Looking Up – Creating Space
Dear Hope Church Family,
At the heart of our church’s stated mission is the invitation for our community “to experience with us true hope for real life through the good news of Jesus Christ and His kingdom.” It is equal parts our confession of being on the receiving end of God’s good news (and ongoing need of that good news) and our intention to welcome others into the same experience of God’s grace.
I love that hospitality – making room for others – is integral to our mission. Making room for others is in essence the heart of all of God’s creative and redemptive work, and having been welcomed, accommodated, and provided for so richly by a loving Lord and Savior, we are on the lookout for ways to welcome, accommodate, and provide for others.
Very practically, such welcome and hospitality require capacity and space! And capacity and space are not without limits or availability on this side of heaven and in our current church campus. In order to accommodate the current growth of ministries and hopefully to make room for even more growth, we have just this week made a move of some of our staff offices away from our campus. In a nearby neighborhood we have secured a house that is our new home for staff office space, and the former office spaces in the Education Building are being repurposed for classroom and ministry space – with a special focus upon expanding the capacity for our ministries for Children and Students.
When you walk through the halls of the Education Building, in the short term you might notice some empty spaces and some office spaces that are now being converted into classrooms. My plea is that you will join me in praying that such a change, such a disorientation, will allow us to fulfill our mission more effectively – that we will have more room to make room for “our community to experience with us true hope for real life through the good news of Jesus Christ and His kingdom.”
Grace and peace,
David