Christian Impact directors Jacob and Katie Willebeek-LaMair sit down to share their stories of faith, marriage, and ministry. Jacob grew up moving between Arizona, Illinois, and California, making an early decision to follow Jesus as a child but drifting during a difficult middle school season before genuinely recommitting in high school. A pivotal moment came in college when a mentor named Neil helped him see that following Jesus wasn't something you left at church — it was a whole-life surrender. That truth, rooted in Galatians 6 and Hebrews 12, set Jacob on a path of real discipleship and eventually ministry. Katie, who grew up at Hope Church as a staff kid, came to faith at age five and was shaped by a community that modeled sacrifice for the kingdom. A summer trip to Chico, California cracked open her heart to evangelism and ultimately led her to move there, where she and Jacob would eventually meet, marry, and go on full-time staff together.

After years of fruitful ministry in Chico, God called them — through a conversation with Pastor Matt Sturdivant, a confirming word from Ruth 2:11, and a Cross Conference that seemed to speak directly to Jacob — to move to Fort Worth and launch Christian Impact from the ground up. Starting with zero students, they've spent five years learning what it means to be faithful when ministry doesn't look the way you imagined. One of their deepest lessons has been releasing the pressure of flashy results and trusting God with the fruit, while staying committed to reaching students on two-year community college campuses that most college ministry strategies overlook entirely.

They close with a warm and honest conversation about sharing the gospel. Both Jacob and Katie encourage people to stop letting fear be the deciding factor, reminding listeners that statistics show most people are open to spiritual conversations. Jacob's lawn mower illustration captures it well — God is doing all the pushing, but He graciously invites us to put our hands on the handle. Whether it's asking someone "Do you go to church anywhere?" or walking a friend through a gospel conversation, the encouragement is simple: learn what the gospel actually is, get some reps in, and trust that God is the one doing the real work of drawing people to Himself.

Pastor Matt returns to the pulpit to close out a 16-week journey through the Book of Acts, reminding the congregation that Acts is not simply a history of the apostles, but a living account of what the risen Lord Jesus continues to do through ordinary, Spirit-filled people. The big idea of the message is clear: the mission of Jesus is unstoppable, and now it's our turn. Drawing from Acts 27–28, Pastor Matt walks through three lessons — the mission cannot be stopped by storms, faith looks forward even when the future is uncertain, and the gospel keeps moving forward — showing how every apparent setback in Acts became an opportunity for gospel advancement.

A central theme of the message is the nature of Biblical faith. Pastor Matt points to Paul's courage in the middle of a violent Mediterranean storm, noting that Paul's confidence wasn't in the ship, the captain, or the weather — it was in God. Referencing Proverbs 3:5-6, Pastor Matt reminds the congregation that faith has never required perfect understanding, but it always requires trusting a perfect God. He challenges the church with a simple but convicting truth: faith doesn't remove uncertainty, but it changes how we walk through it.

Pastor Matt closes by connecting the Book of Acts to Hope Church's own future, introducing Vision 2028 — a plan to launch a new gospel work in the DFW area by the church's 50th anniversary. Grounding the call in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and the warning of Judges 2, he reminds the congregation that every generation decides whether the gospel advances through them or stops with them. He invites the church to pray boldly, live on mission right where they are, and trust that the same God who was sovereign over Paul's storm is sovereign over theirs.

Pastor Brian opens by drawing attention to one of the Bible's most consistent and powerful images: a river. From the river flowing out of Eden in Genesis 2, to the prophetic river in Ezekiel 47, to Jesus declaring in John 7 that rivers of living water would flow from those who believe in Him, all the way to the river of life in Revelation—this image traces the unstoppable flow of God's redemptive message throughout all of Scripture. Just as a river cannot be permanently stopped by rocks, logs, or even a dam, neither can the gospel of Jesus Christ be halted by any obstacle the world throws in its path.

With that foundation laid, Pastor Brian walks through Acts 21–26, where Paul faces a furious mob, a corrupt governor, a two-year imprisonment, and a skeptical king—and yet the gospel keeps flowing. Each obstacle Paul encounters becomes a missional platform rather than a dead end. The angry crowd in Jerusalem, the political delays of Felix and Festus, and the royal audience with King Agrippa all become opportunities for Paul to tell his story of what Jesus accomplished in his life. Even Paul's appeal to Caesar—which seemed to close the door on his freedom—ultimately placed him in Rome, where he would write the letters that make up much of our New Testament today.

Pastor Brian closes with a challenge for every believer: the river keeps flowing, but God calls His people to be faithful channels of it. Whether you are surrounded by people far from God or by fellow believers who need encouragement, your mission field is wherever you are. The question is not whether God's river will continue—it absolutely will. The question is whether you and I will be faithful enough to let it flow through us.

In this honest and heartfelt conversation, Jessica and Glenda open up about their years of walking through infertility, each sharing the unique ways God worked in their hearts during that season. Jessica and her husband Matt were married about 14 years before having their daughter Kinsey, and she describes the deep inner wrestling of learning to surrender the picture she had drawn in her heart of what her future would look like. Glenda, who had Lindy about eight years into marriage, shares that her struggle was less about longing for children and more about the feeling of being left behind — as though life was a race everyone else was winning while she fell further back.

Both women point to the same anchor that steadied them: returning again and again to who they are in Christ, not what they have or haven't been given. Jessica shares a powerful moment of clarity the Lord brought her — realizing He had actually been answering her deepest prayer all along, using her life for kingdom impact during the very years she felt He was withholding from her. Glenda echoes this by pointing to Psalm 145:16, which says, "You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing," as a verse she returned to often when she needed to be reminded that God is the one who truly satisfies.

Their practical encouragement is just as valuable as their spiritual reflections. Both women urge those struggling with infertility to go to the doctor sooner rather than later, to fight the pull toward isolation, and to lean into celebrating friends who are pregnant rather than pulling away — because choosing joy for others, even when it's hard, is actually what sets your own heart free.

In this sermon, Jordan Funderburk walks the congregation through the second half of Paul's third missionary journey in Acts 19-21, using Paul's experiences as a lens to answer one central question: what is the cost of following Jesus? Jordan opens with a relatable illustration — weighing the cost of a car repair or a vacation — before anchoring the big idea in Luke 14:27, where Jesus himself says that whoever does not carry his own cross cannot be his disciple. Following Jesus, Jordan makes clear, is the biggest decision a person will ever make, and it is never without a price.

As Paul moves through Ephesus, Troas, and toward Jerusalem, Jordan draws out several specific costs that surface along the way. The riot stirred up by Demetrius and the silversmiths in Ephesus illustrates that radical change often provokes radical opposition, and that following Jesus may cost you your popularity, your finances, and even your health. The all-night gathering in Troas — where a young man named Eutychus falls from a window and is raised back to life — highlights the cost of time and convenience. And Paul's tearful farewell to the Ephesian elders, paired with his unwavering resolve to press on to Jerusalem despite certain danger, shows what it looks like to obey God despite unknown outcomes.

Jordan closes by pressing the congregation with a challenge rooted in Luke 14:33, where Jesus says that anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be his disciple. Drawing on the image of Jesus as both Savior and Lord — two sides of the same coin — Jordan reminds the church that we cannot accept one side while rejecting the other. Quoting John MacArthur, he leaves the congregation with this: it costs nothing to become a Christian, but it costs everything to live fully as one. The good news, however, is that as Luke 18:29-30 promises, whatever is surrendered for the sake of the kingdom will be repaid many times over, both in this life and in the life to come.

In this summer interview episode, Matt and Brian welcome their wives, Jessica and Glenda, to the table for a conversation that longtime listeners have never quite gotten to hear before. After a lighthearted round of get-to-know-you questions, the group settles into the real stuff — sharing how they each grew up, how they met their spouses, and how they first came to faith in Christ. Glenda recalls hearing the gospel for the first time at a tiny church during a summer with her dad, moved by the simple truth that Jesus was a "stay" — someone who would never leave. Jessica, who grew up at Hope Church, describes watching people come to Christ as just a normal part of childhood, and later having her faith solidified through hard providential moments, including the loss of her little sister and two summers on the mission field overseas.

The deeper thread running through the whole conversation is how walking with Jesus looks different in every season, but always involves the same essential movement: a step of trust, God coming through, and then a call to trust him further still. Brian describes bumbling forward in faith like a toddler on a balance beam, with God's hands on either side. Glenda reflects on learning that whatever assignment God has her in is the assignment she needs to be fully present for. Matt draws it all together with the image of a foundation — the higher you want to build, the deeper it has to go — and reminds everyone that uncomfortable obedience is often exactly how God does his best building work.

Continuing through the book of Acts, Pastor Luke focuses on the beginning of Paul's third missionary journey, where the emphasis shifts from simply planting churches to strengthening the disciples already in them. The big idea driving the sermon is that the gospel doesn't just save — it transforms every part of our lives. Pastor Luke illustrates this first through the story of Apollos, a brilliantly educated man from Alexandria who nonetheless lacked a full understanding of the gospel. When Priscilla and Aquila — ordinary tentmakers — took him aside privately and explained the way of God more accurately, Apollos humbly received their correction. That humility, Pastor Luke argues, is what made him teachable, and his teachability is what made him wise and ultimately one of the most impactful teachers in the early church.

The second half of the sermon turns to the Ephesian believers and the contrast between genuine and counterfeit spirituality. When the seven sons of Sceva tried to invoke Jesus's name as a spiritual technique without any real relationship with Him, they were overpowered and publicly shamed. The Ephesian believers, by contrast, responded to what they witnessed with deep repentance — publicly confessing their practices and burning their magic books, valued at the equivalent of several million dollars. Pastor Luke draws a clear line between syncretism — treating Jesus as one spiritual resource among many — and true discipleship, which declares Jesus as Lord alone. He closes by calling the congregation to ongoing repentance and surrender, reminding them that transformation isn't a one-time event but a lifelong process powered by Christ Himself.

In the first episode of the Sunday Extra Podcast Summer Interview Series, Matt sits down with Pastor Harold Bullock — the man who founded Hope Church in Fort Worth in January of 1978 — to give the growing number of newer members a chance to get to know the man behind the church's beginnings. Harold shares his story of growing up in northeast Tennessee in a blue-collar family, coming to faith at around age seven during a church revival, and then spending much of his college and graduate school years spiritually adrift. It wasn't until January 1970, while pursuing his doctorate in chemistry at USC, that God used a young pastor and a community of believers to finally get Harold's feet firmly on the ground. From that point, Harold sensed a clear call into ministry, and by October of that same year, the Lord had made it plain that he was headed into pastoral work.

Harold goes on to describe the early years of Hope Church — from the chaotic first meeting where a blaring radio derailed their worship service, to the "Tour de Loop," when the church bounced from hotel to hotel around Fort Worth without a permanent home for years. Through all of it, Harold and his wife Deborah held to a simple, gutsy commitment: there was no Plan B. They had surrendered every other option to the Lord and pressed forward in obedience. Harold also reflects warmly on the leadership transition to Matt in May of 2020, describing it as a genuine joy — a moment of passing something he had always understood to be God's, not his own.

Closing out the conversation, Harold offers two pieces of counsel to the people of Hope. First, he urges every believer to take their walk with Jesus seriously, because this is not one option among many — it is how reality itself works, since God runs life. Second, he encourages people to focus on their own stewardship rather than everyone else's, and to learn to cooperate with the leadership God has placed over them. And for anyone wondering whether following Jesus is worth it, Harold's answer — shaped by decades of hard roads, including the loss of a daughter — is an unqualified yes. As he puts it, the good lies around the next very difficult bend in the river.

In this message from Acts 17–18, Pastor Jeremy unpacks Paul's evangelism in Athens and Corinth, anchoring everything around one central truth: the gospel must be faithfully communicated in every culture. In Athens, Paul doesn't wait for his traveling companions before acting — when the Holy Spirit spurs him, he moves. And rather than defaulting to Old Testament history as he would with Jewish audiences, Paul meets the Athenian philosophers right where they are, using their own altar "to the unknown God" as a springboard to proclaim the living God, the resurrection of Jesus, and the good news of the gospel.

From there, Paul moves on to Corinth — a bustling, morally notorious trade city — where he meets Aquila and Priscilla, two ordinary tentmakers who become the backbone of his ministry. Pastor Jeremy draws out a powerful lesson from their example: you don't have to be a gifted speaker or a called pastor to play a significant role in God's kingdom. When ordinary people are faithful, God makes them extraordinary. Paul is eventually kicked out of the synagogue, threatened by Jewish leaders, and in need of God's protection — and God delivers on every front, even using the Roman official Gallio to shield Paul so he can spend 18 fruitful months in Corinth.

Guest speaker, Josh Hofford, opens with a word of encouragement to every father in the room — reminding them that their assignment was given by God Himself, that it is eternal and essential, and that God will not run out on them or their children. From there, Josh anchors the message in a sweeping passage covering Acts 15-17, tracing Paul's second missionary journey across roughly 1,300 miles on foot. The big idea Josh returns to throughout the message is this: God often redirects our plans to accomplish His greater mission, and faithfulness matters far more than our comfort.

Josh walks through a series of moments where everything seemed to be going wrong for Paul and his team — the painful split with Barnabas, closed doors from the Holy Spirit, imprisonment in Philippi — and shows how God was not moving them out of the way, but moving them into position. Through each setback, God provided: Timothy joined the team, Lydia and her entire household became the first European converts to the gospel, a demon-possessed slave girl was set free, and a Philippian jailer on the verge of suicide came to faith along with his whole family. None of this was what Paul had originally planned.

Josh closes by bringing the message home with two pointed questions: Where are you tempted to quit? And what would obedience look like if you pressed on anyway? Drawing from Acts 17:6 — the declaration that Paul and his companions had "turned the world upside down" — Josh reminds the congregation that the gospel still has that same radical power today, and that Hope Church's own mission teams, both in Folsom, California and Southeast Asia, are continuing that very same mission.