Week 8 - Living Hope Church

livinghopechurch.com

This weekend we had plans for a family picture on Sunday (only day we could get all ten of us together) and so we had looked around for a Saturday evening service to attend. Saturday is not new to us as we started attending the Saturday evening service at our previous church many years ago. There are some nice benefits to Saturday evening so we are not the least bit opposed to the idea. A while back, as Loren was looking for potential visit sites near our house, we came across one that was located just down the street and they met on Saturday evenings. Perfect!

You know that thing about "best laid plans?" Apparently that church is no longer in existence. Fortunately right across the parking lot is another church that also meets on Saturday evening, and no we didn't confuse the two. There actually did used to be a church that met in the building we first went to.

Our backup church was Living Hope Church that meets in a former Kmart store. Unlike other re-purposed commercial building churches we have attended, this one still has vestiges of its former use. Using black curtain walls in the main meeting area they are able to accommodate a variety of audience sizes and uses, very functional in that way. On this night the room was set up for about 350 people and there were approximately 100 in attendance. Most likely Sunday mornings draw a larger crowd. Two large projection screens and several flat screen monitors provided easy viewing of the speakers and musicians from anywhere in the room.

As soon as the service started the lights were turned off, with the exception of the well lit stage, and six instrumentalists/vocalists played 20 minutes of rousing songs. Following this the service leader led in prayer, announced several upcoming opportunities, showed a couple of videos and introduced a guest speaker. LHC has recently gone through a major disruption and is currently without a lead pastor so they are utilizing christian leaders, both from within and from outside the church, to provide teaching for weekend services. Lights were raised briefly during a short meet-n-greet just prior to the speaker. Upon reflection, that was the only time we interacted with another person in the room.

This week we had the privilege of hearing Mike Miller, Executive Director of the evangelism ministry Common Ground/Dare to Live. Mike shared the powerful story of how his family came to an understanding of who Jesus is and the gift of  redemption he offers. He connected his story of meeting Jesus to the ministry that LHC has provided to people in the community that are seeking what he did as a young person. Part of Mike's message was to be an encouragement for this community that has recently been knocked down by the former pastor's financial misdealings. In doing so he implied that LHC is the only church in Clark County that is bringing in people seeking Jesus, however they come, without judgement. We took a slight offense to this claim. While we are less than 10 visits into this journey we can say that we have been to several communities that are reaching out to people, where they are at, to help them grow in their understanding of Jesus and his gift to them.

If there is one thing we have learned after a lifetime of living with the body of Christ, it is that no one church community has a lock on reaching people who need to know Jesus. Mike's story was about how several churches his family had reached out too were not able too meet them where they were, one was, and they began their walk with Christ because of that one church. Nothing about his story categorically negates the work that those other churches were doing. We just never know who God is going to work through to see his purpose achieved.