All Resources
News from a Far Country: Notes from an American Conversion
I. The Madman and the Arsonists: A Parable Let’s say that you have lived your whole life in a small town well-known for arson cases. Let’s say your parents lived and raised you here, as did their parents, back and back to time immemorial, so that you really don’t know...
Small Group Open Chair Model
Whenever possible and healthy for the group, we encourage groups to maintain an “open chair.” This means that the group fosters an attitude of openness to newcomers and maintains an environment that would make a newcomer feel welcome. The group does not need to be...
Shepherd Leadership
What is a Shepherd Leader? At Hope Community Church we place a high value on spiritual leadership. As we consider who would make an excellent small group leader we think less about conventional leadership skills and more about ‘shepherd leadership’. The following...
Michael Atella
Transcript Growing up overseas as a missionary kid who was adopted actually that answer is complicated. My, my culture, I would say, never really aligned with any, and it's just kind of amalgamation and meshing of different cultures that I've experienced along the...
Swagata Bergquist
Transcript One practice that I was exposed to growing up was, regardless of what was happening in people's life, they would drop whatever they were doing to be fully present with someone else. Like our neighbors attending to our needs when my dad spent months out of...
Jairus Justus
Transcript I'd say one significant piece of my cultural background is probably how I grew up. In an Indian family, we always treat everyone as family. So whether that was one of my parents friends, one of their friend's children, whether that was actual relations. To...
Samantha Isomura
Transcript Growing up, my parents really emphasized the importance of language in our home. They signed my sisters and I up for Chinese school on Saturdays, and always tried to nurture the growth of the language in our home. We certainly resisted this as we were going...
How Can I Know When to Ask for Help?
Each episode features a leading question, quote of the week, and a Growing Together segment geared at imperfect leaders who are seeking development in their leadership...
What Does Spiritual Warfare Really Mean?
In this episode, the team defines spiritual warfare and considers its impact on our lives. Each episode features a leading question, quote of the week, and a Growing...
One Man’s Minority Perspective on Being a Racial Minority
I was born in Seoul, South Korea, adopted at the age of 4 months old by a white family, and grew up in China. My mother is of Scottish descent, and my father has Italian ancestry. To put it another way, I look nothing like my family. Now it can be the case that...
Seeing God in Chinese School
The Chinese language primarily relies on pictographs to communicate. Supposedly, there are over 100,000 Chinese characters, although most experts agree that you need to know about 3,000 to 4,000 to be considered “literate”. The cool thing about pictographs is they...
Both & Neither
As a mixed race person, my experience with understanding my own racial identity has forced me to uncomfortably exist between two sides. When interacting with either side of my heritage, it’s hard to not feel like an illegitimate misfit. Even now as I write this...