Their story is our story...

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