Not just this past year but for 2 years we have been through much hurt & suffering. So many transitions & trials…

• National election, crime, inflation, immigration
• Covid, social distancing, masks, online services
• Pastoral transition and style changes
  
  

WHERE WAS JESUS?

• A new church plant that did not materialize
• Leadership transitions & changes
• Ministry adjustments & changes
• Upheaval, change, conflict, confusion, disagreements
  
  

WHERE WAS JESUS?

• A church blending that did not materialize
• Establishing new elder & governing boards
• Resetting & Restructuring
• Questions about finances
  
  

WHERE WAS JESUS?

• Membership changes
• Sicknesses, deaths and illnesses within the congregation
• A pastoral search
  
  

WHERE WAS JESUS?

But even when we didn’t know it or couldn’t see it. JESUS WAS THERE (Always is and always was).

• Pastors and leaders stepped up to carry us through
• Ministry leaders stepped in to fill voids
• Prayer meetings were held & people cried out with so many issues
• Worship teams were challenged to provide continuing enrichment
• Talented teachers searched to present the rightly divided Word of God
• A faithful congregation kept trusting and believing with hope and expectation
  
  

ALL THE WHILE, JESUS WAS THERE…

In the waiting, in the searching, in the healing and the hurting. JESUS WAS THERE.

In the storms we could hear His voice…” I AM WITH YOU.”

While traveling this appointed path WE WERE NEVER ALONE.

We are here now FOR JUST SUCH A TIME AS THIS.

Every tear we have cried He HOLDS IN HIS HANDS.

HE KNOWS & SEES ALL THINGS!

HIS WORD SAYS:

For I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 And I will be found by you,” declares the LORD…

And there is a blessing in the broken pieces…

on His side there is love, grace, precious promises, atonement, help and the presence of the

Holy Spirit.

On our side there is determination, yielding, seeking and believing.

So, the challenges for us at New Hope Church:

To truly make Jesus Lord and not be too busy for Him.

To worship Him, correspond with Him & commune with Him.

To have relationship with Him.

To have a consuming spiritual hunger & a reverence for the divine.

To intercede in faith & belief for one another and a lost world.

To listen to His voice.

To pray out the hinderances to blessings of disobedience and unforgiveness.

Friends at New Hope, we may yet have to go through more of the “fellowship of His sufferings.” But our future is with the Lord of all beauty and the power of His resurrection.

His Word says: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

So, can we move ahead together – in love? (Loving one another; loving our neighbor; loving our enemy.) And, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, (let us all) press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.