2024 Year in Review

This past year has been quite a journey for us, and a true test of our perseverance and patience. The spiritual soil is still very hard, but God continues to remind us that’s why we’re here. As most of you know, we started a Bible Study/Church group in our rental home on Sunday mornings when we first got settled, and we were off and running. Both a Men’s and Women’s Bible Study soon followed as our little group started to grow. Everything was moving in the right direction until we moved out of our rental and into Nick and Jessica’s home. Two things caused us to hit a brick wall. First, some of the neighbors became agitated with the number of cars (usually five or six) parked in our cul-de-sac on Sunday mornings. Their resentment resulted in a flood of emails to the City regarding the “intrusion.” In response, the City began to monitor us - and ultimately cite us - for code violations when we parked in front of our driveway or blocked the sidewalk by putting multiple cars in our driveway to save space on the street. 

The second obstacle comes with our transition to a Covenant Church like Hope Chapel. This change in status set us back six months administratively, but the good news is we’re near the end of that process. This updated status will allow us to move from being known as a “Bible-study” with the City and give us true “Church” identity. This will also allow us to move our meetings out of the residential neighborhood, and hopefully, close-out the code violation which is still an open issue. 

Our prayers at the beginning of 2025 are 1) for a larger facility to gather in 2) for the City to soften their objections to parking should we start MiniChurches in homes 3) that we would continue to add new members to our church 4) that those now attending Hope Northwest would continue to grow in their faith 5) and that the hardened hearts of those in the Northwest would have their eyes and ears opened to the saving knowledge of Jesus. 

Finally, please pray for Nick as he applies for various teaching positions in the Christian universities and schools near us. Our goal has always been to have him be bi-vocational which will allow us to pour more of our financial resources into local community outreaches (like a food bank) and global mission opportunities. At the moment, he has a long-term substitute position at a local Christian High School that he is hoping will become more permanent in the future.

May God bless you all,

Hope Northwest Church Plant