Looking Back, Looking Forward

Vision 2021 Chase Gardner – Teaching Pastor, Jason Gore – Lead Pastor

When we come to the end of the year, it’s important to remember where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished. It’s also the perfect time to look forward to what we can do together in the future.

• We’re looking back through the past year and looking forward to what God is doing in and through Hope Community Church.

One of the best and most powerful things you can do in moments when your strength seems to fail a little is to look back.

Remember the faithfulness of God.

Psalm 77:1-2 (ESV)

Psalm 77:11-15a (ESV)

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Proverbs 29 says, “Where there is no vision, the people will perish…”

What if we could ALL ‘came back…’ and it still wasn’t enough?

What if the real threat was not the lack of people ‘in church’ on Sunday… but rather the lack of people thinking and living biblically Monday – Sunday?

Jeremiah 29:1-7 (NIV) “Seek the welfare of the city…”

Three takeaways from this text on how to be God’s people in exile:

1. Put down roots and play long ball.

2. Build strong, God-honoring families.

3. Invest in your community.

We Must:

1. Strengthen the core of families by investing in Marriage, Parenting and Youth.

2. Equip and empower the Church to follow Jesus’s mission in our current reality.

– “If we only focus primarily on a 1hr/week experience, we all will become irrelevant to a ’lost’ world faster than we realize.”

– “We are going to have to learn how to take our mission of ‘loving people where they are… and encouraging them to grow in their relationship with Jesus…’ out of the walls of our campuses.”

3. Meet the needs of our community even if they never attend a church.

4. Mobilize the church through leveraging online platforms.

BE THE CHURCH.

Two questions to consider:

1. What is one thing you can do to strengthen your family this Christmas?

2. What is one thing you can do to impact another family in your community this Christmas?

Support Hope Community Church's mission by donating at gethope.net/give.