Our Strategy

Our approach to ministry is four-fold: passionate worship, relevant teaching, authentic community, and dynamic partnership. We have adopted several ways to help accomplish those four goals. Here are a few snapshots to give you a better picture of Living Hope Church.

Passionate Worship

We saturate our worship services (or liturgy) with music. While we enjoy a variety of musical styles, we lean toward "Black Gospel." When you worship with us, you will hear the sounds of Israel Houghton, Clint Brown, Martha Munizzi, Kurt Carr, and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.

We encourage worshipers to praise the Lord with their entire beings, including their hearts, minds and bodies.

We blend freedom of expression with an established yet flexible form by following an order of worship and by encouraging worshipers to respond as they are moved. You can stand if you want to stand, sit if you want to sit, and shout "Amen" if you want.

Relevant Teaching

We approach teaching in two ways.

First, we study the Bible as the written Word of God that leads us to a deeper relationship with Jesus, not just for the sake of studying the Bible. Our weekly sermons, for example, have direct application for living.

Second, we teach using all available methods of communication and delivery. We use technology for more effective communication, including electronic mail and the Web site. We envision Sunday morning classes that will help participants embrace and enjoy hope for what matters in life. We will offer classes on discovering our calling, affirming marriage and family, witnessing in the work place, being a good neighbor, serving the church and other topics of daily concern.

Authentic Community

This is perhaps the most challenging goal. We work hard at loving one another just as God has loved us. So we allow God's Word to shape all our relationships, especially those in the church. That commitment to obedience encourages us to extend the grace of hospitality to all who visit with us.

We envision the development of small groups where people enjoy "WWW": Welcome (a time of re-connecting), Word (a time in the Bible), and Worship (usually prayer, but sometimes song). These small groups will not be appendages to our ministry, but flow from the natural outgrowth of our life together.

Dynamic Partnership

We believe that God calls every Christian to partner with Him. More specifically, we believe that every Christian has several callings. One person, for example, may be called by God to be a husband, father, truck-driver, and church usher. Through each of those callings (we refer to these as "vocations"), the called individual partners with God to make a difference in the world. We work hard at making sure our church people don't spend too much time with the ministry of the church and, thereby, neglect their other callings.

But there is more to partnership. We encourage individuals to partner with God's work at Living Hope Church through voluntary service and sacrificial giving.

We have chosen to partner with God whose heaven will be filled with people from every tribe and nation by praying for and taking specific steps toward the development of a multi-ethnic congregation. One step is our commitment to a multi-ethnic ministry team and a multi-ethnic music team.

We have also chosen to partner with God's ongoing work of justice. Knowing that God is breaking down all barriers between people by affirming the equality of men and women, we have made a commitment to appoint women to roles in pastoral ministry.