Hope Christian Fellowship

Christmas is THIS WEEK! Part of what makes it so meaningful is the wonder that surrounds it. We are often so jaded that we miss the moments that can gather our attention toward the profound and what moves us deeply. This morning we’ll enjoy our elementary kids program and then we’ll look at a part of the first Christmas story that reflects both the wonder and worship of Jesus’ birth. As we wait fo...

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to meet God face to face? We probably have ideas of how we’d feel depending on what we think He’s like. For those who are Christians, we should be looking forward to that moment with excitement and confident hope! But for anyone unsure of what that encounter will bring, it could be a very fearful thought. Throughout the centuries before Jesus’ birth, Go...

We are all waiting for Christmas. Some parts of that are really enjoyable: we get to see Christmas lights night after night and listen to music that fills us with wonder. But other parts are not so great. We feel the pressure to shop for the perfect gifts, while our schedules seem to overload more than ever. For many, we’re trying to figure out how to manage all of our social and family desires an...

As we kick off Christmas season, it brings into focus the family we do (or don’t) have in our lives. We’d all like to have the type of family that is full of fun and life and brings joy to our hearts – especially at Christmas. But many of us don’t have that. Instead, our family contributes to the mess in our lives. If any part of your family life is difficult, you may find it interesting how Matth...

Each year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we step out of our normal routine to kick off the week of gratitude. As believers, we have so many reasons to give thanks. So we’ll sing together, and then we’ll allow people to share a short word of thanks to God for the past year and for His work in their lives. You are invited to join us and to share (if you’re brave enough!). But we guarantee you do...

For the finale of our ALIVE series, we’re going to talk about one more reality that may be holding you back from feeling alive like Jesus wants you to. God’s grace is amazing; He forgives us and gives us so much more than we deserve. We can never lose His love and we don’t have to hold onto Him, because He holds onto us. But our humanity will always try to bend this into selfish and self-centered...

As we begin nearing the end of our series “ALIVE”, we turn to one element of living that we all see. People and relationships are essential to living full of life. The difference for believers is that we value community with our brothers and sisters in Christ as the primary and best way to experience the life we’re designed to get from relationships. We can (and do) have all kinds of relationships...

Free Of Enemies

Who do you want to be like? We all see people and images every day and our natural human idea is to compare ourselves with what we think we see. It could be a favorite celebrity or even someone you know in person. Some of the power of society is to help people’s emotional well-being by creating norms for everyone. Can you imagine what it would be like to drive with no established ‘norms’ of traffi...

Set Free

When you were a kid, and some adult told you that you’d had enough when you wanted more, didn’t it feel like they were just being cruel? We’re born with a part inside us that can’t understand any reason to hold back from what we like or what we want. Of course, as we mature, we begin to understand that letting our desires run our lives can get us into big trouble. But we don’t always remember that...

Times of desperation are not usually anything that we look forward to, hope for, or prioritize. The portrayal of a desperate person is not generally a positive one. In a world that emphasizes maintaining a picture of having things together, we never want to give the implication that we are desperate to be in a better spot. In John 4, Jesus interacts with a man who is desperate and looking for help...

If you wanted to get better at something, do you think you’d be more likely to see improvement if you just tried it once or if you worked at it every single day? Of course, doing something on a daily basis is most likely to help us get better at any skill. We talked last week about how death is life for believers, unleashing the overwhelming power of God in the midst of seemingly unsurmountable lo...

How many arguments between God’s people and the lost can you think of right now? We debate over public policy, moral choices, values, and seemingly almost everything else. But perhaps we miss one big reality: as believers, we really believe things that seem crazy to unbelievers. One of the reasons that the life we are given does not flourish in our lives is that we forget about the power that God...

We’re going to start our series on living at the beginning. Jesus is life. The life our souls ache for cannot be found anywhere else. Probably no one who comes to Hope would disagree with either of those statements. So we should all be fully alive from the depths of our souls, jumping into every day and each calling full of confidence and hope. But we aren’t. So what’s the problem? We’ll take this...

Teens are living in a lost world and research shows they are more lost than ever. After a special worship service featuring Hope Youth voices, Pastor Dan will share some of the most common areas today’s teens are struggling with their faith, and how we can be more effective ambassadors for Christ.

We’re going to close our series on Remembering Who We Are by coming back to our namesake: hope. One of the simplest things we can do is hold onto it. But it may also be one of the most challenging. We lose our grip on it for so many reasons. We get discouraged, we get afraid, we get set on a particular outcome. But it is almost a paradox to live as a Christian or to operate as a church without liv...

Communication is the backbone of any relationship. When you’re in elementary school, and you have a crush on that cute classmate, you may not be able to figure out HOW to talk to them. But in any mature relationship, the ability to connect through conversation and understanding is at the very foundation of friendship or family or romance. With the Lord, it may seem more complicated because He’s no...

Communication is the backbone of any relationship. When you’re in elementary school, and you have a crush on that cute classmate, you may not be able to figure out HOW to talk to them. But in any mature relationship, the ability to connect through conversation and understanding is at the very foundation of friendship or family or romance. With the Lord, it may seem more complicated because He’s no...

The problems of the world are easy to see. We walk through life constantly noticing how things are not what they should be. As Christians, we want the world to know Jesus and for good to triumph. But it can feel overwhelming and hopeless. What are we supposed to do about that? The actual answer is probably a lot simpler than it seems. We are to be people who do good. Look around your life and noti...

Social media has definitely generated more outlets for conversation. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is probably something to debate, but it highlights an area where Christians should excel. Because we know the King and are confident in His reign over all, we can walk into every interaction with a security and peace that the lost don’t have. We can take instruction from God’s Word on w...

This week at VBS our kids heard that they are God’s priceless treasure! This message is affirming and potentially life changing and it is one we happily tell our children. But at some point as adults we either stop telling each other this or at least we stop believing it is true about us. What we believe is that we have to prove our worth, justify our existence, and chart our own course. Our “trea...

If you’ve ever been around a young couple newly in love, you know how crazy love can make you act. The great thing is that the couple doesn’t realize they are doing anything strange; for them, it is just as natural as breathing. Love makes us do stuff and changes how we act. For believers, that is a great way to practically think about loving others. Jesus told us to love our neighbor and Paul tel...

Wednesday Night Bible Study

Social media has given us a different spin on the idea of ‘sharing’. We can share posts that we like from others, and we can share our lives with others (or at least the parts we want them to see) on our own posts. With all the different platforms, it would seem we’ve become experts at sharing. Most of the time, we enjoy sharing the parts of our lives that bring us joy, excitement, and celebration...