The Church We Hope For

Feb 25, 2024 | Angela Scott Lee About: The Church We Hope For is a beloved community moved by the Spirit to follow the life, love, and justice of Jesus. For more information, visit our website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.thechurchwehopefor.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ . Follow us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

February 18, 2024 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | John 6:25-36 THE VOICE translation Pastora Inés introduces us to our Lent series: Bread and Body which will carry us all the way to Easter. In this story, Jesus invites us to the tables that he sets and calls himself the "bread of life". As we enter into Lent, how may we retrain our appetites to hunger for the true bread that gives life? How m...

February 4, 2024 | Bobby Harrison | Luke 15 In this online service, we took time to re-read together the story of the prodigal sons in Luke 15. And through the lenses of social locations and cultural backgrounds, we gave ourselves the gift of reimagining this story in such beautiful, collaborative ways. The reflections we all shared back throughout the service helped cultivate together a sermon li...

January 28, 2024 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | Mark 4:1-10 In the parable of the sower, Jesus invites the conditions that would make the seed of the Word to remain, take root, sprout, and bring forth fruit. Soils need sustainable rhythms to receive this word. Instead of asking “What soil am I?” perhaps our agency invites us to choose what soil we will be. Keywords: Soil, Seed, Sower About: The Church...

January 7, 2023 | Bobby Harrison In this sermon, we look at wilderness seasons and stories throughout the Scriptures, from cover to cover. And we see our own stories, and receive a deeper understanding that so much of life is found in “wilderness seasons”. What we then are called to ask, is how God can meet us even — and especially — here. Keywords: Grace, Hope, Jesus, Justice, Wilderness About: T...

January 21, 2024 | Nicola Patton | Psalm 133 It’s easy to get caught up in doing so much church that we forget about community. But God cares more about community than about church. We have been created in and for community by a communal God. It is part of our human nature to need each other and exist fully together. Sometimes we want to love people without needing them. But we lose our humanity w...

December 17, 2023 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | Ruth 4:11-12 → Luke 1:46-55 Mother Ruth secures the steps and seeds of the Messiah and we hear echoes of her hope in Mary's Magnificat. Our very own Nicola Patton re-writes Mary's Magnificat in Ruth's voice. We linger in Mary's words. She speaks from her soul. She magnifies El Shaddai which means "from the bosom of the mother"....

December 10, 2023 | Bobby Harrison | Ruth 1, 4 In this sermon, we look at the story of Naomi in the book of Ruth. And from this matriarch of the faith, we find space for blessing to be birthed even in bitterness. Asking God to do just the same in us and our lives. And honestly holding space for the weariness we’re feeling while longing for more. Keywords: Hope, Lament, Loss, Blessing, Belief, Adve...

December 3, 2023 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | Ruth 2:8-12 NRSV In Ruth 2, we observe that the steps of Ruth plant the seeds of the Messiah and prepare the way for the Messiah. Mother Ruth, a foreign Moabite woman steps into the field of prophetic promise where God has been cultivating a path of shalom for generations. She reaps the compassion that she has sown onto Naomi, and she plants the seeds of...

November 19, 2023 | Armando David Scott-Canchola | Matthew 14:13-12, 15:12-39 In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, we chose to honor the land we occupy by delving into its history and acknowledging its original indigenous inhabitants. Among our community, Armando David Scott-Canchola centered the ancestral lineage of his maternal Chumash Native heritage. Through the telling of a Chuma...

November 12, 2023 | Bobby Harrsion | John 11:33-44 As Jesus makes his way to the stone-cold tomb where Lazarus is sealed shut, we’re invited to see the “tomb seasons” in our own lives. The spaces and places where we find ourselves in lament and loss. And where we ultimately long for God to comfort us and call us back to holy and whole healing. Keywords: Lament, Loss, Grief, Hope, Healing, Communit...

November 5, 2023 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | Ruth 1:16-18 Migration is a means of God's love and God's company. In the story of Comadre Ruth and Naomi, we see the embodied hesed love of God in the friendship vows that Ruth makes to Naomi in times of crisis and duress. Comadre Ruth did not know that she carried the seed of the Messiah and her actions secured his arrival in the coming generat...

October 22, 2023 | Camille Hernandez | Judges 4:17-22 As we continue to witness the atrocity of war, retaliation, and genocide let us turn our eyes to the actions of Jael who teaches us how to boldly go where God leads and end conflict. This is a sermon that is meant to meet this moment while also honoring the genocide victims in Palestine, the Philippines, and throughout the globe. Using a nonvio...

October 15, 2023 | Bobby Harrison | Mark 5:25-29 In this sermon, we look at the woman in Mark 5 who has been bleeding for 12 years. And we let her story lead us to look at an even more ancient shared suffering of blood between Israelis and Palestinians. While asking Jesus to end this loss of so much life. It’s ultimately a word of shalom seeking more shalom for our broken world. Keywords: Sufferin...

October 8, 2023 | Meleca Consultado | Genesis 16: 7-8 As I (Meleca) have been sitting with Spirit this last week, She brought me back to a story that has ministered to me more times than I can remember. The story of an Egyptian slave girl, Hagar, who had to endure wickedness and abuse done to her, who lacked power, was vulnerable and might have been erased from the biblical narrative altogether un...

October 1, 2023 | Bobby Harrison | Matthew 1-2 We look at the story of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as they are forced to migrate over 1,200 miles over the course of three years. And in their perilous journey, we find glimpses of our stories of movement. All the while reflecting on how God's faithfulness and our ancestors' faith made a way for us to make today. Keywords: Faith, Ancestors, Migra...

September 24, 2023 As we celebrated our 3-year church anniversary, our community shared honestly, vulnerable, and joyfully what this place has meant to them as a faith community. We also marked our last day at the Missiongathering church building where we made our first in-person home since the Fall of 2021. As of October 1st, we migrated to a new church home at the Pasadena Mennonite Church prope...

September 10, 2023 | Armando David Canchola Scott | Isaiah 11:1-9 This Sunday was the beginning of a season where our church familia began to center and celebrate Latinx Heritage Month. In honor of that, Armando David Canchola Scott explored Isaiah 11:1-9, where the poet prophets give audacious vision of hope and peace; and how that connected to his own story of his own cultural heritage. Keywords...

August 27, 2023 | Nicola Patton | 1 Kings 19:1-15 We won’t always be dazzled by the Spirit. Much of our lives are spent in mundane, even wilderness places. But the Spirit meets us in all those places and moments, creating space for us to be quiet and reflect. It’s in that silence we can take the time to hear the Spirit gently and curiously ask, “What are you doing here?” Keywords: Holy Spirit, Sil...

August 13, 2023 | Bobby Harrison | Luke 3:21-22 In this sermon, we look at the /Spirit’s involvement in Jesus’ baptism. And the Belovedness that is spoken over him in that moment. And we do so as a recognition that this same Belovedness has been gifted to us as well. Keywords: Belovedness, Grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Love About: The Church We Hope For is a beloved community moved by the Spirit to f...

August 6, 2023 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | 1 Cor. 12:4-14 (NRSV) Paul reminds the Corinthian believers that God has dispensed power from above for them to live the resurrected life. This same Spirit grants individual spiritual gifts that are meant for the common good and to edify the body. Lastly, this power is power from in-between as each member of the body helps the body move, and live and breat...

July 30, 2023 In this service, we do not have a sermon. Instead, we embody the listening practices engaged in the month of July and have a communal time of reflection beginning with the lighting of Palo Santo until Communion. The stories are the sermon as we engage with art, wordless worship, palo santo, and the word bank. Keywords: Listening, Communal Reflection, Worship About: The Church We Hope...

July 23, 2023 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | 2 Cor. 2:14-17 Christ is sufficient and the Spirit is supreme to make us competent to fulfill our calling. In Christ, we are empowered to be the aroma of Christ and sometimes, well, Jesus smells like a mango empanada. Keywords: Aroma, Fragrance, 2 Corinthians About: The Church We Hope For is a beloved community moved by the Spirit to follow the life, love,...

July 16, 2023 | Inés Velásquez-McBryde | 2 Cor. 3:1-6 The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church a letter of encouragement about their witness. They are letters. Letters of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the ink. Letters that give life and liberation. We can be confident that God is competent to write our stories and not only that, that we are co-creating a Spirit-story with our very own lives....

July 9, 2023 | Bobby Harrison | Romans 8:22-27 In this sermon, we look at lament and grief. And all the ways it comes to fruition in our lives. But as we continue in our series, The Story of the Spirit, we realize that the Holy Spirit is not just our comforter in times of grief. But actually prays for us on our behalf. Keywords: Lament, Grief, Hope, Love, Waiting, Longing, Praying, Holy Spirit Abo...