Annual Report 2024

This has been a wonderful year for Hope Church! 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. 

We celebrate that the Lord called Josiah Molter to serve as our Youth Pastor. Josiah is faithfully leading in that role with his gifts of caring for people and loving God’s Word, and his passion to ignite a fire in the hearts of young people. We are also delighted that Stacie Sauter accepted the director role for our Hope Kidz ministries. Stacie leads with joy, intentionality, and wisdom that has helped our Children’s ministries continue to thrive. 

Throughout this year on Sundays, we have studied the book of John together, where we have wrestled with what it means to follow Jesus and His leadership in every area of our lives. Early in 2024, we had a wonderful Missions Conference with two special couples who helped us to grow in our desire to share all of Jesus to all of the world. In April, we hosted “Glory in the Skies,” an eclipse event that had a broad reach into our community. Our church family stepped up to host nearly 1,000 guests at one of the largest outreach events we have ever held at Hope Church. 

In the summer, we had 126 kids attend our Beulah on the Road summer camp and 18 of them made significant decisions to follow Jesus in their lives. We have been honored the past six months to have C&MA workers Brandon and Stephenie join us as international workers in residence. They have been a wonderful blessing to have in our Community Groups and have given us special opportunities to be inspired to be a part of God’s mission, here, there, and everywhere. We sent a short-term missions team to Clarkston, Georgia in September. The trip was very impactful for those on the team and we hope that it is the beginning of a new season in our church history where we send many from our church family on short-term trips. 

Our ministry teams – including Worship team, Tech team, and Welcome team – have grown and many serve faithfully on these teams to help the church family grow deep in our faith and wide in our influence. This year, several new and exciting ministries were launched at Hope. With Pastor Tyler Richards’ leadership, we started the New Heart Recovery ministry, which strives to help people find victory through Jesus as they work through their struggles, habits and issues. 

Under the leadership of Dan Sauter, we launched the Hope Cares Pantry. With generous support from the church family, this personal care pantry has reached many individuals in our community with the love of Christ. We continue to provide our English as a Second Language (ESL) ministry to offer assistance and express the love of Christ to those who are learning English in our community. We are excited to continue developing strong partnerships with ministries in our area and to provide opportunities for our church family to use their God-given gifts. 

This year has been one of strategic change for us. Some significant changes were made to our Sunday mornings, including moving our second service to 10:45 AM and adding a time of worship for our children. These changes have had a positive impact, and we are grateful for a growing sense of community through our monthly Cafe Connection time and Community Group ministries. On Wednesday nights, we are excited about including a family worship time from 6:30-7:00 PM and providing a variety of options for all ages. This has led to wonderful growth in involvement on Wednesday nights. 

We acknowledge that Hope Church is not a building. The gathering of believers that have come together to exalt Christ together is the real church. That being said, we are blessed with some wonderful buildings and a beautiful property to use for His glory.

Through a year of baptisms, lives surrendered to Christ, dedications, new members, special worship services, and many other exciting things, it is impossible to look back on 2024 and not feel blessed by the exciting things that God has accomplished in and through Hope Church. I invite you to read the full text of our annual report, as it shares in more detail the ways that God has been at work here. Together, we look forward to the great things that He will do in the next chapter of our Hope Church story. 

Expectantly, 

Shawn Brennan