Connect with Hope

by Jon Anenson
Hope Des Moins Director

Remember building a fort or clubhouse as a kid, and how much fun it was to make a sign that said “No girls allowed!” or “No boys allowed!”?

It feels good to be on the inside looking out. But what happens when the church turns into a clubhouse? Then we’d have to ask: Who’s the church for anyway? Does anybody get to be a part of this new Jesus movement? Who gets in, and who should be left out?

Maybe you’ve asked those questions before. Maybe they’ve been a source of conflict in a church you’ve known. Maybe they’ve kept you away from the church in the past.

It turns out, this is also the question on everyone’s minds at the Council of Jerusalem
between the Jewish and Gentile believers in Acts 15. As we continue our journey through the book of Acts, the early church runs into its first major conflict here in Acts 15.

Paul and the other apostles have been traveling across the region, planting churches, preaching that Jesus’ grace alone is what makes someone a Christian. But meanwhile, back at the ranch (Jerusalem, that is), some of the Jewish believers are still preaching belief in Jesus PLUS abiding by hundreds of other Jewish laws.

This sets the stage for the first great debate in the early church. So who wins? What does it mean to be saved? Will the church split or unite? And what does it mean for us today?

We’ll tackle all those questions and more this weekend at Hope! See you there!

Hey Hope Folks!

Imagine you’re riding a mega-sized roller coaster – the kind with the massive, sweeping loops that shoot and twist riders sideways and upside down. At the moment you find yourself at the top of the highest loop, someone asks, “Which way is up?” Hard to say right about then …

Environment influences perception.

As we ride through life, it’s easy to get disoriented and feel like we’re on one of those loops. Sometimes, what feels like up is really down, and down up. Such was life for a man named Saul. He was up, or so he thought. With passion and plenty of smarts, he routinely persecuted Christians, and wanted no part of Christ. Then, all heaven broke loose, and Jesus knocked him down … to turn him right side up! (Acts 9:1-20)

This weekend at Hope, I’ll preach on the rest of this amazing story from Acts with a message called “The Straight Street Detour.” Bring a Bible and a few friends who are searching for directions that work. No height restrictions. No need to keep your hands down during the ride. And no post-coaster queasiness (I hope!).

Best of all, Jesus will show all of us which way is up.

Peace,
Mike Housholder
Pastor. Preacher. Guy in the seat next to you on the roller coaster of life.

Hey Hope Folks!

I love the faithful Spirit of this church. In the middle of a booming thunderstorm last Saturday night, a big crowd still showed up for the 5 pm service. When the power went out during the sermon, rather than end the service, Jeremy just kept preaching, and the congregation just kept soaking up the Word … and then the lights came back on. That’s the Spirit of Hope!

Later that evening, the floodwaters poured into several rooms, including our worship venues. Most Hope folks showed up Sunday unaware of the massive mess … because a small, dedicated crew of volunteers and staff spent most of the night cleaning and preparing God’s house for worship. If not for them, you would have seen (and smelled!) the difference. That’s the Spirit of Hope!

It’s easy (and seems rather harmless) to drift the other way, toward spiritual apathy. Eventually, though, apart from the fresh wind of God’s Spirit, our souls grow stale. Be careful out there. Particularly this time of year, distractions abound. Weekend activities – yard work, youth sports, graduation parties, etc. – crowd our schedules and draw our primary focus from God to other good, but not as essential, activities.

This weekend, I’ll preach on our need for God, and how he inspires ordinary folks, like us, to further the church’s mission in extraordinary ways (Acts 6:1-7). No matter how busy (or stormy) it gets, come catch the Spirit of Hope!

Peace,
Mike Housholder
Pastor. Preacher. Big fan of this Spirit-filled church called Hope.

P.S. Give thanks to God for the baptisms of 12 junior high students from Hope’s confirmation class (called PowerLife) two nights ago!

by Jeremy Johnson
re:vive Director

The tomb is empty, Jesus has risen, He has risen, indeed!

The story is over, right? We just reload and get ready for next year – next stop, Christmas!

Actually, the fun is just beginning. The empty tomb is where our mission as the church all starts. We are beginning a new series, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in which we will be watching how the church went from a handful of people gathered in a room together and explodes into the biggest movement the world has ever known – the Jesus movement.

And the really cool thing is that the Acts of the Apostles are the acts that you and I are also called to by God.The same Spirit that brought Jesus from death to life filled the first apostles and fills you and me and gives us the power to bring about miracles in Jesus’ name.

The empty tomb isn’t an end, it is a radical beginning.

Come, worship, and continue the celebration of the empty tomb this weekend! I hope you’ll join us.

By Mike Housholder
Senior pastor

This weekend at worship, I’ll take you on an interesting and relevant tour of a biblical love story (and a haircut!) gone wrong between Samson and Delilah.

The failed romance between these two bigger-than-life personalities points out some obvious pitfalls for anyone in a relationship. More importantly, it challenges us as readers of the Word to ponder the motivations and definitions for love that we carry into relationships, and it forces us to ask some first-order questions about our priorities in life.

Love is a wonderful thing … until it becomes a dysfunctional mess! God has a better plan.

Come and see!

By Mike Housholder
Senior pastor

Worship Preview: “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down”
Our journey through the Bible together as a church family continues this weekend with another story from Scripture that is too often ignored, dismissed, or misunderstood (by both believers and non-believers). I’ll preach from the Book of Joshua about a courageous warrior, a town prostitute, and the walls that had to fall. Come and hear all about how God defeated the arrogance of worldly “power” and “wisdom” in a victory that makes even the best Super Bowl winning team look, well, rather tame!

The 2012 Souper Bowl Food Drive
It’s here! The annual Lutheran Church of Hope Souper Bowl Food Drive happens this weekend, Feb. 4-5. I’m asking you to bring a bunch of bags of nonperishable food items (the good stuff – the food you’d want to eat) with you when you come to worship this weekend. Local grocery stories have been notified, and they’re ready – and there’s a list of the most needed food items that you can find here.

Our goal is simple and super-sized: feed all who are hungry by filling the shelves of food pantries all throughout central Iowa!

If you feel led to do so, you can also donate money to the Souper Bowl Food Drive. 100% of the money we give will be delivered to the larger food pantries in Des Moines. They prefer money over canned foods because they have the staffing and size to buy food at wholesale prices. That said, the majority of food pantries we support in small towns and rural areas don’t have the capacity to make those purchases, so they prefer to receive the food rather than money. Give food and/or money as the Spirit leads … and thanks in advance for your generosity.

Lenten Project: 40 Churches in 40 Days!
Over the past few years, Hope has donated over $1 million to construct 140+ clean water wells in villages near Ho, Ghana, in western Africa. Life expectancy rates have changed. Education levels are way up (because kids aren’t on daily four-hour journeys with their mothers to draw water from dirty rivers). Hearts have been opened, and Christianity is spreading like wildfire … all as a result of God moving through our gifts!

Now, most of these villages want to start churches, and our missionary in Africa – Pastor Sam Dunya – has trained pastors ready to go. Here’s the amazing part: to build a village church in Ghana (basically a picnic shelter), furnish it with chairs and Bibles, and build a local parsonage (hut) for a pastor takes a grand total of $4,200!

My hope and prayer is that God will work through us during the season of Lent to provide the money to start 40 new churches in 40 days leading up to Easter! Start praying about it – God is bringing his light into the darkness of this world through you!

By Mark Brandt
Minister of Children and Students

After Moses and the gang left Egypt, they wandered around the desert for several years before coming to the edge of the land of Canaan; the land God had promised He would give them.

In this weekend’s message, Moses sent out 12 scouts to report on the land, to see if it was as great as God had said and to check on the potential “resistance” they might encounter. So the 12 went out to take a peek.

What they saw was a land that was rich with possibilities AND some really big people that caused them to doubt God’s promise. I can only imagine the conversations between them all as they journeyed back to camp. Men that were tall became giants! Fear crept in, and they decided it would be best to NOT try and take the land. Even though God had promised this land to them as far back as Abraham, they decided to believe with their eyes rather than to walk by faith.

All of them except Joshua and Caleb. They chose to stand on the promises of God and challenge the fear and complacency of the people. They reminded them of God’s word and how he had said that He would deliver the land to them. They chose to stand when others wanted to return to Egypt and to the very people that had tortured and enslaved them for centuries!

This weekend we are going to examine what happens when we let fear and a lack of trust get in the way of God’s promises. We are often paralyzed … stuck in perpetual stillness. Afraid sometimes that God might actually come through on his promises, taking us out of our comfort zone and into a land that – while full of opportunity –  scares us into doubting not only God, but ourselves.

I believe like all the leaders at HOPE that we are called to do great things … even things as yet not seen. That is going to take faithful, and relentless reliance on God’s Spirit and leading…

We are ready to take on the giants!

by Scott Rains
Hope Ankeny campus pastor

When I was in high school, I took four years of French. I learned grammar and vocabulary, I learned to conjugate verbs. I
learned slang expressions (some of which were not part of the curriculum).

During the spring of my senior year, I went to France with our French Club. We spent a couple of weeks touring Paris, castles, cathedrals, the beaches of Normandy.

During one of the weeks, we lived with a host family.  We went to a French high school.  We watched “The Cosby Show” in French – cool, cultural stuff like that!

During those couple of weeks, in France I learned some important lessons:

I was actually learning something in my French classes at Eldora-New
Providence high school.

• It was helpful to learn the grammar and vocabulary and conjugations –
  that was helpful…if I wanted to be a tourist…
• I learned the point of studying the French language was not to do well academically, the point was not to get a good grade.
• The biggest lesson I learned was that if I became fluent in French it would be possible for me to LIVE in France.

The point was the question of “HOW DO I LIVE?”

Whenever anyone asks me if I have a favorite Bible verse, I always say John 10:10. It’s where Jesus says: ”I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.”

So many times people have this idea that a life of faith is all about rules and regulations and lists of things NOT TO DO, so that ultimately a life of faith is about experiencing as little life as possible; it’s about diminishing life.

That could not be farther from the truth! That’s exactly the opposite of what Jesus says!

I have come that you may have life. When you look closely at what Jesus says throughout the Gospels, you see Jesus talking about life all the time.

Eternal life – what’s the best way to live life today, right now, in the reality of our life on this earth and what is the way to life that does not end even after we die.

“And this is the way to have eternal life — to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.”  John 17:3

Church, the point of becoming  bblically fluent is so that we can have life!

So we can experience the kind of life God has for us – the kind of life Jesus tried to teach people and show people when he was on this earth. The kind of life that is rich, and full, and abundant, and over-flowing …

And look what Jesus saysthat  the way to this kind of life – the way to eternal life – is to KNOW God and to KNOW Jesus.

When we talk about becoming a biblically fluent church, this is a big part of what we are talking about! We are talking about digging into the stories, and then digging into them a little more, and then a little deeper – not to gather information, not to gain more HEAD knowledge …

But so we can KNOW God and have LIFE!

In the Bible, to know someone is very much a RELATIONAL reality. It’s not knowing about someone – it’s actually knowing him or her. Talking, listening to, loving him or her.

So we are going to read the Bible, and talk about what we read so that we are able to understand more and more about who God is. What is God’s character? What sorts of things would we expect God to do? And what sorts of things would we NOT
expect God to do?

When we become biblically fluent, when we get to know God more, we experience a relationship with God. And we will grow in our experience of the life God has for us.

C’est magnifique!

by Mike Housholder
Senior pastor

This week, our Bible readings take us through the central story of the Old Testament – the exodus of God’s people from slavery and oppression in Egypt to the freedom and new life of a promised land.

It is a story of good and evil, heroes and villains, mystery and adventure … but most of all it is a story of a real God who shows up and puts the dark powers of this world in their place.

The Pharaoh (Egyptian king) enslaved and tortured the Hebrews. He committed mass murder. He ignored the warnings of Moses over and over again, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that there is a God (or that he was not it).

And that’s where the story gets really good, and surprisingly relevant for our enlightened world that sometimes falls into the arrogant trap of concluding that God is not, or that this God must align with our narrow and limited worldviews (which are a moving target).

There is a God, and this God showed up to defeat evil and win freedom for millions. If that sounds like a prelude to an even greater story that involves a Savior, a cross and an empty tomb … well, it should. And now you’re starting to see that these old stories from the beginning of the Bible have everything to do with Jesus … and us.

Come and hear all about it at worship this weekend. Bring a Bible and a few friends who are hungry for the Word!

Grace & Peace,

Pastor Mike Housholder

by Mike Housholder
Senior pastor

Sometimes it’s nice to walk along the beach, warm ocean waves slowly trickling up and over our feet. Much of the Bible is like that – an easy and gentle journey with God, filled with stories of comfort and peace.

Then there are times when reading the Bible feels more like surfing a tsunami, with stories so rough and difficult to read they might leave us wondering for a moment if it’s spiritually safe to take this ride … hold on!

Abraham wanted a child, waited most of his life for one, and then God told him to treat his child like a sacrificial lamb. In Genesis 22, a tsunami hit Abraham. His faith was about to be tossed around and tested on a massive wave that few, if any, others in the Bible would feel or endure.

Abraham loved Isaac, like all good fathers love sons. So when God instructed this good father to surrender his son (Genesis 22:2), it had to come to Abraham as an absolute shock. In the end, of course, we discover that God never had any intention of letting young Isaac die. Something deeper was happening here.

While the good ending helps, still this particular story has overwhelmed a lot of good Bible readers for centuries. For that reason, some Christians choose to skip right over it, because they aren’t comfortable with the role God plays, or the apparent willingness of Abraham to follow through on God’s stunning command.

Take a closer look at this old story with me, however, and you will find a pure and holy God who stands consistently (here and throughout Scripture) against hurting a child in any way. You will also find a relevant application in this inspiring story for anyone (and perhaps that one is you) who ever feels like there’s no way out of a seemingly impossible situation.

Never give up on God.

I’ll preach on these things this weekend at Hope, as we continue our 16-month journey through the Bible. We’re purposely starting off 2012 with seven weeks of some of the most difficult stories in Scripture to read and comprehend. Rather than avoid these big, challenging “waves,” we’re diving in.

After all, a walk on the beach is fine, but every once in a while, it’s good to take our faith for a ride. See you at Hope this weekend …

Surf’s up!

Pastor Mike Housholder