I will never forget the time I went to visit a friend who was stuck in a particularly dark time in his life. He had recently gone through a string of painful setbacks. He lost his job, lost his family, and was struggling with severe health issues due to addiction. This series of unfortunate events led him to isolate from everything and everyone; he had given up on life. When he opened his apartment door to me, in the middle of the afternoon, every light was turned off in the house. You could feel the darkness pressing in around him.

If you have watched much football (admittedly, I may have watched TOO much of it), you have no doubt seen what happens when a player fumbles the ball. Everyone on both teams, regardless of their size or position, does everything they can to recover the ball. In my opinion, the recovery of a fumble is one of the most intense moments in all of sports. Players take desperate measures to pursue the “live” ball, often at great risk to their bodies. We know why they do it – they want to win.

Merry Christmas! I hope you will join us tomorrow at 1:00 or 2:30 PM for one of our special Christmas Eve services. 

In the Christmas carol, Do You Hear What I Hear, we sing…“A child, a child shivers in the cold…Let us bring him silver and gold.” I remember thinking to myself as a kid, why are we bringing him gold, frankincense, and myrrh? How about bringing that shivering child a blanket?

The gifts the Magi gave to Jesus were significant and important. Of all the gifts, the one we are most familiar with is gold. I laughed when I read the statement attributed to William Carlos Williams, "I always did wonder at the purpose of frankincense and myrrh, but gold I get!" The value of gold is self-evident. Everyone likes to receive a gift of money, and we understand the beauty of the gold given to Mary and Joseph was that it was practical. We know the precious metal was valuable then, like it is now. Its value probably helped pay for Mary and Joseph’s journey to Egypt.

'Tis the season to think about giving and getting gifts! It is interesting to me that we traditionally give one another gifts when Christmas is all about the birthday of Jesus. I plan to take the next few weeks in this email/blog to focus on the unique gifts given to Jesus by the “Magi,” or those wild adventurers we call the “wise men.” They have been known throughout history as being wise. Yet their journey would have begun with quite a wild premise… there is a new star (or some other celestial event) in the sky, and we believe it will lead us to something and someone very important. In their words, “For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2b ESV)

Brothers and sisters, this time of year, many of us find ourselves on a razor thin edge – long lines, traffic, fighting for that perfect gift. It has a way of fueling the ugly parts of our lives. The season which is supposed to be filled with “comfort and joy” is sometimes filled with other not-so-savory emotions. Charlie Brown expresses his feelings by saying, "I know nobody likes me. Why do we have a holiday season to emphasize it?" While Ebenezer Scrooge offers the strong sentiment, "Every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” Now I know that none of you could be accused of being a Grinch, but it is fair to ask ourselves why this season that is supposed to be filled with comfort and joy is so often filled with angst and sorrow.

It is amazing to me that Black Friday falls on the day after Thanksgiving. In the thousands of ads we will see this week, it is easy to be reminded of what we do not have. This can lead to discouragement and the quest to find the perfect gift or the perfect items to fill our hearts. In our recent Treasure series, we talked a lot about how Jesus taught that where our treasure is, our hearts will also be.

This Thanksgiving season, I pray that our giving to God is saturated with gratitude. I  tried to use the following illustration in a sermon a few weeks ago, and just butchered it (pardon the pun). So I thought I would try again. Once there was a farmer whose cow gave birth to beautiful twin calves after a long and arduous labor. He was so grateful that he ran into the farmhouse and gave the news to his wife, who quickly reminded him of the goodness of God and encouraged him to give one of the calves to the Lord. He agreed immediately, but took some time to decide which calf would be his and which one would belong to the Lord. After a few weeks, one of the young calves fell ill, and the faithful farmer spent the night caring for it. Early the next morning, he entered the house and was met by his wife, who asked what had happened. With a voice filled with sorrow, he responded, “The Lord’s calf died.” That story always makes me laugh, but it also makes me sad. I fear this is our temptation when we give to the Lord. We follow the pattern of Cain, giving “some” of what God has given us, not always the best of what God has given us.

This has been a very special year in the history of Hope Church, and I am so grateful that you are a part of our family. We have been blessed to have a year full of baptisms, impacting our community, and seeing God’s handiwork all around us. As a church, we believe that God has called us to go deep in our faith and wide in our influence – by diligently following Christ, growing together, serving our neighbors, and proclaiming God’s love. In this report, I want to celebrate what God has done, and I want to invite you to continue to play an important part in what God is doing at Hope Church.

As a kid, I came up with the big idea of being a trash can for Halloween. To make the costume, I cut out the bottom of a brand-new Rubbermaid trash can (sorry, Dad, if you are reading this) and made a hat out of the lid. You might think it was cute, but it proved to be pretty dumb, because as people threw precious candy into my trash can it just fell on snowy, wet ground. I don’t recall ever feeling more like Charlie Brown than I did at that moment…I can hear myself grumbling, ”Good grief!” At least I gave some people a good laugh that night, even if it was at my expense.

I love the quote from Oscar Wilde that says, “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” Sometimes the weather is just the easiest thing to talk about – and Northeast Ohio gives us plenty to discuss. I am working to grow in my ability to have conversations that scratch below the surface of life and get to the heart of it. Obviously, when we first meet someone, it is a bit unusual to dive deep into the caverns of their life, especially when it comes to faith and details of their relationship with Christ. In my experience, it usually takes time before we feel comfortable sharing those intimate aspects of our lives.

Baptism was the topic of discussion in the “Dare I Ask?” Wednesday night series a few weeks ago. We explored a variety of great questions. What is baptism? Why do we baptize? Why do we baptize the way that we do? Who can baptize? What if I was baptized as an infant? Do I need to be baptized again? What if the person who baptized me had a moral failure? The discussion was meaningful, insightful, and like all of the “Dare I Ask?” sessions, was very helpful for those of us seeking to grow in our understanding of what we believe. 

When life gets difficult it has a way of revealing our true colors. A retired science teacher at the Holden Arboretum patiently described to me the science of what really happens when leaves “change” this time of year. Those bright green leaves in spring and summer are full of chlorophyll, which is continuously produced and broken down, making the leaves appear green. This time of year, as the days get shorter and cooler, the green chlorophyll pigments break down, exposing the colors of the leaves. The colors were always there; they were just under the cover of the green chlorophyll. Under duress, their true colors are exposed. As you notice the change in the leaves this autumn, I want to encourage you to remember that difficult experiences in life can expose who we truly are and it leads to something quite beautiful. 

There are plenty of reasons to be anxious today: global uncertainty, information overload, economic pressures, loneliness, chaos in our country, and fear of the unknown to name just a few. Many feel like Charles M. Schulz when he wrote, “I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time!” Anxiety has reached epidemic proportions. God’s Word gives us some clear directives as Christ followers about how we can deal with anxiety in our lives and thankfully, no “dread” is required.

The word “sorrow” describes in one little word some of the deepest emotions we can feel. It is defined as a feeling of distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others. Although we rarely use this word these days, we certainly understand the feeling it describes. Darrell Evans wrote the song “Trading My Sorrows,” and it contains a beautiful, biblical image of what happens when we share our sorrows with God. We can find that they are overcome and eclipsed by His sovereign grace.

I am delighted to invite you to participate in one of the most important aspects of the health and future of our church, the appointing of Elders.

At Hope, we consider it a joy to be an Elder-led church. We depend upon a plurality of qualified and competent leaders to help us live out our calling in Brunswick and beyond. I believe that our Elder board is one of the greatest assets that we have as a church family. In the troubling times that we live in, I agree with Dr. Howard Hendricks who writes, "The greatest crisis in America is a crisis of leadership, and the greatest crisis of leadership is a crisis of character." When it comes to appointing Elders, the Biblical standards for leadership and character are set very high.

We have been discussing the end times at Hope Church recently. For some of us, this cannot come fast enough. For others, it no doubt provokes feelings of fear and anxiety. I think it can be helpful to remember that God is being incredibly patient, but His patience has an inevitable ending. Let’s remember, God is not slow, but His timing is perfect.