New Hope Community Church
Our Objective
We have a simple objective at New Hope Community Church-- to be the kind of disciples Christ taught us to be. We believe He made it clear in passages like the Sermon on the Mount that He desires disciples over mere followers. We also believe that discipleship is taught-- a process that stretches over the extent of our sojourn on earth, and therefore the church must be engaged in "building" disciples. Jesus Himself went through this process. He chose 12 unlikely men to be His closest associates and spent over 3 years devoting Himself to their Spiritual growth and sanctification. For He knew that when He left, these men would be the ones to carry on His teaching and establish His church.
Despite our best efforts to destroy it, that church is still alive today and we are all living testimonies to the power of discipleship. Our Lord wants fruit from His vineyard, and figs from His tree. He never did, and He never will accept second best. He wants all of us. All our hearts, all our minds, and all our will. There was no room in His scheme of things for the nominal Christian, the weekend warrior, or the lukewarm believer.
To that end, we are in the business of growing disciples. It is a lifelong process-- a high and holy work. Peter talks of the temple of God being made of living stones-- disciples who have the light of the Holy Spirit in their regenerated hearts, built on the foundation of the prophets with Christ Himself as the cornerstone. Within that structure, it was up to great churches like the missionary church at Philadelphia to "build pillars in the Temple of our God". That is what we want to be at New Hope Community church-- the pillars of God's temple here on earth.
So we are short on programs and long on learning from Scripture what Christ wants us to be. We are short on intellectual exercises and long on implementation of Christ's teaching both at home and abroad. We are short on fulfilling our own "felt needs", and long on fulfilling the needs of others. Our objective is to clearly define what true discipleship is, live that discipleship ourselves, and teach it to those the Lord places in our care.