNA.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely critical for our souls.
Speaker 2: What air is for the body, I think hope is for the soul, true hope that isn't bound by circumstances or outcomes but is rooted in the coming king and his coming kingdom.
Speaker 2: The entire season of Christmas, of Advent, is a story of hope, of waiting, of anticipation.
Speaker 2: Mary is told a baby is coming, the wise men are told a baby is coming, the shepherds are told a baby is coming Not here yet, but coming.
Speaker 2: And Advent is this season where we are waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Speaker 2: And I would say for most of us I would guess for many of us at least in this room Christmas Advent is like one of our favorite times of the year, not even Christmas day itself, but the season is one of our favorite times of the year because it's an entire season devoted to hope.
Speaker 2: Many of you are probably aware this is pretty well-known data at this point.
Speaker 2: They've done studies on when people are at their peak levels of happiness and what they've found is that people are at their very most happy when they're planning a vacation, not when you're on vacation.
Speaker 2: When you're planning a vacation, not when you're on vacation, when you're planning a vacation, and to me, that's just further evidence that God wired hope into our DNA.
Speaker 2: It is what we were made for.
Speaker 2: Like your body needs air, your soul needs hope Ephesians 1 says this.
Speaker 2: In him we were also chosen needs hope.
Speaker 2: Ephesians 1 says this.
Speaker 2: And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Speaker 2: When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit, which is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory.
Speaker 2: This entire passage to me is about the past, present and future nature of hope.
Speaker 2: Let's read verse 13 and 14 again.
Speaker 2: And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Speaker 2: When you believed.
Speaker 2: Past, you were marked in him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: You are right now.
Speaker 2: You have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, dwelling inside of you, present in this moment.
Speaker 2: You have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, dwelling inside of you, present in this moment, and he is a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance, future, until the redemption of those who are God's possession.
Speaker 2: God knows that hope is not easy.
Speaker 2: Hope can feel like the pains of childbirth, but that is why he's equipped you with the Holy Spirit, with the indwelling of the Spirit of God, to help remind your soul to orient itself toward a future reality, toward a coming king and his coming kingdom.
Speaker 2: As followers of Jesus, we build our lives, our foundation, not on positivity or empty optimism, but on true and living hope.
Speaker 2: Positivity and optimism are great I'm a big fan of both of them but they can also be a distraction if they keep our eyes fixed on our circumstances and the outcomes that we are wanting.
Speaker 2: Hope helps us to lift our eyes off of these circumstances, off of the outcomes, and to fix our gaze on the bringer of hope, on the true source of hope and the kingdom that he's bringing.
Speaker 2: This morning, I want to show you a video of one of the kids Real Hope has worked with, and this kid is one of the most hopeful kids that we've ever encountered.
Speaker 2: Dan made this video.
Speaker 2: He was on the video shoot for the original.
Speaker 2: You'll see a few versions of this and you can see throughout this kid's story.
Speaker 2: We made a video for him back in 2020, and he was matched with a family and we've been able to continue building a relationship with him and you can see the hope that bubbles up out of this kid.
Speaker 2: And as you watch him grow, you'll see him grow over about three or four years.
Speaker 2: In this video you can see the way that hope is forming his character, so we can go ahead and check this out.
Speaker 4: I think a parent astrologist should take care of their kids and family members, but overall, parents should be there.
Speaker 4: Take families important, because families are there for you and they can help you when you're down.
Speaker 4: Although that would be important to me, mom and dad would be care, love, respect and connection.
Speaker 4: My name's Elijah 15, and I'm a serial I'm Brandon and this is Karis.
Speaker 5: We adopted Elijah in 2021.
Speaker 3: The picture of us dropping off our application, part one.
Speaker 4: I've learned and just off TV or social media, I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's like teenagers don't get, or their chances of getting adopted are more lower than if you were a toddler or something.
Speaker 4: So that kind of affected me a bit.
Speaker 4: But I was more like maybe I could be that special one.
Speaker 5: With adoption, you always kind of automatically go to a younger age for some reason.
Speaker 5: But I was open.
Speaker 3: We knew that whatever kid or kids that the Lord brought into our life, that there would be a grace at every point in the journey.
Speaker 3: It just was a yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 4: When I did my Real Hope shoot, I wasn't really thinking if I was going to get adopted after.
Speaker 4: Yes, when I did my real hope shoot, I wasn't really thinking if I was going to get adopted after just another day.
Speaker 4: Another thing another place.
Speaker 3: You know it was awesome to like hear his voice, just how he composed himself.
Speaker 4: I know I watched that many times yeah, I watched it tons this is adoption day well, I'd say, one thing I didn't expect was them being very like, loving towards me.
Speaker 4: You know, like number one, I'm a teenager, I'm like I don't have like a cute face.
Speaker 4: I mean, they say I have a cute face but I don't know about, like I'm new but I don't know, like I couldn't wrap my head around them showing like love and affection towards me.
Speaker 4: I couldn't wrap my head around them showing love and affection towards me.
Speaker 4: We've connected in a way where people can't really know or learn how we connected in that way.
Speaker 4: I'm Elijah.
Speaker 4: I'm Elijah, I'm just saying my name.
Speaker 4: Some things that I wish I had known in foster care was family is fun and it can be fun, but in the foster care system I honestly didn't really think much of family.
Speaker 4: Like I don't really need a family and I'm honestly kind of proud that I chose family.
Speaker 4: They were accepting me from day one.
Speaker 4: They were introducing me to a lot of their friends, their family.
Speaker 4: We went to church every Sunday.
Speaker 4: They were getting me involved and that's what kind of started me out like you know, oh, this is pretty nice got a lot of skin here.
Speaker 5: Look at that vomiting it's a video video.
Speaker 4: I am the man who I am today because my adoptive family helped me feel welcomed in this world.
Speaker 4: They've introduced me to church and the Lord and there's brighter light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 4: It might not seem like there's hope, but at the end of the day, there's always hope.
Speaker 4: I'm Elijah.
Speaker 5: And we're the Heffrons.
Speaker 2: Isn't that so great?
Speaker 2: That's Elijah, he's awesome.
Speaker 2: I love what he said.
Speaker 2: Maybe I could be that special one.
Speaker 2: Hope is hard work, but it is work we were made for.
Speaker 2: Our soul craves and needs hope.
Speaker 2: Just as kids are designed for families, you are designed for a living hope.
Speaker 2: As you celebrate Christmas this year, I hope that you and your family, that you, can see this Christmas season as a way of putting your stake in the ground, of reminding your soul, of orienting your spirit toward true hope, toward the baby king and his coming kingdom, emmanuel.
Speaker 2: God with us.
Speaker 2: I'm going to close in prayer and then I'm going to share a short announcement before I sit down.
Speaker 2: Father, we thank you that you are the source of our hope.
Speaker 2: God, during this Christmas season, I pray that every family and individual represented in this room that we would be reminded that you are the source of hope and even when there are circumstances that aren't going the way we want them to, or outcomes that we're just not seeing breakthrough in, god, help us to remember that you are with us, that you are Emmanuel and your kingdom is coming.
Speaker 2: Thank you, god, that we get to participate with you in that.
Speaker 2: We love you.
Speaker 2: We pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.
Speaker 2: Before I sit down, I want to give just a brief invitation.
Speaker 2: Ryan alluded to this a little bit already, but I have an invitation for you all for this Friday night.
Speaker 2: So, big picture, a little bit of context on where things are at with the Real Hope Project.
Speaker 2: We have been around for eight years.
Speaker 2: We launched in this room in the fall of 2016, and for the first few years as an organization, we served about 50 or 60 kids a year making videos for kids like Elijah.
Speaker 2: In 2023, we served about 50 or 60 kids a year making videos for kids like Elijah.
Speaker 2: In 2023, we made videos for 102 kids and in 2024, we're going to make videos for 150 kids, and we are now, as Ryan said, serving kids in eight states across the nation.
Speaker 2: We have a long-term goal of serving 1,000 kids a year and what we have seen now is that our programming as an organization has grown in the last two years by 178%.
Speaker 2: Our funding has grown by 25%, which is significant, but those of you math whizzes out there are probably like that's going to be a problem soon, to which I would say yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: And so back in the fall, we did our annual fundraising gala in the Twin Cities.
Speaker 2: It's this fancy dress-up event.
Speaker 2: It's called Night at the Oscars.
Speaker 2: People come dressed to the nines and we do this whole Oscars movie themed.
Speaker 2: A few of you were there and we made these different movies for Night at the Oscars in different genres, like best action, best comedy, all these things to share what God is doing through the organization.
Speaker 2: And it was such a fun night.
Speaker 2: And now we have all these beautiful movies that we've made and we decided we're going to take a night at the Oscars on the road and we're going to do a little tour with this gala that we created and Elk River is our very first stop this Friday night.
Speaker 2: We're going to do a few more cities in March during Oscar season.
Speaker 2: We'll go to Lakeville and Roseville and Duluth, but our first one is this Friday here at Central Lutheran in Elk River.
Speaker 2: We would so love for you guys to come be there, hear what God is doing.
Speaker 2: It's going to be just a celebration of hope, a celebration of family.
Speaker 2: So everybody, just take a second right where you're sitting and just humor me.
Speaker 2: Just take out your cell phone right where you are and scan this QR code.
Speaker 2: All of the details are on this QR code, even if you're not really going to come.
Speaker 2: It'll make me feel better if you're scanning the code, but we would love, love, love to see you there.
Speaker 2: I also have invites, so if you're not a QR code person, come and find me and I can give you an invite this morning.
Speaker 2: But it'll be at 6.30 here at Central Lutheran popcorn and cookies and we'll share more about what God is doing.
Speaker 2: We'd love to see you there.
Speaker 2: Thanks, central.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: Thank you, casey, yeah.