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Hey friends… Oh wow… you DON’T want to miss this and you don’t want to be late this Sunday! Church starts at 10:00 a.m. (um… ahem… tap, tap… not 10:05… not 10:10…) and you really want to be in your seats by 9:58. “Why,” you ask? This is going to be exciting: We are building our entire worship experience around ten powerful testimonies of transformed lives, sharing with them in the holy sacrament of baptism and celebrating who Jesus is to each of us.
A couple things to know about this…
AND… A few other important things to know:
OK… we’re already way too long for you email skimmers and those who hate long emails… So, with that… C’mon out on Sunday, 10:00 a.m. sharp… This will be one of our most powerful services all year long! Don’t be late… bring your Bible and a pen!! Much love to you all… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend [email protected]
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Hey beloved… I want to tell you about something I recently experienced, and a special invitation to the people of Mt. Hope Church. I’ll give you a quick heads up in Deeper Thoughts below and then share a little more detail on Sunday morning. Also, as you know Sunday is Mother’s Day, and we do plan to honor all of our ladies—whom I think most of us would agree are the “better half” of humanity. And, to cap it all off, we’ll continue to dig into God’s Word in our series “Knowing God.”
BUT first… a bunch of things happening…
OK… that’s it for today for you email skimmers and those who hate long emails… BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… It doesn’t take much effort watching the news to recognize that our nation is profoundly and sharply divided along many important cultural, political, and ideological lines. Some of these divisions are systemic to humanity; some are more immediate conflicts that flow out of short-term political or sociological situations. Some systemic divisions that are commonplace to all of fallen humanity’s history--a result of the nature of sin inbred within each of us—also find pockets of intensity rising up in the more immediate conflagration of current cultural issues. One of these matters that bridges both the systemic and the short-term is the often-troubled relationships between various people groups, races, and ethnicities. Systemic fear, bigotry, racism, and prejudice find its roots in the earliest echoes of Adam and Eve’s knowledge of evil in the Garden of Eden. Read almost any page of the Old Testament with the smallest measure of historical context and you’ll see hatred, fear, discrimination, and prejudice between just about every tribe and people. Spend a little time contemplating the outcomes of the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis 11 and we can see where fear and division got its start as a global human problem. In Genesis 11, God confused the languages of humanity so that we could no longer unite in horrific humanism and godlessness. But this isn’t where He wants the story to end. God had a plan all along to reunite us—not in godless humanism, but in the redeemed, healed, and God-empowered baptism of the Holy Spirit. Genesis 11:1-9 tells of our division’s beginning; Acts 2:1-11 tells of the Day of Pentecost’s reuniting of diverse people under the power of the Holy Spirit. Fast forward to the relatively more “short-term” experiment of the American people. We represent just a handful of centuries among millennia upon millennia of divided, sinful, hate-filled humanity. In our short story, division and oppression between races and ethnicities has been a tremendous theme, as you know. Great strides were made in the elimination of slavery in the 1800s and the pursuit of Civil Rights in the 1900s. We have much to be thankful for and to celebrate--not the least of which is to recognize that almost all of those advances were led by people who were filled with the same Holy Spirit who poured out on the Day of Pentecost. But any honest glance at our present culture must admit there is a long way to go for every tribe, tongue, race, and ethnicity to be truly honored and united as the Holy Spirit desires. Enter this unique opportunity I was recently invited into, and another unique invitation that has been extended specifically to the people of Mt. Hope Church. Six weeks ago, I was invited by the Northstar Church Network--with whom Mt. Hope is deeply connected and I serve on their Board of Directors—to be one of ten white pastors to join ten Black pastors for a two-day intensive retreat exploring what needs to be done to bring greater unity and reconciliation between believers and churches of both races. It was a sacred and special conversation as these 20 shepherds poured out their hearts and experiences as it relates to their story with race and division. I have much to tell you about what I am learning from these beloved new friends of mine. More on that in the weeks and months to come. But for now, let me tell you three quick things, and then we’ll talk more. First, we were each paired one-to-one to build an intentional relationship—one white pastor, one Black pastor. I’ve begun building a wonderful new friendship with Pastor Charles Whitaker who shepherds the River of Life Church in Temple Hills, MD. What a beautiful and godly man. Secondly, the larger group of 20 pastors have continued to meet. We have planned two joint worship evenings to begin the dialogue—to not only experience each other’s cultures with as many of our people who could attend, but to also share publicly the discussions and learnings we have begun. The first of these nights will be held in Landover, MD, Sunday night, May 31 at 6:00 p.m. More on this to come… but mark your calendar… because… Finally, Mt. Hope Church has received a personal and specific invitation from Pastor John Jenkins, who is considered by many in the Black community to be the most profound shepherd of our generation—a “bishop” to all of the ten Black pastors who participated in our conversation last month. His church is hosting the first worship night on May 31. On Wednesday this week, Pastor Jenkins extended a personal invitation to you Mt. Hopers—that for any of our congregation who would make the Sunday night trek to Landover for the worship night, he wants to host us for dinner before the meeting in appreciation that Mt. Hope is the farthest church from the event. I’ll share more personally with you on Sunday about all this; I have a sense in my spirit that we have a special opportunity to have a seat at an important table of healing in our Nation’s Capital. So, with that… thanks for reading. C’mon out on Sunday, 10:00 a.m. sharp… We’ll continue digging into the Old Testament, honor our ladies, and seek the face of God for what He is doing among us! Don’t be late… bring your Bible and a pen!! Much love to you all… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend [email protected] Hey friends… We have been working our way through the Old Testament for an entire year at Mt. Hope! Can you believe it?? Are you tired of it yet? Has it inspired you? Empowered you? Scared you? Discouraged you? Encouraged you? Let’s take a quick look back and then let’s see what is coming. More on this in Deeper Thoughts below.
BUT first… a bunch of things happening…
OK… that’s it for today for you email skimmers and those who hate long emails… BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… Many believers shy away from the Old Testament for a lot of very understandable reasons:
Add to these facts that we no longer live under the Old Covenant, and it becomes really easy to assume that it is frankly irrelevant to us. Why spend all the effort to dig through thousands of stories, complicated poetry, cultural history that is lost to us, names that we cannot pronounce or keep track of, and all of God’s yelling if we don’t live with the same God from way back then? Wait… did you catch it? Is He a different God from then until now? Because Jesus Christ revealed God in the flesh--a God of absolute grace and mercy that seems so unlike the (seemingly) angry God of the Old Testament—we think that we live with a different God. But are we sure that’s true? There is indeed a different relational dynamic with God that we experience in the New Testament. It is awesome. It is SO full of grace, love, intimacy, and power… IF we will live up to the New Covenant’s call to us and opportunity for us.** ** Side note: Something the Elders are significantly praying through this weekend is that for many modern American Christians (and we imagine many in our congregation), we have never been exposed to the “whole counsel of God” that the New Testament reveals. There is so much power revealed for us than many of us have never heard of or seen. Therefore, many modern believers unwittingly live their Christianity more similar to the Old Testament’s call to moral conformity than knowing or living from the power of the Holy Spirit available to us. We are working this weekend to hear from God a blueprint for how to boldly impart to each of you this whole counsel of the New Testament… standby for more news!! But Jesus was super-clear about the place of the Old Testament in our lives: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets [the Old Testament]. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). The life of Jesus Christ was to accomplish and reveal the end game, the purpose, and the goal of the Old Testament—to restore our lives to God’s fullest desires for us by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul explained its value for us to understand who God is and how He relates to us: “These things [the Old Testament stories] happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). The patterns, struggles, temptations, and failures of the people of Israel are merely a visual snapshot into our own personal struggles, failures, and impulses. How God responds to them is a revelation of how He feels about all of us. BUT… as we read the Old Testament carefully and through the lens of God’s ultimate revelation of grace, mercy, and healing that come to us in Jesus Christ, we cannot miss that in every story of failure in the Old Testament, and in every place where God pleads with His people with stark and intense words, He is doing so with their full redemption and healing in mind. The God of the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus is all over the Old Testament, from the very first verse to the very last. Though he’s not mentioned by name as his physical birth as a human had not yet occurred, his presence and activity among God’s people as a member of the Trinity is unmistakable. This Sunday, let’s review everywhere we’ve been so far, and look forward to where we are going next. We’re getting to the best part, where God begins to reveal all the details of His end game—the life and ministry, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit into our hearts. Do a little advance reading before Sunday if you can: Genesis 2, Deuteronomy 6, and Ezekiel 36. I think these are the most important parts we’ve read thus far. And then let’s dig into what’s next!! Can’t wait to see you Sunday, 10:00 a.m. sharp… Don’t be late… bring your your Bible and a pen!! Much love to you all… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend [email protected] |
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Jesus said, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, & with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” - Matt. 22:37-39
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Ashburn, VA 20148
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