All Resources
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...
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...
Why Should I Become Less Self-Obsessed?
Welcome back for Season 2! In this episode, the team discusses why we should move toward humility and self-forgetfulness in culture driven by self-satisfaction and the...
Why Am I So Devastated by Feedback and Criticism?
In this episode, the team discusses feedback and why it can often feel more painful than helpful. The LDI Crew also talks about the relationship between evaluation,...
Should I Have a Side Hustle?
In this episode, the team discusses the art of navigating side hustles and the pressure culture places on us to or live up to its (or our own) unrealistic expectations....
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...
What is Your Name and How Do You Pronounce It?
Being Asian American in the United States, I often get asked these questions: “Where are you from?”, “Are you Chinese?”, and “What is your name and how do you pronounce it?” My usual reply is that I am ethnically Hmong while being born and raised in Milwaukee,...
How Do We Worship on Easter?
In less than a month, we will be celebrating Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I didn’t grow up with a strong Christian foundation. I’d overhear comments at church about special days, services, terms, and theology and wonder about their significance. What is Lent? Or Ash...
What Makes Hope, Hope?
A great part of my job is taking people out for a cup of coffee and hearing their stories. It also gives me a chance to hear people’s impressions of Hope. What brought them here? What keeps them coming back? If I had to boil it down to a couple comments that people...
Wonderful Counselor
The following is the first in a four part series on preparing your heart for the Christmas Season. It has been adapted from a sermon called “Preparing Your Heart for the Christmas Season” delivered at Hope Community Church by Steve Treichler on November 30, 2003. This...
The Asian American Identity
Identity is something I have struggled with my entire life. I am a Japanese-American born in the United States to immigrant parents. My first language is not English and growing up I considered Japan my second home. I have had the opportunity to spend portions of...
Seven Accessible Ways to Connect With Jesus This Easter Season
My choice of the word “accessible” over “easy” was intentional. Connecting with Jesus is accessible to all of us. But if I were to say “easy” too many would misunderstand this to mean “fast”. I don’t offer you 10 “fast” ways to connect with Jesus. But I do believe...