Hope Church PCA

Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem

Sunday Schedule:

9:00 a.m. – Worship
10:15 a.m. – Hope Café
10:45 a.m. – Worship

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Ethan Smith

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Seven Miles with Jesus

April 24, 2022 |

“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story. … If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.”

Ivan Illich

“If you win this golf tournament today, if you lose this golf tournament by 10 shots, if you never win another golf tournament again, I’m still going to love you. You’re still going to be the same person. Jesus loves you. And nothing changes.”

Meredith Scheffler

“Food may not be the answer to world peace, but it’s a start.”

Anthony Bourdain

Glory in the Highest, Good News to the Lowest

December 24, 2021 |

Q: What is the chief end of man?
A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism

“No single drawing, painting, photograph, or verbal description could ever capture glory. Glory isn’t so much a thing as it is a description of a thing. Glory isn’t a part of God; it’s all that God is. Every aspect of who God is and every part of what God does is glorious. But even that’s not enough of a description. Not only is he glorious in every way, but his very glory is glorious!”

Paul Tripp, “The Doctrine of Glory”

“Dear Abba, It’s not hard for me to accept You as Father and Savior and Lord and Master. But when it comes to Friend, it’s just not as easy. It oughta be, but it’s not. The thought that You would want to spend time with me and dine with me and walk with me and be my Friend? That You, the Lord of Glory, would want to be the guest of me, a sinner? That leaves me undone. Simply undone. So I finish this day with that thought being the final one for the day—You, Jesus, want to be my Friend.”

Brennan Manning, Dear Abba

A Song for Gospel Amnesiacs

December 19, 2021 |

“[Jesus] is a Light for us when all other lights go out.”

Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas

“In a land by death o’ershadowed,
Life at last begins to shine.
O’er our wars and losing battles,
Peace spreads out its healing vine.
Bring your weak and bring your wounded;
Lay them at the savior’s feet.
Hearts by sorrows worn and plundered
Find in him their strength complete.”

The Porter’s Gate, “In a Land by Death O’ershadowed”

“In the end, darkness is not explained; it is defeated. Night is not justified or solved; it is endured until light overcomes it and it is no more. In the meantime, we do not stop asking our questions of God. He allows us to ask them when we need to because he loves us. And we bring our perplexity into the prayers and practices of the church so that they can shape and direct our own questions. Through its prayers, practices, and gathered worship, the church tells us over and over again, ‘This is what God is like. This is his name. This is how you know he loves you.’”

Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night

What Mary Knew

December 12, 2021 |

“He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words—‘Wait and Hope.’”

Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“In COVID-waiting, we’re anxious and pacing, or slumped over in despair. Our brows are furrowed, and we scroll for the latest information that reinforces what we already feel. Even the good news is tainted with grief for what we’ve lost and with concern for how long it will last. But in true Advent-waiting, our hearts are lifted, and our faces seek out the light even in the night. Advent waiting holds the promise of warmth and light and wholeness that pulls us forward through the heaviness of the world we wade through. That’s the hope we carry within us as believers, because of the reality of Christ’s incarnation and the promise of Christ’s return.”

Tiffanie Chan & Taylor Barnett

 “To be a Christian is to live every day of our lives in solidarity with those who sit in the darkness and in the shadow of death, but to live in the unshakable hope of those who expect the dawn.”

Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ

The God of the Mission

September 5, 2021 |

“Tomorrow can bring us nothing,
But He will bear us through:
Who gives the lilies clothing
Will clothe His people, too:
Beneath the spreading heavens
No creature but is fed;
And He Who feeds the ravens
Will give His children bread.”

William Cowper, “Sometimes a Light Surprises”

“The prodigal son, we are told, went to a far country and there spent all that he had. A far country! It is this unique definition of our human condition that we must assume and make ours as we begin our approach to God. A man who has never had that experience, be it only very briefly, who has never felt that he is exiled from God and from real life, will never understand what Christianity is about. And the one who is perfectly ‘at home’ in this world and its life, who has never been wounded by the nostalgic desire for another Reality, will not understand what is repentance.”

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent

“Before the pandemic, we knew we were going to die, but we did not believe it. Maybe we believed it, but considered it a problem to be dealt with later. In the meantime, exercise and a reasonable diet was the tithes we paid to our fears. We believed we had time. … It seems that Covid-19 has dealt a collective trauma to the American consciousness and that the full fruit of that trauma remains uncertain. One thing is clear: Our previous normal was not as good as we thought it was.“

Esau McCaulley, “We Weren’t Happy Before the Pandemic, Either”

Such a Great Cloud of Witnesses

August 8, 2021 |

“There will always be worse deaths than you expected. But [God] says he raises you from them, and if you believe that, you’re finally free.”

Robert Capon

“[The] outpouring love & support I’ve received has made me realize I’m more than my accomplishments and gymnastics which I never truly believed before.”

Simone Biles

“In whatever trouble comes to us, we should always set our eyes on God’s purpose to train us to think little of this present life and inspire us to think more about the future life. For God knows well that we are greatly inclined to love this world by natural instinct. Thus, He uses the best means to draw us back and shake us from our slumber, so that we don’t become entirely stuck in the mire of our love for this world.”

 John Calvin

New Clothes

July 25, 2021 |

Q. Since we have been delivered from our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why then should we do good works?

A. Because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, is also restoring us by his Spirit into his image, so that with our whole lives we may show that we are thankful to God for his benefits, so that he may be praised through us, so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and so that by our godly living our neighbors may be won over to Christ.

Heidelberg Catechism #86

“Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn’t answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn’t bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.”

Huckleberry Finn

“Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy. Left unchecked, it can spread throughout our entire inner being and contaminate every area of our lives. Even worse, it often will ‘metastasize’ from us into the lives of other believers around us.”

Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins

“… [T]rue sanctification is all about growing in humility, dependence, and gratitude. Joy blossoms in our hearts not as we try harder and harder to grow, but as we see more clearly the depths of our sin and understand more fully our utter helplessness. Only then will we take our eyes off ourselves and look to Christ for all that we need in life and in death. Only then will we truly cherish our Savior and believe that we need him every minute of every day, and that without him we can do nothing (John 15:5).”

Barbara Duguid, Extravagant Grace

The Mathematics of Grace

July 18, 2021 |

“I wonder
If there is any image more beautiful
Than the embrace of the one
Who trains, equips, releases you
And when you fail
Still embraces you
And reminds you that your value
Comes from who you are
Not what you did.”

 Sarah Yardley

“The life of grace is not an effort on our part to achieve a goal we set ourselves. It is a continually renewed attempt simply to believe that someone else has done all the achieving that is needed and to live in relationship with that person, whether we achieve or not. If that doesn’t seem like much to you, you’re right: it isn’t. And, as a matter of fact, the life of grace is even less than that. It’s not even our life at all, but the life of that Someone Else rising like a tide in the ruins of our death.”

Robert Capon, Between Noon & Three

“If Christ isn’t really King, then another god with another story of change is needed to get through the day.”

Brian Fikkert and Kelly Kapic, Becoming Whole

Fullness

July 11, 2021 |

“… [E]ven when I am in the middle of a dark time and there are no signs that it will end, I want to be the bird that sings in anticipation of the good things that I trust are coming.”

Jane “Nightbirde” Claudio

“For those united to him, the heart of Jesus is not a rental; it is your new permanent residence. You are not a tenant; you are a child. His heart is not a ticking time bomb; his heart is the green pastures and still waters of endless reassurances of his presence and comfort, whatever our present spiritual accomplishments. It is who he is.”

Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

“Go back, go back to the ancient paths
Lash your heart to the ancient mast
And hold on, boy, whatever you do
To the hope that’s taken hold of you
And you’ll find your way
You’ll find your way
If love is what you’re looking for
The old roads lead to an open door
And you’ll find your way
You’ll find your way”

Andrew Peterson, “You’ll Find Your Way”

A Love Supreme

June 27, 2021 |

“During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. I feel this has been granted through His grace. ALL PRAISE TO GOD. … I do perceive and have been duly re-informed of His OMNIPOTENCE, and of our need for, and dependence on Him. At this time I would like to tell you that NO MATTER WHAT … IT IS WITH GOD. HE IS GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL. HIS WAY IS IN LOVE, THROUGH WHICH WE ALL ARE. IT IS TRULY— A LOVE SUPREME—.”

John Coltrane

“[Faith] is believing the specific promises of God; no longer turning our backs on them, no longer calling God a liar, but raising the empty hands of faith and accepting that finished work of Christ as it was fulfilled in history upon the cross.”

Francis Schaeffer

BUTTERCUP: I fear I’ll never see you again.
WESTLEY: Of course you will.
BUTTERCUP: But what if something happens to you?
WESTLEY: Hear this now: I will come for you.
BUTTERCUP: But how can you be sure?
WESTLEY: This is true love. You think this happens every day?

The Princess Bride