All Resources
How to: Care for Hurting or Grieving People
At Hope, we value all people, regardless of their life or faith condition. As small group leaders, you have a unique role in that you will be on the “frontlines” with people who are experiencing varying life and faith situations. Specifically, you will find that...
How Can I Break a Shame Narrative?
In this episode, the team discusses the definition of a shame narrative and walks through ways to break them by talking through some of their own current shame narratives...
What is Shame and Why is it Stealing My Joy?
In this episode, the team welcomes their Sound Engineer, Austin Sego to the microphone to discuss shame and its corrosive effect on joy. Join the LDI Crew for an honest...
Our Omnipresent God
Have you ever been out in the middle of nowhere? Like true wilderness? Some place where you can’t hear the hum from the highway and you’re just enveloped in such a complete silence that the silence itself is almost deafening? Sometimes those moments, for a city girl...
Gender Roles
The conversation surrounding gender roles in the church has been an interesting one for me to consider because of the tension I’ve wrestled with regarding this topic, especially as a wife and also a woman who works in ministry full time. Until this year, I didn’t...
Shouts and Songs From Two Mountains
Understanding the message of the Old Testament and applying it today is a lot like watching the film “Fight Club.” Only at the end of the movie does the viewer discover that the two main characters are (spoiler alert!) one and the same. Moreover, a second watch is in...
Breaking Shame Narratives
Shame. It’s a heavy word. One, when spoken out loud you can feel that “shame-like” feeling wash over you. It’s a feeling many have experienced and wish they hadn’t. Shame is a feeling that we, as God’s image bearers, weren’t meant to experience. Yet, because of the...
Grieving Unmet Expectations
Expectations. We all have them. Whether they are known or not, whether they are met or not. They can be sneaky and can reveal a longing, a desiring or a hope we didn’t know we had until that expectation was not met. Expectation is defined as the state of expecting or...
Killing Sin: Confession, Contrition, Community
“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.” ― John Owen, The Mortification of Sin Recently someone sent me a video of a leopard in India caught on camera...
The Jealousy of God
Many people do not have a problem with a soft “teddy bear” God. However, the moment the words “wrath,” “anger,” or “jealousy” are mentioned, the room grows quiet and hands start fidgeting. All too often, when something is challenging, people give themselves the...