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Hey, friends…
Have you seen the forecast for this weekend? Wow… I hope you have plans to be outside and have a great time with family or friends. Since you’re starting your spectacular three-day weekend right now, I’ll keep this super-short, and we’ll tackle Deeper Thoughts next week…. But for now, real quick: · If you’re out of town this weekend, join us online on Sunday… or catch up later on our YouTube channel. o And don’t forget The Daily Six will still be running on Monday… We’ll be launching into our next character in the Old Testament—and this one is pivotal: Moses. Give God at least six minutes on your super-fun holiday… and maybe six minutes more?? If you’d like to receive The Daily Six email reminders and you’re not already getting them, click here to sign up! · Men: Cookout and hang out at Gordon Albert’s house--TOMORROW Saturday, August 30, 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. Plan to bring some stuff to grill and enjoy the awesome weather with us… Click here to email Gordon, or text him at 703-628-1870 for directions and details! · Teens: Youth Group: this Sunday 11:30 – 1:00 with food, fun, and the Word. To get plugged into our growing and awesome youth group, email Jessica Sauder: [email protected]. · IMPORTANT Mt. Hope Business Meeting, Sunday, September 7, 11:45 a.m. Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend as we tackle three important matters for our church. We will discuss the revised architectural design for our potential facility expansion, discuss and approve our fiscal year 2025-26 budget, and our Covenant Partners will vote to formally ratify our revised By-Laws. More info to come! · Ladies: Mark your calendars for Women’s Bowling at “The Branch,” Saturday, September 13, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. More details to come!! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and all you Labor Day fans. We’ll see you Sunday—online or in-person. Good stuff this Sunday as we see how God is using our lives to set us up for victory!! Much love to you all… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend
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Hey there, beloved…
It is a complicated history, supernaturally glorious in many moments, and troubled in others. For 190 years, the people of God have been gathering as an intimate family in this little church called “Mt. Hope.” You have become an integral part of this story--you are Mt. Hope Church, whether you’ve been with us for decades or you’ve just stopped by a couple of times. I say you fit right in: Everyone who has called this church their home has been tremendously imperfect. I’m pretty sure that’s you included, and I know it is me, for certain. But, oh… God has been so good to us. Let’s talk in Deeper Thoughts below…. But first: · Mt Hope’s biggest day in nearly 200 years is THIS Sunday, August 24, as we celebrate Mt. Hope’s 190th Anniversary! Join us from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. for worship, fellowship, southern pot-luck yummies, historical experiences, and more. o We need your help with food! If you are able, please plan to bring something to share. Click here to see what we need and let us know what you can bring! (And of course, if you can’t bring anything… c’mon anyway… there will be plenty for everyone!) · Teens: NO Youth Group: this Sunday as we will join in the 190th festivities. To get plugged into our growing and awesome youth group, email Jessica Sauder: [email protected]. · Men: Our “next up” get together: Cookout and hang out at Gordon Albert’s house--NEXT Saturday, August 30, 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. Plan to bring some stuff to grill… details and RSVP to come. Click here to email Gordon, or text him at 703-628-1870! · IMPORTANT Mt. Hope Business Meeting, Sunday, September 7, 11:45 a.m. Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend as we tackle three important matters for our church. We will discuss the revised architectural design for our potential facility expansion, discuss and approve our fiscal year 2025-26 budget, and our Covenant Partners will vote to formally ratify our revised By-Laws. More info to come! · Ladies: Mark your calendars for Women’s Bowling at “The Branch,” Saturday, September 13, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. More details to come!! · Join me for “The Daily Six” – six minutes each morning in the Word of God, Monday through Friday, on our YouTube channel. If you’d like to receive daily email reminders and you’re not already getting them, click here to sign up! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and you don’t really like Mt. Hope anyway… BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… I’ve been reading through the early records of our church this week. They kept “minutes” every time they gathered back in the 1800s, which for our first couple of decades was only one Sunday a month. Our pastors served multiple churches in the rural stretches of Loudoun County, so we only had one “preaching service” with their ministry of the Word every four weeks. Some of the records are rather dull: Administrative notes about so-and-so’s request for a letter of reference, or this-or-that family moving “to the west.” Some of the records are painful to read. Our early Mt. Hope founders had a pretty harsh hand in dealing with people’s indiscretions. Skipping church for two or three months would land you a prominent mention in the minutes, and a dispatch of a “committee” to call upon you and see why you weren’t at church. If you’d been overheard using foul language in town, that would also get your name in the official records. The monthly church meetings publicly called out a man for betting on horses, and another for betting on the outcome of a national election. If the charges against you were serious enough, they would even call you to appear before the congregation for a trial. Most didn’t come, so the church “excluded” from fellowship the unrepentant sinner. Fornication was a big deal, too. The deacons would call upon the accused at their home—in one case demanding to see a young lady whose belly had been reported to be “swelling,” her boyfriend observed by townsfolks walking home early in the morning from the direction of her house. When our strong-handed deacon team confronted him, he cursed up a storm. He had been the fella to donate some of the lumber to build our first sanctuary in 1853. He never came back to church, but he did send them a bill for the wood. Church life in the early 1800s was a bit different than today, don’t you think? And yet, some of the notes from our first 30 years are profoundly humbling to me. The reverence and joy our people took in recounting individual baptisms, or the passion in a prayer meeting, or the impact of a sermon, or the depth and intensity with which the people committed to follow the way of Jesus together—these stories are nothing short of moving. The effusive love our congregation had for their pastors—men of God who powerfully handled the Word, bringing many to trust in Christ—sober me as I realize I am standing on the shoulders of twenty-three former pastors who served our church with great anointing. I’ve only known one of them, our beloved Pastor John Zoller, who served for a quarter-century as our shepherd, and who still serves us today with his boundless heart of love and joy. Mt. Hope was originally formed by five men and two women in a small schoolhouse on the west side of today’s Evergreen Mills Road. Eighteen years later, the small but growing congregation cobbled together enough cash to build a small chapel right where you worship today. From 1853 to 1898, the church grew and thrived in the tremendously remote and rural farmland. It’s hard to remember that this present sprawling suburbia with all its traffic lights, shopping malls, restaurants and businesses was the absolute middle of nowhere 150 years ago. But God was moving in our midst out here in the hinterlands of rural Virginia. Just before the turn of the century, so many farmers and country folk were crammed into the tiny chapel that they needed to expand it, building the current sanctuary you worship in today. Besides these early church records, we know very little about any of these people. Some of them are buried out back, their headstones worn and unreadable. Most are completely forgotten, their problems and successes, their loves and desires, their wisdom and intellect all lost to the relentless march of history. But you are brothers and sisters with them. They are your church family. We are Mt. Hope along with them, shaping the current chapter of God’s work in this very special place. And while most of us are just passing through relatively briefly, our individual stories join the “minutes” kept in heaven of this special gathering of the Bride of Christ. I hope you’ll join us this very special Sunday morning as we celebrate the founding of Mt. Hope Church precisely 190 years ago—August 24, 1835. More importantly, we will celebrate the glory of God in your life and mine—the people of God, who struggle with God, and who overcome in Jesus Christ. Much love to you all… so grateful we can be a part of this history-making together! Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend Hey everybody…
Well, that’s a bunch of real winners, eh? Adultery, jealousy, fear, lying, favoritism. A perfect set of people for God to select as His model family of those who know and relate with God. The foibles of Abraham and Sarah’s family—chosen by God to bless the world with their witness of intimacy with God—reads more like a psychologist’s severe family counseling notes than it does a record of holy people. So, why did God pick them? Oh, and He picked me, too. Huh. Wonder why He did that. Let’s talk in Deeper Thoughts below…. But first… some quick updates: · Mt Hope’s biggest day in nearly 200 years is coming up!!! Join us for Mt. Hope’s 190th Anniversary celebration NEXT Sunday, August 24, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.– a great day of worship, fellowship, southern pot-luck yummies, historical experiences, and gratitude to our God for all He has done through Mt. Hope for nearly two centuries. Click here to sign up for your potluck dish! · Teens: Check out this BIG STUFF!! o Fire Pit worship and hang out: TONIGHT, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. John Dively will lead us in worship and share his story. Rain or shine! If it's good weather, we'll be in the fire pit area out back. If we get a pop-up t-storm, we'll move into the church sanctuary. o Youth Group: THIS Sunday, 11:30 – 1:00 p.m. Samuel Sierra will join us to encourage us with his faith journey. Snacks will be provided. Let us know if your teen needs a ride home. o To get plugged into our growing and awesome youth group, email Jessica Sauder: [email protected]. · Men: Our “next up” get together: Cookout and hang out at Gordon Albert’s house--Saturday, August 30, 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. Plan to bring some stuff to grill… details and RSVP to come. Click here to email Gordon, or text him at 703-628-1870! · Ladies: Mark your calendars for Women’s Bowling at “The Branch,” Saturday, September 13, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. More details to come!! · Join me for “The Daily Six” – six minutes each morning in the Word of God, Monday through Friday, on our YouTube channel. If you’d like to receive daily email reminders and you’re not already getting them, click here to sign up! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and you who are so perfect you understand completely why God put you in the royal family… BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… Hasn’t your reading through Genesis been a little depressing thus far? She told her husband to have an affair with her assistant so she could have a child; then she got super-jealous and abused the lady. He told everyone his wife was his sister so that the lustful fellas in town wouldn’t kill him and steal her. That brilliant idea didn’t work out so well—she got taken as a concubine for the local leading politician. Oh, and when they finally had a child of their own, that kid turned out to repeatedly follow in his dad’s footsteps and do the same foolish things. What a family! And yet, God promised to bless the entire world through them for ages and ages to come. They would eventually be known as the people of Israel—the Jewish people—from whom the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would someday emerge. But for now, all the reading we have done thus far reveals Abraham, Sarah, and their son Isaac as totally “normal,” whacked-out people. God’s goal with this troubled family, as we will much later come to recognize, was to model for all of humanity how to relate with God. Sounds like a pretty important role. So, why would God choose such unhealthy people to model the “perfect” family? Shouldn’t He have chosen some better folks? This Sunday, let’s step back and take a broad, high-altitude look at who these people are and why God was so in love with them. Let’s see if we can pick up any patterns between who they are, how they relate with God, and us. Maybe there is something we can learn from them. Maybe there is indeed something God wants to reveal. I have a hunch it will be very encouraging. And challenging. Do a little bit of advance reading, would you? Jump into Hebrews 11:8-22 and see if you can figure out what God saw in them. You might also want to contemplate how you fit into the picture through one of Mt. Hope’s most often referenced New Testament revelations: Ephesians 1:4-8. Much love to you all… can’t wait to “Sabbath” together with you on Sunday and see where we belong in this wildly dysfunctional family known as Israel!! Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend Hey everybody…
Is there anything you absolutely would NOT give to God? Is there any part of you--if you were to be truly honest—that is off limits to Him? Oh… and how about this: Is there anything that should be off limits? Would it surprise you to hear me say, yes, there might be at least one thing? Whaaaa…? Yep. Let’s talk in Deeper Thoughts below…. But first… some quick updates: · Last call to gather school supplies through Tree of Life Ministries for students who may not otherwise be able to purchase needed supplies for the start of the school year. Click here for a list of what’s needed; bring your donated items to the collection table in the BROWN room at church by THIS Sunday, August 10! · Teens: Youth Group THIS Sunday, 11:30 – 1:00… snacks, fun, connection, and a great testimony! To get plugged into our growing and awesome youth group, email Jessica Sauder: [email protected]. · Mt Hope’s biggest day in nearly 200 years is coming up!!! Join us for Mt. Hope’s 190th Anniversary celebration on Sunday, August 24, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.– a great day of worship, fellowship, southern pot-luck yummies, historical experiences, and gratitude to our God for all He has done through Mt. Hope for nearly two centuries. Click here to sign up for your potluck dish! · Men: Our “next up” get together: Cookout and hang out at Gordon Albert’s house--Saturday, August 30, 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. Plan to bring some stuff to grill… details and RSVP to come. Click here to email Gordon, or text him at 703-628-1870! · Join me for “The Daily Six” – six minutes each morning in the Word of God, Monday through Friday, on our YouTube channel. If you’d like to receive daily email reminders and you’re not already getting them, click here to sign up! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and you who don’t plan to give God anything anyway… BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… Can we level-set on something? Christians very rightly talk about making Jesus Christ “Lord of their life,” and that we should hold nothing back from God. Yes. A thousand times, yes. This is biblical. This is good. This is the whole aim of the Christian life—to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength—not just some—and to leave nothing barred off from Him. But what about when God asks for something irrational? What about when we think we hear God asking us for something that is simply too hard to pull off? What if it’s something that seems impossible given our circumstances? Or what if it’s something we don’t agree with God about—something where we think His Word is outdated and fuddy-duddy? Is there anything that is OK to tell God, “No thanks, Big Guy. Can’t do that one”? I can think of one. If God told you to do this, I’d say run the other way. Fast. Nope. Can’t do it. Not rational. Not godly. Can’t be good. No way. I’m out. Here it is: If God told you to kill your kid… don’t. Duh, right? I mean, there’s nothing biblical, godly, holy, righteous, or good whatsoever about the idea of whacking your kid (though I imagine there have been moments of temptation from time to time). You’ve got the Ten Commandments to back you up, right… like God’s Ten Commandments? “Do not murder” sounds a tad familiar, does it not? So why in the world did God ask this very thing of Abraham? And what in the world are we supposed to do with this? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve probably not been watching The Daily Six this week—or at least you’re running behind. (Click here to catch up… highly recommended!) We spent yesterday and today on The Daily Six looking at Genesis 22, where God spoke to Abraham about his child of promise—the one he had been waiting for 25 years for God to fulfill—and God told him to kill him. “Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about’” (Genesis 22:2). If you came to my office to tell me you’d heard from God to execute your child, I would first tell you in no uncertain terms God did not speak this to you. Then I would immediately call the police. I would be on solid ground with this pastoral advice; there are a TON of biblical commands from the Lord that thoroughly and unequivocally condemn child sacrifice. If you need to check me on this, try Leviticus 18:21, 20:3; Deuteronomy 12:30-31 and 18:10 to start. Jeremiah 7:31 says it pretty clearly, God speaking: “…to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” So why in the world would God ask Abraham to do something that He so clearly abhors? “And why in the world are we talking about this, Pastor Chris? This is pretty sick.” Agreed. Friends, the text of Genesis 22 is unquestionably one of the most complicated and troubling theological problems in the entire Bible. If you read all the way through it, you might be able to tenuously tolerate the story by reading it with the end of it in mind—God actually did not intend for Abraham to carry all the way through with the sacrifice. He would supply a “ram in the thicket” to be the alternate sacrifice (Genesis 22:13). Perhaps you’ve sat under a pastor who has taught this text with a bit of an “all’s well that ends well” approach, suggesting that the end of the story soothes the beginning of it for us. I’d like to not be that pastor who breezes past the obvious emotional trouble the text creates for us. While we can read it with the end of the story in mind, Abraham could not—at least not while the events unfolded. To Abraham, this was an awful moment of struggling with who God is and what he must do in surrender to Him. This Sunday, let’s unpack this tremendously difficult chapter in the Bible with raw honesty—to study this from both God and Abraham’s perspectives. And maybe more importantly, to ask ourselves what any of this means for you and me. Two six-minute episodes of The Daily Six are far too insufficient to adequately wrestle with this text. Let’s dig into it more in-depth on Sunday. If you want to do a little more prep, read through all of Genesis 22 and Hebrews 11:17-19 in advance. God is indeed revealing some very important things about you, me, and Him. We need the Word of God to speak! You in? Much love to you all… can’t wait to “Sabbath” together with you on Sunday--and figure out who in the world this crazy God of ours really is!! Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend Hey everybody…
Has anyone ever told you to “just knock it off”? The wording might be a little harsh, and it certainly stuns you a bit. But it usually grabs your attention, doesn’t it? Often, it’s exactly what we need to snap out of it and make an instantaneous change. How about when that someone telling you to knock it off is God? While God’s Word can sometimes be tough to hear, He is always gracious, merciful, and unconditionally loving with His ping. There is one topic I’m fairly certain He would tell every one of us to call it quits. Let’s talk in Deeper Thoughts below…. But first… some quick notes on our summer happenings: · Help us gather school supplies through Tree of Life Ministries! Sponsored by our Women’s Ministry, Mt. Hope is collecting school supplies and backpacks for students who may not otherwise be able to purchase needed supplies for the start of the school year. Click here for a list of what’s needed; bring your donated items to the collection bin in the BROWN room at church by THIS Sunday, August 3! · Teens: Tonight’s firepit worship night has been postponed to August 15th, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. Also… NO Youth Group THIS Sunday. To get plugged into our growing and awesome youth group, email Jessica Sauder: [email protected]. · Join me for “The Daily Six” – six minutes each morning in the Word of God, Monday through Friday, on our YouTube channel. If you’d like to receive daily email reminders and you’re not already getting them, click here to sign up! · Join us for Mt. Hope’s 190th Anniversary celebration on Sunday, August 24 – a great day of worship, fellowship, southern pot-luck yummies, historical experiences, and gratitude to our God for all He has done through Mt. Hope for nearly two centuries. Sign-up for the potluck is coming next week! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and you who have nothing God wants you to quit… BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… I’m not very good at quitting. How about you? I’ve had more than one boss in my two professional careers who has been troubled by my inability to let something go and give it up. They needed me to knock it off, but I just couldn’t. One of my core personality traits is tenacity. The good side of that trait is a diehard perseverance that often keeps me going when things get tough. The bad side is that I have a really hard time letting go of things that other people need me to quit. When everyone else on the team can see that this thing needs to fail and we need to go home and give it a rest, I’m still trying to plow ahead. When a conflict simply isn’t going to resolve without some cooling off time, I want to keep arguing. When I have a strong opinion that differs with everyone else, I want to keep making my case (I think they call that “beating a dead horse”). One of my bosses once publicly called me the “yippie dog” on the team. I was known for constantly yipping at everybody’s heels ‘cuz I just couldn’t let it go. As I have aged and matured, these traits have slowly softened. I’ve worked really hard to tame the yipper in me, and more often than not, I can keep that annoying little mutt quiet. But these inclinations are not altogether sanctified just yet. Truth be told, while my hang ups may be unique to me and a few other high-driver type folks you know--and you might not be so hard-headed as me—I believe these impulses are rooted in the same sin issue that we all have. Even the most low-key among us struggles with this particular sin problem. Mine can manifest in the punchy, hard-nosed, yippie dog kind of way. Your struggle with this sin may come out in more quiet, less perceptible ways. But the sin issue is the same, no matter our personality. The sin struggle is “self.” It’s you. It’s me. It’s our own stubborn way. And God needs us to knock it off. It may not seem obvious at first, but this is exactly why God gave us the Sabbath every single weekend. Our sin struggle with self needs to be attended to every seven days so we can stay on top of it. Otherwise, it’s such a slippery critter that by about day seven, here it comes once again. With amazing regularity, my self-absorption, my self-determination, my selfish ambition and pride pops us like a little whack-a-mole every time I think I have it licked. So, God says “knock it off” every seventh day. “There remains a Sabbath-rest for the people of God,” He says in Hebrews 4:9. The Sabbath is a way of life that we can enter into with all of our heart and mind. But to get there, we need to quit every seven days. Oh… and friends, this is super important to catch: the Sabbath is not just about physical rest. The Sabbath-rest God has given to us is a mindset shift. It is stopping the striving. It is ceasing from worry, anxiety, and stress. It is saying that what I have labored for is “good enough,” and I need to let go of my “self” and hand the results over to God. Taking a day-long break every week to revere the Lord, focus on Him, gather in His sacred assembly, and attend to our holiness is the antidote to our sin infection. We cease; God takes it from there. “Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:10). Entering into God’s rest is to surrender to personal holiness in the matters of selfish ambition, stress, fear, distrust, and anxiety. These sins are all about us failing to trust God with our circumstances, goals, desires, and needs. When we cease our striving by ceasing our efforts for a day, we are forced to put our trust in Him. It becomes a catalyst to a different way of thinking. Do it consistently enough—every seven days—and it can become our new way of life. This Sunday let’s look at how to practically keep the command to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). We will look at Jesus and see what he did to observe the Sabbath in reverence. You might be surprised to see how wild and free he was, but the holiness that sprang from his Sabbath-keeping can be a powerful blueprint for us. C’mon out to the Lord’s “sacred assembly” (see Leviticus 23:3) on Sunday--in-person is always best and fulfills God’s call to sacred assembly most precisely; online is a great tool for when you’re away or sick. Let’s study God’s Word and get a picture of what this can be like for each of us! Much love to you all… can’t wait to “Sabbath” together with you this Sunday!! Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend |
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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
42507 Mt. Hope Road
Ashburn, VA 20148
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703-729-2707