Hope Christian Fellowship

Pretend you’ve won a fantastic trip to an exotic location… sounds like a dream come true, right? Is there someone in your life that you wouldn’t go without? This person would be someone so connected and so dear to you that the thought of being away from them for an extended period of time would make you decide to pass on the trip unless they could go with you. Maybe you don’t have anyone like that...

Wednesday Night Bible Study

The new year is often a time for resolutions; we commit to changes we believe are good and needed. But by this time, many of our resolutions are fading or forgotten. It’s not that we always just ignore them. We have reasons and excuses for why we can’t continue or why this day is different and makes follow through impossible. The problem is that whether we have a legitimate reason or we are just m...

1/13/2021 Wednesday Night Bible Study

COMMUNION Do you know someone who can never bring themselves to apologize? There are probably many different reasons that people struggle to say they are sorry. But if you’re the one who has been hurt, this refusal is almost a second betrayal. We can forgive people for being less than perfect. However, if that person wants to try to pretend they didn’t do anything wrong, it creates a second hurdle...

Have you ever struggled with the fact that you can’t see or hear God physically? As a normal person, it is a challenge to interact with someone that isn’t ever visible. In dark moments, we question if He’s there, if He cares, and if He even exists. Our humanity prefers to know through our physical senses or abilities. If we can touch something with our hands or see it for ourselves, we’re a lot mo...

God’s Got It

You probably have some place in your home where you are currently hiding presents. Whether you live alone or with a whole gang of people, we recognize that we don’t leave gifts out in the open lest we spoil the surprise for someone. The norm is to wrap the present so that even when we give it, we don’t give away the identity of the item until it is opened. Surprises can be a lot of fun… or they ca...

Christmas season often brings up pictures of warm fires in cozy homes with a sweet family gathered together. We talk about the treasured moments we get to spend with those we love at Christmas to the degree that belonging is almost entirely interwoven into the whole feel of Christmas. But many people do not have that kind of togetherness or belonging on Christmas – or at any other time throughout...

Any good parent knows that repeating yourself goes with the territory. While your child may be able to quote entire movie scripts from memory and remember every word to the latest song, it seems that some part of their intelligence is blocked from simply listening to their parents. But parents don’t talk just because they have a captive audience. Loving parents talk because they believe their word...

If you’re playing a game for the first time, whether it is a board game, a video game, or a school yard game, you start with the basics. You need to know what the goal of the game is and what the rules are. Otherwise, you can spend a lot of time and energy trying to win, but never get anywhere close. In life – especially as a child of God – there are some basics. God finishes off the Ten Commandme...

11/18/2020 Wednesday Night Bible Study

In all of the controversy that swirls around our nation, some have pointed at a lack of common and normalized respect for one another as a root cause for much of our unrest and unhealth as a society. In the Ten Commandments, God clearly sets out rules meant to point us towards the necessity of honoring one another. From parents to spouses to people in general, God tells His people that it matters...

Wednesday Night Bible Study

Over the past few years, there has been quite a bit of discussion about kneeling. Some see it as a symbol of honor mixed with a cry for forward progress on important issues in our country. Others see it as a way of worshipping what doesn’t deserve to be worshipped. And still others have adopted it as a way to take a posture of humility and reconciliation. So we don’t actually agree on what it mean...

Wednesday Night Bible Study

Communication at its core is meant to transfer ideas and understanding from one person to another. Many times, something goes wrong in that process and misunderstanding ensues. But it would make no sense to any of us for a college professor to give a lecture from their class to a toddler. If the professor wished to communicate anything to that child, he or she would have to adjust their wording an...

Today’s concept of God is probably different than it was at many points through history. God was a fearful and seemingly unknowable being who could bring great harm (or great blessing) at His whim. People lived in fear of God. Jesus came to show us who God really is. He told His disciples that whoever has seen Him has seen the Father. Jesus helped us understand that God is knowable and unwaveringl...

Wednesday Night Bible Study – 10/28/2020

Wednesday Night Bible Study

How much have you heard about ‘the saints’ in your life? Some religious traditions take great care to memorialize people who reportedly have lived lives overflowing with goodness. When we hear the word ‘saint’ in front of someone’s name, we think of them as being on a higher plane spiritually. But the word simply means holy ones who are set apart. Another word we can use for that is sanctified. An...

10-14-2020 : Wednesday Night Bible Study

Have you ever heard someone say, “God will never give you more than you can handle”? When you heard it, did it comfort you or did it confuse you? Maybe if you didn’t think too deeply, you were encouraged by the idea that seemingly overwhelming things are no match for the power you have to overcome. But when you look at your life more closely, it is probably easy to see times where life was simply...

Truth is tricky. While knowing the truth would seem to be a pretty necessary part of life, it is quite common to hear people talk about truth like it is personal or moldable. Some part of us feels like we’re on a quest for discovering what’s true and real. Then hearing that truth is unknowable and relative erodes any hope of finding what we need. On top of that, we are surrounded by people who are...

Continuing our study of Ephesians (after some technical difficulty).