Hope Church PCA

Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem

Sunday Schedule:

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

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Davis Mooney

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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

Jesus Enters a Widow’s Sorrow

October 11, 2020 |

“Tell me
Tell me the story
The one about eternity
And the way it’s all gonna be
Wake up
Wake up dead man”

U2, “Wake Up Dead Man”

“Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned from the widows’ prayers is the lesson of gratitude. They are grateful to their Creator and Sustainer for the opportunity to get up one more time and walk with him again. Yes, there are many challenges that they have and offer prayers about: family, health, money, sadness, loss, violence, and yes, they cry when they pray, but they also sing and dance. I’ve learned so much from these spiritual mothers.”

Eduardo Centurion, Foreword to Spiritual Widowhood by Andy Mendonsa

“He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.”

Deuteronomy 10:18

I Thirst

April 10, 2020 |

The One who gives the calm of lakes and pools, the freshness of brooks and streams, the majestic depths of seas and oceans, the glory of pounding surf, the might of Niagara and the sprinkle of the garden fountain, the One from whose being flows the gift of the water of eternal life – this is the One who is dying of a terrible thirst on the Cross for the love of his lost sheep. 

Fleming Rutledge

“I dare not come and drink,” said Jill. “Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion. “Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.” “There is no other stream,” said the Lion. 

C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

 

See the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love,
Well supply thy sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove;
Who can faint while such a river ever flows their thirst t’assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the giver, never fails from age to age.

John Newton, “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”

The Reign of the King

December 22, 2019 |

“How will God deliver from arrogance, war, oppression, and coercion? Surely the book of Isaiah indicates frequently that God was powerful enough to destroy his enemies in an instant, yet again and again, when the prophet comes to the heart of the means of deliverance, a childlike face peers out at us.”

John Oswalt

“In this season of Advent, I’m glad, once again to affirm that there’s only one government and one peace sufficient to meet the needs of my sinful heart and the issues in this broken world. You are the King of which David, at his best, was just a hint and hope. Having conquered death and the devil, you now reign from a throne of grace—advancing your kingdom of peace, justice, and righteousness in the hearts of your people, among the nations of the world, and in every sphere of your creation.”

 Scotty Smith, “An Advent Prayer in Praise of the Kingship of Jesus”

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark peak high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King