Hope Church PCA

Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem

Sunday Schedule:

8:30 a.m. – Worship
10:00 a.m. – Sunday School
10:15 a.m. – Hope Café
11:00 a.m. – Worship

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Davis Mooney

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The Father’s Hands

April 15, 2022 |

44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

Luke 23:44-49

A Litany of Lost Things

March 27, 2022 |

“When the younger son returns, Christ reports for us the words of the son to his father, but does not give anything about a speech of the father to his son. For in reality, the father substitutes kisses for words and replaces assertion with expression and eyes speak for the tongue.”

Rev. Dr. Ibrahim Sa’id, Quoted in Poet & Peasant by Kenneth Bailey

“For my entire life I had been quite responsible, traditional, and homebound. But, I suddenly saw my jealousy, my anger, my touchiness, doggedness and sullenness, and, most of all, my subtle self-righteousness. I saw how much of a complainer I was and how much of my thinking and feeling was ridden with resentment. I was the elder son for sure, but just as lost as his younger brother, even though I had stayed ‘home’ all my life.”

Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

“These parables are truly a reassurance to those lost sheep who have strayed. But they are also a warning – and this aspect of their message is generally missed. Men and women everywhere prefer to build communities that affirm their choices, that share their values, that keep out those who might bring unrighteousness to their neighborhoods.”

Gary Burge, Jesus, The Middle Eastern Storyteller

The Messiah Enters Tension and Expectation

January 9, 2022 |

“The reason of my waking mind tells me that great evil has befallen and we stand at the end of days. But my heart says nay; and all my limbs are light, and a hope and joy are come to me that no reason can deny.”

 JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

“The mystery of the incarnation reveals to us the spiritual dimension of human solidarity. We cannot live in intimate communion with Jesus without being sent to our brothers and sisters who belong to that same humanity that Jesus has accepted as his own. Thus intimacy manifests itself as solidarity and solidarity as intimacy.” 

Henri Nouwen, Lifesigns

“The picture at Jesus’ baptism is of God stepping out of heaven to address people, of God entering into their everyday world. Clearly God takes the initiative to show humanity the way to him.” 

Darrell Bock

A Divine Announcement in Routine Longing

December 5, 2021 |

“The announcement of John’s birth begins a series of great events that ring through the corridors of time and eternity as God’s salvation comes to fruition.”

Darrell L. Bock

“Aged priest tending the fires of incense,
You mistrust the angel’s sudden visit,
Counting pledges of answered prayer nonsense
For an old man, an old woman, neither fit.
You temporize, reluctant to submit.
I, too, inquire, “What’s the evidence?”
Even as I stoke altar fires with sweet incense.”

Christine H. Boldt, “Dumbstruck”

“I don’t think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else, and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of our times. It’s hard to believe always but more so in the world we live in now.”

Flannery O’Connor

Mission and the Messiness of Life

August 29, 2021 |

“Open wide the window of our spirits, O Lord, and fill us full of light; Open wide the door of our hearts, that we may receive and entertain thee with all our powers of adoration and love. Amen.”

Christina G. Rossetti, from Prayers from the Heart by Richard J. Foster

“There was a bird who… perched atop the corner of the world and built three nests. One of gold, one of silver and one of clay…. In the nest of gold she cleansed her coat daily, in the nest of silver she brought back her food. In the nest of clay she laid her eggs. On the day the fires came the nests of gold and silver met in a lucid river rushing to the sea while the nest of clay withstood the heat. Amen. The nest of clay was forged for eternity atop the corner of the world, while the ocean floor was covered in gold, silver, and sand.”

“Via Rail,” by Kaddisfly

“That’s the business of hope: broken things. And days like today make it clear that things are off the rails. We’ve got our work cut out for us. Oh God, there’s a new widow in the world. Our hearts are broken with her and for her. And only a mystery can heal them. Put me to work, Lord. Let me be about the business of the broken until it’s made right.”

“Fare Forward, Thomas McKenzie,” a eulogy by Pete Peterson

Gospel Gratitude in Everyday Relationships

August 1, 2021 |

“That she was his half, she had no doubt at all. He needed her. At times she knew with a joyous ache that she completed him, just as she knew with the same joy that she needed him and he completed her. How beautiful a thing it was, she thought, to be a half, to be completed by such another half! When had there ever been such a yearning of halves toward each other, such a longing, even in quarrels, to be whole. And sometimes they would be whole.”

Wendell Berry, “A Jonquil for Mary Penn” in Fidelity

“As I look back over the years of my pragmatic parenting, I’m saddened, but I am also gladdened, for you’ve always been faithful to your covenant love, even when I was overbearing and under-believing. The move from parenting by grit to parenting by grace has been a fitful but fruitful journey. Take me deeper; take me further.”

Scotty Smith, “A Prayer for Parenting and Re-Parenting by Grace”

“Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, white-washing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in His grace you do it as your duty. To go to Communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives Him glory too. He is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean they should. So then, my brethren, live.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Principle or Foundation”

Who’s Writing Your Story?

July 4, 2021 |

“No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne – everything – to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life! You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true!”

Sally Lloyd-Jones, Introduction to The Jesus Storybook Bible

“For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the child and the poet in each of us no less than to the moralist and the philosopher.”

C.S. Lewis, “Myth Became Fact” in God in the Dock

“On the third day He rose from the dead, showed Himself to His disciples for forty days, then ascended into heaven to receive His glory at the Father’s right hand. He sealed His victory over sin and death by sending the Spirit from the throne. Now He is Lord of the universe, and Head of His body, the church. All of history unfolds to complete the story of Jesus, until the day that He comes again.”

Edmund P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament

Joyful Prayers in Sorrowful Times

June 20, 2021 |

“Batter my heart, three-personed God, for youAs y
et but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bendY
our force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.”

Excerpt from “Batter My Heart,” John Donne

“The transition from the complaining prophet to the rejoicing prophet surely must be seen as a work of God’s sovereign grace. Nothing else could explain how a person could be joyful and contented in face of the calamities Habakkuk had to undergo. May the Lord himself continue to provide the grace of life to people of this generation by the faith that justifies.”

O. Palmer Robertson

“Contrary to what we expect to be the case, the deeper into weakness and suffering and testing we go, the deeper Christ’s solidarity with us. As we go down into pain and anguish, we are descending ever deeper into Christ’s very heart, not away from it. Look to Christ. He deals gently with you. It’s the only way he knows how to be.”

Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

You Were Made for This

March 21, 2021 |

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. … There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. … But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” 

CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory

“The inner logic of this vision of holistic salvation is that the creator has not given up on creation and is working to salvage and restore the world (human and nonhuman) to the fullness of shalom and flourishing intended from the beginning. And redeemed human beings, renewed in God’s image, are to work toward and embody this vision in their daily lives.”

Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology

“[Niggle] went on looking at the Tree. All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, “Leaf by Niggle”

Praying Through Our Fears

February 28, 2021 |

“Our name has nothing to do with the historical meaning. There is a great quote that says, ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.’ … Every single person walking down the street is fighting a great battle, whether or not you can see it.”

Joy Williams, The Civil Wars

“The life of David is full of incidents like this. Everyone’s life is. Not a palace coup for most of us…, but conflict and failure and fear, love and betrayal, loss and salvation. Every day is a story, a morning beginning and evening ending that are boundaries for people who go about their tasks with more or less purpose, go to war, love others, earn a living, scheme and sin and believe.”

Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms As Tools For Prayer

“Together we turn to the Psalms and pray through them, word by word, personalizing them for what is on our heart. In the dry, empty place, the Word comes alive. It shapes our lament. Praying this way challenges me at the deepest part of my being. It strips my soul of all supports, because my whole heart and mind bend toward God.”

Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World