The Beginning of True Hope Churches ...

In early 2002, the Lord removed all doubt and hesitation regarding our starting a new church. Our area already had a very large "church per capita" ratio and we had been trying to justify in our own minds why we were even thinking of starting a new congregation. Finally we prayed that God would convince us beyond all doubt or remove the desire from us entirely ... within about 72 hours my wife and I both knew that God wanted us to begin a new church work, and we understood a great deal of the "why"!

Why? In our area there are many people who are not able to participate in Church because of their work schedules. When a person around here must work on Sunday, there is not a single church group that offered an alternative schedule to the typical church's "open for business" plan of Sunday and Wednesday (maybe) only!

Then, God brought to our attention the fact that there are so many of His people who the churches consider to be "backslidden" and have left them by the wayside! God had been emphatically dealing with us about this situation. Many so called "backsliders" are people who have done damage to themselves and desperately need God's people to help them recover and be restored ... yet many of the churches today are just like the religious people in Jesus' parable of the "Good Samaritan"! Who will tend to the healing of the fallen without condemning them for falling in the first place? God reminded us that we do and have always been willing to do so!

But what church could these go to and find restoration without condemnation? Believe it or not, there are not many!

There was a time in our lives when we too fit this category! We too had found ourselves "left by the wayside" by those we thought were our friends as well as brothers and sisters in Christ! We ached for someone to come and at least offer to help without condemning us for what we already knew had gone wrong! But only one man came to offer his friendship. Only one! We had a friend, a single sister in Christ who stood by us through it all, but only this one other came to offer his love in Christ! We knew all to well the ache and yearning we'd had to return to fellowship with God's people but found cold shoulders instead! But even before our own experiences of this kind, we always opened our doors and hearts and arms to the saints who had fallen who wanted to regain an upright standing with God and His Family!

In the early days of 2002, I didn't realize what God was preparing us for in this aspect of ministry, and because of this we prayed about "where" we were to begin this new church. As I prayed about the location, a building and all the traditional trappings of what we have come to think of as "church", God kept reducing my mental picture and at each point would ask me, "will you begin congregation if you had to start here?" Of course my answer was always yes.

Finally, God showed me our real estate and asked me if I would use my house for His Church? I considered that on our acre of land we had plenty of parking! Our living room was large enough to seat 20 or 30 people! Our home could seat all of these for a fellowship dinner! We have an upstairs area for children. "Lord, if you want me to use our house to begin a new congregation then of course that's what we'll do!"

After quite some time of preparing ourselves and family to host a new church congregation, we were able to hold our first worship service in August of 2002!

Over the next few years we experienced what was for me a strange growth pattern ... we would be up in attendance to as much as 15 or 20 people and then down to 5 or 6! Knowing that God had directed us to establish this congregation, we prayed for understanding. What came next was another question! God asked us if we would persevere and continue to minister if our "numbers" were down to just ourselves and our close sister in Christ. Without hesitation we both agreed.

Then God showed us what had been taking place ... the downtrodden saints, the ones who had been hurt by the "typical churches", the ones who had been backslidden and were uncomfortable going to a typical larger church setting, had come to us for restoration and recovery. As they regained their "spiritual steadiness" and were ministered to in the areas of their prior failures, they would re-enter the "mainstream church" and regain a place of fellowship in those settings! Discouragement turned into rejoicing!  We rejoiced at the way that God was using us, and after all, we were about HIS business and FOR HIS GLORY, not ours!

About the same time that we came to understand this, God opened an unexpected door! One of our church members had a friend in Oklahoma that was disabled and was not able to attend a typical church service. She wondered if there was any way that we could minister to her during our weekly services. Shortly after that, a church in Dallas had a situation with a false prophet gaining influence and we received a call from some of the members of that congregation asking if we could somehow minister to them each week because they trusted how God ministered through us!

Shortly thereafter we were contacted by others and so we found ourselves seeking God's answers to these requests!

At first, we used a teleconference service which quickly became very expensive! We began to believe that God did not want us spending that much of His money for this and so we continued to seek His answer to providing live ministry to our "distant members".

It was then that we discovered a service called Skype. We could conduct live audio conferences between computers for free, but not everyone had an internet connection that would be compatible with Skype ... so for a very small investment we became able to do both, PC to PC and PC to Phone conferencing all at the same time!

Shortly after our beginning, we had no musicians and so were hungering for the ability to worship in music, but how to do this? We discovered that Integrity Music offers DVD's that are called "iWorship" ... total worship experiences for the home and small groups. Each DVD from "iWorship" has several sets of songs or Themes that as the music plays and the performers sing, the lyrics are shown on the television screen so we are able to follow along!

So now in present day, we connect via Skype at designated times and each "Member House" is responsible to conduct their own Praise and worship service before our online start time.

A really wonderful ability that we enjoy is that at times when we need to be on the road, whether visiting a Member House or ministering at an invitational service at some other church, I am able to remain consistent in ministering to our network! When on the road, our Secretary takes care of making all the connections and while I may be ministering as a guest in another congregation, I am delivering the same message to the True Hope Churches!

What's next for True Hope Churches? Believe it or not, NOW it seems as though God is directing us to add a "Worship Center" to our House Church format! Of course this Worship Center will not be just another "typical" church! In fact, we believe that this Worship Center is to be open for services 7 DAYS WEEKLY!

ON THE FLIP SIDE ...

We have found that just as some people will not attend a regular church for many reasons, many people will also not visit or attend a House Church because it is so non-traditional! Just as there are all kinds of people, we need to prepare the settings that THE PEOPLE will respond to. Not to make them comfortable as sinners, but to make the sinners welcome enough in the Church environment that they will be able to HEAR AND LISTEN to the Gospel!  Think about it, "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God"! If the sinner does not sense that they are welcome, how will they be able to really and truly hear the Gospel messag?

Some would call this being "seeker sensitive" and they would be correct! You know, "seeker sensitive" is nothing new at all! Being "seeker sensitive" is the main approach the Jesus took when He walked the earth!

Jesus was sensitive to the seekers of Truth! Jesus approached the "seekers" on their own ground - NOT HIS! Jesus went to their houses and feasts and gatherings ... and paid the "high price" of religious ostracism! It is interesting to note however, that Jesus approached the "seekers" on their own turf but not on the "seeker's" terms! 

Jesus called sin what it is - - SIN! Jesus warned of sin's consequences - - both present and eternal! Jesus demanded change - - once the "seeker" accepted what Jesus offered, Jesus instructed them to cease being committed to sin! "Go and sin no more!"

Some who are seeking truth today are more comfortable in a person's living room; some are more comfortable in the traditional church setting; some are more comfortable in their own environment! But again, comfort is for the purpose of presenting the Truth, not pampering the sinner!

Whether a House Church or a Traditional "Temple" Church ... we must be sensitive to the seeker's need for TRUTH more than their desire to go on sinning without challenge!

When we do build a more traditional gathering place, it will definitely be a place where one will be made welcomed enough so that they can hear the Word of God ... so that faith will come to bring them into salvation, the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

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