All Resources
Writing a Good Welcome Email
When newcomers join a small group, a positive first impression is critical in helping them to feel welcome and included. One of the ways we can help this be a positive process is by sending a welcome email. While it is very important for you to clearly communicate...
Creating & Maintaining Community in Small Groups
Creating a comfortable and welcoming environment for a small group is vital to the success of the group in general. The reasoning is pretty simple - people return to environments where they feel welcome and accepted. People also feel freer to be themselves in a...
Accountability in Small Groups
Hope Community is not merely a place, but a group of people who desire to live as followers of Jesus and to make a difference in our city for Christ. Effective use of gospel centered accountability in small groups is vital to the growth and health of group members. As...
Incporporating Children into Small Groups
Regarding children, it is always important to consider the needs of the whole group along with those of the children and parents. How much disruption can the group as a whole tolerate? How flexible is the group? How sensitive are parents to the group dynamics?...
The Comparison Games We Play: Grace is the Thief We Need
This article originally appeared on redtreegrace.com. Red Tree is a multi-church ministry effort started by Hope Community Church in order to connect the clarity of God's grace to our otherwise confusing lives and attempts at reading the Bible. As of 2023, the world’s...
The Importance of Friendships: Why Can’t We Be Friends?
Logically and biblically, we might know the call of friendship and community that the Bible has for us. We know all the metaphors for the Church. We have seen the realities that the Church IS a body. It has different functions and designs, but all working together as...
The Lists We Keep: Another Way God is Not Like Us
This article originally appeared on redtreegrace.com. Red Tree is a multi-church ministry effort started by Hope Community Church in order to connect the clarity of God’s grace to our otherwise confusing lives and attempts at reading the Bible. Fridays are the...
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...
Common Misconceptions About Friendship & How Jesus Shows Us a Better Way
This is an article addressing what I've learned from 25 years of friendship...or, put differently, it breaks down common misconceptions concerning the nature of deep friendships. Misconception #1: It is someone else's responsibility to come and be my friend. We might...
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,...