30 Years of Hope: Stories of God’s Faithfulness

Well, you know, I actually seriously am very excited. You know, 30 years, 30 years, wow, that’s a long time. Some of us are old now. And I think back 30 years ago, for many of us, not everybody around the circle here, but for many of us, we were sitting in my living room, wondering what this thing called Hope Community would be.

And we did so many stupid things. I should say, you all did so many stupid things that I had to bail you out of. No, we did so many dumb things that God protected us of, and it worked well. But I just love to hear from some people who ever like to kind of share, just like, why in the world did you come along on this thing? You know, it wasn’t like we were going to a not good church. It was like, ah, that church is a wackadoodle church. It wasn’t. It was a great church. Bethlehem Baptist, John Piper, it was a great church. And yet, you all decided to come along.

This is the part where you all talk. Yeah. We had a conversation on the way home from church, and as soon as you said, I’m starting a church, I’d love for all of you to come along in Sunday school, I was like, well, I’m there. I’m all in. I loved our Sunday school class that we were all in. I loved your teaching. I loved your sense of humor. I loved all the people there. The community that was there. I felt like that was the community at Bethlehem for me personally. So I was all about joining this community and going somewhere else and doing it somewhere else. And I asked Bart, what do you think about, you know, Steve’s idea?

And he said. I, well, I don’t know that I said it to you, but I thought, man, I’m going to miss him. I thought that sounds really great, but I’m really, I’m really going to miss him. And Lorelei says this and I’m like, oh, this is going to be a long conversation that you’re going to lose.

How’s that working for you? Yeah, she was right. Yeah. It was really great. Yeah. For those who maybe are not aware is that the, the original 14 people that helped start the church all came from what they call the Sunday school class. It sounds a little strange to call it that, of young marrieds at Bethlehem Baptist Church and, and Carole were leading it or teaching at it. And we were only married at the time when we started it, we were only married four years. Isn’t that crazy to think we were trying to help other people in their marriage? Wow. That’s when. Yeah.

So, well, we help people today with their marriages. And then I think back, Lorelei’s having a conversation with Bart about going or not, and I did not have a conversation with Carol. I just simply went to Steve and said, we’re coming. He did. Wow. So, it was, it was really after some of those Perkin breakfasts at County Road D in Roseville. That’s right. Still there. Where I got more and more excited. And then at some point I had to bring Carol along. Yeah. But it was just fun. The old fit, you know, you, you had the diagram of the, remember that old fish that had all the different colors on it? Yeah. I don’t know if you had it at that point, but you were just sharing from your heart just what this vision was.

And I just really caught on to the idea of bringing good theology and Jesus to a culture that was really close by, you know, your story about getting saved in the shower and just what the University of Minnesota meant to you and what Jesus meant to you.

And of course, as Lorelei mentioned, just your humor and really great way of, I think, connecting with people connected with me. So I was excited about that vision. Well, and we eventually had to talk about how we were going to tell our wives. So, and I think at that time you were, maybe people didn’t know this, but you were a, you were in purgatory, as you called it. You were, I think, in Eden Prairie Middle School. Was it Eden Prairie? Teaching there. Yeah. Yeah. Teaching math. And that was your definition of purgatory. You thought, I got to get out. To eighth graders. I got to get out. I got to get out. And I thought, well, that sounds excellent. I’m with you. We have no building.

We have no money. Your wife’s in there. We have no wives. We have no wives. Well, I was in. And actually, we really didn’t have a whole, we didn’t really have a big send-off either from anybody at that point. So we had nothing. We had a, you had a vision. And I think people were really catching on to that at that time. Stan and I were the first, he and I were the first two. So we would meet and we would talk and I just would share different things when I’m thinking about, we had some initial documents, not much, but we would have breakfast. I don’t know. You taught me to put runny eggs into my hash brown. Amen and amen. Yes. I’d never done that before. Yeah. That’s the way God intended. So, but I remember having those breakfasts, still remember those breakfasts.

And then somewhere along there are, cause we both are like, we’re in, we’re going to do this and somewhere along there, you and I started talking about where our wives were at and you told me, oh, Carol, she’s not, she’s not going to come or I don’t think she’s going to do. I said, well, that’s kind of where my wife’s at too. So yeah, we were both spouseless in the beginning, but eventually they had to come, I guess. Well, Carol had, I mean, she’d probably tell better than I could, but she, you know, her family history goes all the way back to when Bethlehem Baptist was speaking Swedish. So when she came out of Bethlehem, I mean, to Bethlehem to go to Hope, I mean, that’s generations of being pulled out. Yeah. Breaking generational curses.

Yeah. Oh gosh. How about the Nelsons? Yeah. Good question. So we also were, I don’t know if I would say plugged into Bethlehem. We love Bethlehem, but it’s a huge church. And we had come out of campus ministry at the U of M and yeah, we, we had considered the mission field, had gone through Bethlehem, some of Bethlehem’s missions prep classes. And then we’re pregnant by our first anniversary with Levi, which people go to the mission field with kids. But I think that kind of gave us a little pause, at least I think we’ll have our baby here, you know, before we go. And that was when the call to start Hope came and we’re like, oh, that, that was our mission field through college years of the U of M being part of crew.

And maybe, maybe God would have us do that. It felt a little like a cheat, like, oh, we get to still go to Target and the kids get to see their grandparents and we get to do something kind of missions-ish.

But yeah, we were mostly tracking, unlike the other couples, Graham and I were mostly tracking along together at the same sort of pace. Loved the Sunday school class and the relationships we had there. So that was easy. I will say just the idea that Bethlehem didn’t need us because it was so big. I have kind of come to think that wasn’t really the right way of thinking about it because I mean, hope is that size now. Is that the right way to think about it? Like, I have to be needed or visible or like there has to be, it’s like, I don’t, for whatever reason, it helped boot us to hope and I’m glad for that. But I don’t know that I would stand by that thinking anymore. I think everybody’s really needed in the spot they’re at, even in a big church.

Um, yeah, but I guess we wanted to be big fish in a little pond. So we, we came to it. Very little pond at the beginning. I know. It was a little puddle. It was a, well, yeah, I had a, you know, it’s knocked down now, but there was Stadium Village Church, originally Bethany Presbyterian Church. And every now and then I’d get a chance to go back there and I could not believe it. How tiny that place is. But to start a church with 14 people and then to have our grand open, it had exploded. It was a explosive growth to 20.

It was, uh, but it didn’t feel empty. It never felt empty, you know, cause it only sat like in the regular seats, about a hundred people max, you know, and then you had to put chairs in the back. You got up to about 140. I’d love to hear from you, Carol, what kind of changed your mind. I assume it has now.

Still bitter. Um, I just was, Stan was so excited to go and I’m like, I don’t know, I thought I should just do it. We should just go. And it just was, I think. And then being able to go together with people I already knew and stuff like that was a big plus. And then after a few of those meetings, I was all in. It was like, Oh yes. I got the vision and I’ve got my people.

So one of the things that I thought was really cool after we started hope was how much of what was present in a young marrieds class was carried over. I just examples that the sense of community that was in that, that small Sunday school class really was something that was neat to see grow into a larger body. Right. But there was something we did in that young marrieds class, handed out a piece of paper. Everyone’s name was on it and you wrote your prayer request down on that piece of paper. And then someone ran to the copy machine and made copies and handed it out to everyone else. So there was this idea of let’s pray for each other. Let’s be involved in each other’s lives. And for a long time at Hope, there was write your prayer request on the back of the card.

And that was carryover. That was, we want people to know that they’re part of a community that cares for them, praise for them. And I just think that those little things are made a difference. Dinner fellowship. We did that in the young marrieds class. That’s right. And we did that at Hope. Dinner fellowships of a crew. It started as three couples.

Dinners of eight for a while. Dinners of eight. It was dinners of eight. I remember, Bart, when one of the things Stan mentioned I was teaching, but I also had a side business where I was doing some woodworking and mostly cabinet making and trying to make ends meet. And Bart helped me install this huge, massive pantry that I had built that was a geometry problem to make sure it fit in the door and fit as we leaned it up and all that kind of thing. And I remember on that where you were saying, I love that you’re going, you’re going to the University of Minnesota, but there is no way that I’m going back. And I said, oh, okay. If you talk to your wife about that, but yeah, because I’m in cahoots with her on this.

But I do remember a while afterwards, I don’t remember how long it was, a year or two after you decided to come. I said, what was it that changed your mind? And what you told me at that time was I had to go. My church left. Oh, yeah. It was my church. And the partnership class was not going to be what it was. And it really wasn’t. I’m not trying to, but kind of the, it had been changed. And so that’s really cool. I’d love to hear, there are three staff persons here who came, well, I guess Naty didn’t. She was the one to hold out. Gosh. Everybody goes to Hope. I’m not going. That’s Naty. That’s exactly what I said too. Many times to many people. Yep. But I’d love to hear, you know, from your perspective, some of you came as freshmen or sophomores and Natalie, Natalie, I only do say that when she’s in trouble, but of course you are right now.

But the, but the, you came after you got married. Like Paul the Apostle is one untimely. Yeah. Untimely born. Untimely born. That’s right. Yeah. But I’d love to hear like, why, why? There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of churches out there. There’s a lot of places. There’s a lot of things. Yeah, sure, I can. I went to the U and was a freshman in Frontier and met some really fun people. My friend Krista crossed the hall from me and we were trying to figure out what to do on this huge campus and someone invited us to come check it out. And I remember walking in the door and going up the stairs and it was like a stuffed dead raccoon or something. Yeah, that’s right. We had put up there. That was a big memory.

I don’t know. But you were right there introducing yourself and nicknamed me Brickels and you’re the only person to this day who calls me that. To this day it’s stuck, yeah. But yeah, just coming in and I feel like you guys scooped me up right away. I was definitely drawn to the little people and you guys were like, come hang out with us. Come watch our babies and we’ll feed you. And it was just the best. So I feel like I got a lot of second families to welcome me in and I was just, why would I want to go anywhere else? So that was pretty fun.

Yeah. Right across from the door. Right across. Just walked across. That’s pretty great. I came to Hope after checking out a few other churches in the area. Didn’t have a car. So I needed transportation and I had somebody drive me over to Bethlehem and I could not make sense of what that guy was saying.

Pastor John Piper was pretty academic in a lot of his speech. Big theological words that I couldn’t understand. Then I went over, crossed down to another guy who was pretty philosophical and used big words. Couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Came to Hope and Steve used short words.

I know more than this moron. One syllable words and short sentences. I was glad everyone else laughed because I was holding it in real. Talked in movie lines and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. And so, yeah, I think that plus proximity, I was in Centennial Hall and could just walk across the street. And so, I don’t know that our relationship got off to the start that maybe you would think a long friendship would come from. But I introduced myself to him one morning. He says, oh, Cor, that’s a unique name. Short for anything? No, just Cor.

What’s your last name? Chmieleski. Well, that’s a unique name. Polish? Yeah, it’s Polish. Next week, I come back. Hi, have we met? Yeah. Oh, what’s your name? Cor. That’s a unique name. Yeah. What’s your last name? Chmieleski. Polish? Yep. So, we had this conversation multiple times. No. These are lies. I remember none of this.

Clearly. Absolutely true. Well, if I got to have a course back on this one, even though, at risk of my, risk of our employment. Yeah. I, top of the stairs, always there. And it was one of the things I really loved about Hope at that time was, I never thought I, it was like the first place that I really stuck as a church. I’d become a Christian in college and kind of like you had dabbled in other places. Though I did understand the big words. I have a preference for the more approachable. I’m just kidding. I didn’t get them either.

No. And we really, I just got married. I think we came just about this time, 27 years ago. Is that what it would have been? Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. 27 years ago, we came and Hope was a little bigger by then. Maybe 99, like 100 people? Or is that too many? I can’t remember. In 99? In 99? Yeah. Or are you saying we were 99 people? Because that’s really an exact number. In 99 is when we started coming. The fall of 99. It’s about 100, yeah. And so it had some mo by then, but I had resisted going because all my crew friends were going to Hope and I was like, no, I think we want a grown-up church. And then we met actually Bart and Lorelei and Carole and Steve at a party where we were playing cards and I really, really liked them.

I really liked all of them. And I’m like, oh, there are some people who are a little bit further along than us. And just to think now I’m like 20 years older than you were then is wild. That is kind of wild.

But really liked you guys. And then when we came, we felt that same sense of like people wanted us there. We were seen. But Trike did not remember my name for like six weeks. Naty. Oh, okay. Yeah, Naty. Nice to meet you. I feel really special now. Yeah. You got a nickname. The funny thing was is some people would tell me over and over that the reason they came back was because I did remember their name. Now, let me tell you something. I’m not trying to like, you know, we’re not on the playground here where, yeah, you did, but here’s what you did. But I’m going to tell you why I don’t remember your name. You didn’t fill out a card. Oh, you didn’t fill out a card. Oh, for sure. I didn’t fill out a card.

Right. If you filled out a card, here’s the deal. Yeah. I prayed for you every day. I think in probably in the first four or five years, I probably skipped like five or six days. Every day I prayed through the cards, whether you wrote something on the back or not. So if you filled out a card, I remember your name. If you didn’t fill out a card, shame on you. That’s fair. Church was scary. I wasn’t opening up to anybody. No chance. Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. But I, especially with a name like Chmieleski. Now, you’re telling me that I didn’t lean right into Chmieleski fun time right when I first met you? I’m sure that was where the conversation went next and then the following weekend we talked about Chmieleski fun time and then the next.

But anyway, yeah. But then it was an opportunity to serve, cut up donuts, make coffee. I didn’t drink coffee or know how to make coffee and Lorelei taught me and that’s kind of how I got my start and met all the different leaders that came to serve before church got started and met a great people and kind of never, never left. Yeah, I remember using a turkey baster to fill the communion cups. Anybody remember that? We were talking about that this morning and it, unlike, I mean, kids these days, they’ve got all the things, you know, the cup filling gadget they have down in the kitchen. We just had a turkey baster that right out of the Welter’s bottle and it everywhere and then we kind of run paper towels between the cups trying to make it look not quite as as it did right afterwards.

Today, man, we’ve come so far. We have real communion cup fillers. You think it was a thing then? Or like, I don’t know. Not on our budget. I do have a question in light of that, though, for all of you guys who were a little earlier. What were the moments when you thought maybe this isn’t going to work?

You can tell fun stories or you can tell serious stories, but I’m like, because I’d also like to hear when you knew it was really going to work. Probably easier to ask when we did know when it was going to work for those few moments, you know, but no. It was a lot. I remember you didn’t get paid for a while and I was thinking, how long can we do this for? Yeah. Finance is where I was a big deal. I mean, I always are at a church, but especially when your average age is, you know, 21 and 75% college students. I remember one time we were, we were really in bad shape financially and we were, we had four after church, we got these prayer huddles and there was like 25 of us praying those three groups of eight or nine or whatever, you know, and I’m in one group and I’m praying and I, during the prayer and I, maybe this cancels the prayer, but I opened my eyes and I looked around and the other seven people in my circle were students and didn’t have a job.

I’m the only person in the circle that has a job. So basically they’re praying that I will give more. It’s the only thing. And I haven’t been paid, you know, weeks here because there was no money. Yeah. But no money was always a big deal.

It might’ve been the point when, when the band got up, there were more people in the band than there were in the audience. So I was like, oh, is this going to work? First summer. Is this going to work when there’s like four people out and then there’s six people up?

And then the rest of us were either down in the nursery or doing treats out in the parking lot, counting offering. Like I remember going down and doing the treats and then running to the nursery to help in the nursery. And then, and then running up like, oh, you hear the music for offering. So we, a couple of us had to run up and do offering quick and then come down and count the offering and then put it in the goldfish cracker box. Put it in the safe. Tell what the safe was. Where was the safe place we put money? The safe was, we would bring the money down and we would count in this tiny little closet office and we would put the money in a goldfish cracker box. Why? Because we didn’t have a safe and we figured who’s going to steal anything from a goldfish cracker box.

And we literally like just put it up amongst all the books. Like it was snacks in the office. It was literally between like theology textbooks or something like that. Just big old books. But we would, we, we all had five jobs that we were doing on a Sunday morning. And so very few of us were up in the service, enjoying the service. We were, you know, running around doing other things and yeah. I remember one of the earliest, uh, fundraising drives, uh, the next level, the next level, the next level, $16,000 we were trying to raise. And it took us a long time, like six months. We were, yeah. And we, we needed to buy, remember a projector. We wanted a projector. A projector. So that Tom Steinle no longer had to put his transparencies on the, on the, the transparency machine anymore.

Right. It’s like, oh my. Yeah. He’s the only one who could do it though. And when we said he didn’t do it, it was just. Yeah. Yeah. Backwards and upside down. Yeah. I do remember having terror that I would get asked to do the transparencies. Oh. Because I thought that job’s impossible to, you just like, it’s like being in the sound booth when the, when the mic’s going out or squealing. It’s a thankless job. Everybody looking at you except with the projector. Everyone was literally facing you because it was right at the front of the sanctuary. Yeah. I remember thinking that would be the job I’m never going to do. Yeah. Yeah. I can remember on Hope’s 15th birthday, going back to some of these early days and some of the announcements that were a part of a church service.

One of which was going through slide lyrics and, and the last line within a certain lyric was just question marks. Right. Right. Nobody, nobody knew the last line. Right. And took time to fill out what we should be singing together as a congregation. It was just six question marks. And I’m like, this is one of the early memories of the church. Yeah. Like, and then there was another slide that, that said, Paul’s moving.

And it was, it was like a dot in Minnesota and down to like. St. Louis. It was Paul’s title. Yes. But it was just Paul. Like everybody just knows Paul. Yep. And he’s moving. And so we just want to alert the church that Paul’s moving. We should probably go help him move. We had an international student named Victor and we had a member of Victor. And we had said, I was chatting with him one time and I said, hey, sometime you and I should meet for pie. We had Baker Square over there. And he says, I’ve never had pie. So I said, whoa. So we actually did an all church event. Hey, Victor’s never had pie. We’re all going afterwards. We’re going to introduce Victor to pie. And that was the event. And it was a big slide.

Everyone watching him. Victor’s never had pie. Yeah. So. Yeah. In 1998, we did our, we decided we want to lean into touchy subjects, but not ones that were, we weren’t trying to poke the bear. We just were trying to deal with where people at. And in 1998, we did a series on sexual sanity and obviously a sexuality series has been important to part of hope’s history for it’s just dealing with that topic. But I remember saying, cause we are two years old now and we were just starting to get to that point where I was getting a bit overwhelmed. And I said, I don’t know if I can handle the, the load of some of the things that people will have if we don’t have someone else. And that’s when, that’s when Carol came on.

That was the original, uh, you came on as our, um, Carol has a background in social work and counseling. And, and so we brought you on and I believe 1998, was that correct? Yeah. Well, that’s a while ago. That was a while ago. 28 years ago. Why don’t you tell us about all your counseling appointments?

With you? Just wanted to make sure we’re clear. No, but I mean, you’ve been through a lot and you know, and, and, and I know Stan, you’ve entered into this as well, primarily by leading for the last least dozen years or so of the premarital classes at home. No, actually, we started about two years later. So probably about, well, at least 25 years ago. Oh, I thought it was only in the new building. I think everybody at this, uh, other than the people that helped start, I think we’re a part at the premier, have been a part of the premier. Yeah. Sorry. I messed that up. Your name again is Naty or is it Courtney? That’s what it is. Uh, so sorry. Actually, I’m Polish too. Yeah, you are. Mr. Honor. Uh, but, uh, yeah.

Tell us about, tell us about that whole journey. Yes. I remember, um, talking to you about some of this after we’d gone on the wild thing. Um, we were all at Valley Fair and we’d gone on the wild thing and you’re like, oh, I’m so sick. I’m going to go, uh, talk. And I’m like, oh, I’m going to go talk to Steve about this. Yeah. Right. And I’m like, I could have asked for the world. Yeah. You got it. I just asked for a job.

Um, but anyways, just that excitement of being able to, yeah, help walk alongside people and help them get connected where they need and listen to people and stuff. So that was just a passion of mine. And, and then shortly after starting some of that, we talked about, um, doing them, starting a marriage class, just because a lot of people who had influenced us got to a certain point about five, six years and started getting divorced. And we’re like, oh, how do we support our people here through some of that? So those are the two big things that started out happening back in the day, but it was, yeah, just a passion. And it was awesome that all, everybody was excited about it. We did a training and I mean, everyone was, all 14 of us were there getting trained and walking through Larry Crabb’s information.

So it was fun, fun starts. And then Kim came to work for, as an assistant with me years later, it was great. Born secretary. That was the book, right, Steve? The Marriage Builder. Marriage Builder by Larry Crabb, yeah. Still give that to couples.

Here’s the story that Stan loved. You and I, um, talked about what would be in the class and what would be in one-on-one counseling. And I was telling Stan about this and he’s like, you and Steve, to any of ENFP, sat and talked about this and you think that’s going to be the way it happens? I’m like, yeah, we’re going to do this. It’s totally what it is. We got it down, yeah.

There have been a lot of people that have communicated that they really have never seen a church that had both a class and one-on-one counseling together. For premarital, yeah. No, I can’t tell you how much we don’t, I don’t know, maybe you do, but I don’t require it, but I strongly encourage it. And it’s an easy sell. It has gotten so much momentum over the years. People know it’s not only going to be a place for them to have a safe place to talk about their upcoming marriage or if they’ve just been married where they’re at, but also they’re going to get some friendships with other people who are just on that same journey. And I don’t, the only couples that don’t do it now are just logistically cannot do it for whatever reason, but they speak extremely highly, highly of it.

So shortly after that, we move into, I want to say the summer of 2000. Is that when? 2000, wait, to the, oh, to the neighboring building? No, I’m talking about. It was a series of significant health things. Yeah, it was. In 2000, we had one of our interns got thyroid cancer and God healed her of that. And then we had another one in the, in the January, I believe of 2000, Matt McNeese fell and landed on his head and had a traumatic brain injury. And then just a few months later, I think it was May or June, right? June? Oh, it was July. Okay. July of that year.

Graham, who can’t be here tonight, but Graham had his brain injury. And so share a little bit about that. I mean, the church is only four years old at that time or not even. And here you are, um, a young mom. I think you had just given birth to, uh, Shay.

You know, one of my favorite lines is Pat, Pat, who was our first church planter and our first worship leader. Uh, I guess Graham was for a few weeks, but then Pat came in and then, and then, uh, uh, he heard somebody describe the name was baby Shay, but he thought the name of the baby was Bubba Shay. And he went with that for a while, like, all right, again, that free country, you can name whatever you want, but, uh, no, tell that that’s quite a story in Hope’s history.

Um, yeah, so we, uh, we had a five-year-old and a three-year-old and a three-week-old. And, um, actually I was getting supper on the table. It was a meal. Somebody had brought me from Hope. Rhonda Gross had brought our supper that night because we had a new baby, which is a, a lovely, um, hands and feet of Jesus kind of ministry that I think we still do. But, um, and Graham was late being, getting home for dinner. He was going to eat quick and go to an eye appointment. And I thought he’s playing basketball. He can’t, doesn’t want to leave, can’t leave, having too much fun. And as it got later and later, I was like, okay, he’s just going to skip dinner and go right to his eye doctor appointment. You know, I’m not much of a worrier, but, um, that turns out he had had a non-traumatic, just a, a brain bleed, um, uh, got a phone call.

Non-traumatic meaning it was not due to an injury. Nobody hit him. But it was a big deal. It wasn’t a, you know. Yes, correct. It was traumatic, but not from an injury. Correct. Um, yep. The friend who was with him called and said Graham’s had, or Graham passed out and he’s now, he’s not responding. I didn’t know the nature of it. We actually, um, ended up leaving. I dropped our older two boys off with Bart and Lorelei and they came with me to the hospital. And when I got there, um, was in the waiting room just a couple of minutes before a doctor came in and said, your husband has had a massive bleed in his brain and there’s little hope for significant recovery.

And, uh, I felt, yeah. That’s quite a thing to hear, right? Yeah. Hope you’re having a good day too, right? Right. Yeah. I, I guess I, I felt like the floor opened up and I was falling. That’s kind of what I remember. And then God just came in and stopped the fall and, you know, I just, can I see him? Um, I called, I think I called you or somebody called you, Steve. And when they were talking about it, I, in the room, Graham was in very bad shape. Um, I was worried. Don’t, don’t make it sound too bad when you’re telling Steve, cause I don’t want Graham to be discouraged if he can hear what’s going on. But, um, they, they took him into, to, uh, brain surgery, um, to relieve the pressure in his head.

And before the surgery was done, about 40 people showed up at the hospital, mostly our hope family, um, other, some other friends, 40 people. And to be honest, I think it was somewhere between that number, 20 to 40 people that showed up at the hospital every night for the next two weeks. Um, and sometimes I would go and join them and sometimes I couldn’t, but they came nonetheless and prayed on site and, uh, yeah, it was two weeks of seemed like everything that could go wrong. Did, um, he got pneumonia and sepsis and, uh, the doctors punctured his lung trying to put a central line in twice and you can correct me, math teacher. I think that the chances that it happens are one in a hundred. So if it happens twice, you multiply it, one in 10,000 that you would do it two times.

Boy, he should play the lottery. Hope would have no problem if he didn’t win it. So yeah, it was crazy. Uh, we set up a special webpage, Troy Gross, I think found, we did like www.hopecc.com slash Graham and it was not, there was no link, but if you knew it, you could go to it and people, um, were tracking on his progress and yeah, after really insane, the, the initial, um, brain bleed, the two weeks in ICU and all these things, um, he started to wake up and it was, uh, really an incredible miracle of recovery at that point. They said he would be inpatient four to nine weeks and it was about two at sister Kenny. Um, but yeah, I mean, people came, I didn’t make a meal for six weeks. I didn’t mow our lawn.

Somebody came and finished the peninsula in our kitchen that we had started working on and just everybody, um, again, at the, you talk about the body of Christ and it sounds like a, it seems esoteric, the body of Christ. It’s like, no, these were hands that made food and brought it to our house. They were feet that pushed a lawnmower and nailed boards into a peninsula in the kitchen and held our babies and took our kids to 4th of July parades or whatever we were missing. And so, yeah, that was, um, and it was an interesting stretch, right? I mean, Matt had a, uh, a recovery, but it was long and some constraints. Another one was the, um, Langers lost a baby at 39 weeks. Um, it was all right in that year, just so many, I don’t know.

But what, you guys can help me with the details on this, but if I remember right, Nicole Devereaux, before she was Nicole Devereaux, I remember her maiden name, but she, she came to those prayer, prayer nights, never having met Graham. And I think she had just come to Christ. Yeah. Yep. And she was there every night. And this is, we would, it was, it was a horrible time, right? I mean, this horrible thing happening. And you look at that and she, I think she would say, I learned how to pray through that. Do you look that, that it’s those type of things that I feel like we’ve had the opportunity to have the kind of a closer seat to see, well, what’s God doing here? And he’s doing a million things in that. Some of them we don’t like, but there’s some of them that we never see.

But that, that one was like, oh, wow. I remember when she met Graham afterwards, she was like, she was meeting a celebrity. She’s like, oh, I’ve been praying for you. You know, just this, it’s interesting. I remember through a lot of things through that summer. It was a big deal. In fact, when I, we had just found out and then I, we boarded a plane to go do Nathan and Tennille’s wedding in Oregon, Milton Freewater. I still remember it. Freewater. And just, and then we flew out to Seattle, but then drove back to it through the mountains and we were just praying. I think we were there with another couple or something in the car and just praying. And I think in a lot of ways that event highlights what I think is a lot of the DNA of what hope is about.

It’s this, we believe in a very sovereign, merciful, wonderful, all powerful God who can do amazing things. And yet, the first thing when Graham wakes up, he’s cracking jokes on his little, little, you know, whiteboard thing that he had. And one of the other founders of the church was a man by the name of Wayne Berryhill. And Wayne was in residency and he was doing a surgery rotation. And during that surgery rotation, he was in Graham’s surgery. And soon after Graham woke up, Wayne told him I was there. And Wayne said, hey, Graham, I just want to let you know, I’ve seen your brain.

Not impressed. And of course, Graham laughs and laughs, you know, and it’s just that beauty of taking God very seriously and yet not taking ourselves as seriously as well. Well, you all have been through hope for many, many years. And, you know, I’ve been, all of you go back to the old building. We call it the old building, which I think of people that are now today would think we mean West, but we actually mean the original building at the University of Minnesota campus. We were there from 96 to 2003. And in 2003, this crazy thing happened where a church, a central evangelical free church, was in the process of going out of business and they voted to give us their building. Long story, a lot of details of that, but that’s ultimately the way it happened.

And so for those of you journey with that, talk a little bit about that whole thing. I think one of my favorite things is, I feel like you even said you were busy doing stuff the first few years, but that you’re busy, but it also made you feel like you were, you know, you had a part and so that’s why moving to the new building was so fun is like everyone just got to get their hands dirty and what are we going to do? We’re going to paint things. We’re going to clean things. We’re going to do, you know, just, it was so fun to work together and create a space together. And we also got to like adopt families from central and like make them part of our family too, which was so fun to have a expansion in that way too.

That was really fun, but yeah, I liked that. I remember a terrible clip art. Oh yeah. Yes. Home for hope. I’m responsible for all that terrible clip art. Yeah. That makes sense. It’s a little easier for us now with Canva. Yeah. I probably put more effort in my terrible clip art than you all do now with your AI assistant this. But I think AI, do my job for me. Okay. Yeah, whatever. I remember sitting on the leadership team and kind of thinking through how is this going to be possible? How are we going to outbid the University of Minnesota for a property on campus? And yet that was a huge part of the vision of the church and somewhere in this, and it’s a little bit hope lore now, whether it was Bart or Chris Wachter or someone else, but there was just a moment, a spark of, you know what?

We can pray for money, but we really need a building. So let’s pray for a building. And that struck me as so foolish. That was Bart. I remember thinking, yeah, that’s nice. And how do we get a million dollars? Yes. Yeah. And so to think of that being brought forward to the elders, to the church, that we’re going to pray for a building and we’re going to trust God to answer that prayer. And for him to answer that prayer, it just was so encouraging for my faith, which was still in its infancy in a lot of ways, to hear like, oh, our God is big and he can answer big requests like a building. It just was phenomenal.

And that, Central Evangelical Free did an amazing job of passing the torch and the vision of, yeah, we want to hand this to the next generation. I mean, I remember going to the building shortly after it transferred and there, people from their church are there fixing a broken glass thing. It’s like, what are you doing?

Well, this is broken. We need, we need you guys to have this fixed. It’s like, what? I mean, you just think they, they had a vested interest in seeing us move into that space and and gave, gave us their, their, their van. And that was a nice van, right? Yeah, that was, we had a couple, as much as we appreciate them that came from Wisconsin, from Carl Johnson’s church, they were ghetto and they were really bad after we had messed them up a few times and Mike Gosler had hit a pillar in one of the, one of the parking ramps and the sliding glass door didn’t work anymore. Hey, I got a 15 passenger van, but the door doesn’t work. You all have to get in from the front, which is the weirdest thing ever.

That’s the thing. People did it. People did it. Yeah, people did it. They came back the next week. Yeah, I know. That’s why you know the Holy Spirit’s real, right? Amen. Amen. Yeah. You did miss one big thing. I know we’re talking about the new building, but you skipped over your brainchild of LDI and I would be remiss not to mention LDI in there. So I don’t know if you want to leave in. This video was made possible by LDI. Because was Gosler an intern probably when he smacked that van inside? Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Okay, Naty, since you’re the inheritor of LDI, I actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever been the director. I don’t know. Maybe I was for a very brief. I don’t think I was. But, yeah, in 2000, we had kind of come up with the idea that we wanted to do as much damage as possible to the kingdom of darkness, like we like to say, go into the kingdom of darkness and trash the joint.

What are our resources? Well, they’re not money. They don’t have a lot of money. They have hardly any money. But we have a lot of young people and we figured out that if we could just spend time developing them as leaders, and we didn’t mean necessarily vocational leaders in churches or whatever, we just spent leaders in the kingdom. I don’t care what you do for a living. And so we decided to put together the LDI program in the year 2000 is when that was when that kicked off. And so. So you had some interns to help rip a stage apart. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It was interesting, though, to even just watch you all as people who are just a little bit older than us navigate that. And just even, you know, moving into the building and hearing you talk about why would we put stairs on the front of the stage? What does that say? Right. It says that we’re approachable, real people. And that doesn’t diminish how Central used the church before. I don’t mean to belittle that, but like kind of this, okay, we’re removing obstacles all the way of the people, right? Yeah. We’re talking about how do we do that, build up, build up now, remove the obstacles. And even one of those was the thoughtfulness of we’re putting stairs in to show that, you know, like us as the people who are going to be going up on that stage.

And little did I know I would soon come to work at home. But like it’s that idea of approachability and being real and authentic. And some of the things that I had appreciated about all of you all when I met you and, you know, thinking about Graham’s brain injury, I can’t help but think of just shortly after that Aaron was born and he had a topsy-turvy beginning with some heart surgery and just a little heart surgery thing. And just the, you two were at the hospital. I felt like you’re the two of the people I remember most being there. And then we had food for a month. We were like sharing with other people, you know, like, because we’re, okay, guys can stop bringing food to the hospital. We don’t have that much room. I remembered your name by then.

I remember being at the hospital and I didn’t have to ask. I think I was on the leadership team then. Yeah, right. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Sure person of the church. It’s Naty, right? It’s Naty. Well, speaking of approachable and real and being involved in LDI lives, we’ve had a lot of LDI-ers live with us two years. And Chris and Mike Gosler were the first LDI-ers that lived with us. And the day they moved in, they’re moving their stuff in with Chris’s dad. And we’re all in the back bedroom and they’re going to, they have their dresser there and their beds and stuff. And Carson was three and a half or so. And we were potty training him at the time. And he stands up, he climbs up on the bed and climbs up on the dresser and just pees all over the dresser.

We were like, welcome to the Careys. Welcome to real life. You’re marked now. We own you. We’re friends now. That’s awesome. Yeah. I did change the topic, but you know, like 26 years later, we’ve had 25 classes of interns, probably 160-ish interns have gone through the program and just the first year. And I don’t know how many have done the subsequent years, but quite a special thing I did. Because I mean, we’ve had, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration, a thousand people go through one way, shape or form, the classes. And so it’s been great. It’s been a great thing. And it is interesting, you know, I don’t remember the year, Cor, but you, I and Jon Neal were part of a leadership network cohort of a dozen churches or so, I’m guessing, and around the world, actually, mostly in the United States.

But there was one from England. And there was only two churches in that 12 that do leadership development as just developing people to see where they would go. The rest were just trying to fill slots in there. Like we’re training people to be the next children’s person at a different location or whatever. And I was like, that’s not, that’s not unimportant. That’s good. We do that too. But this is just developing as leaders. It was us and we called them the Brits. So of which we had a long dinner.

Do you remember this? A very long dinner with them where one of the, Nigel, went on and on for about two hours, explained to us the intricacies of cricket. Yes. I remember nothing. Ah, you’re Polish, right? Yeah. Jesus. Sorry.

Yeah. One of the things I remember going back to the, getting the, getting the first building was, uh, at the ceremony. So it’s, uh, 2003, my youngest son, Calvin is born in 96, same age as the church. So he’s about seven years old. And I just remember sitting next to me and they were, there was, they were going to do the ceremony where the, one of the people who was a baby when the church was started was now 75 years old. Wow. And he was going to hand me a baton. So he was part of the core group, if you want to call it that, or the launch team. And he was going to hand me a baton, uh, kind of signifying your, your next.

And so Calvin’s sitting next to me and he says, what’s with that stick? And I said, well, it’s like a baton. Like if you’ve seen in races where they hand it, they’re going to hand it to me. And all Cal said to me, and it was very prophetic. And I think of it often to this day. He just said, don’t drop it, dad.

He was serious too. He was totally serious. Don’t drop it, dad. I know how much of a screw up you are. This is a free church. Don’t be dropping it. So, well, I remember when I got to that building, I remember when we toured it, Hope is about, uh, uh, in 2005, no, excuse me. I’m sorry. In 2002, we, uh, started our first church plant, St. Paul Fellowship. Uh, we watched 10%. In fact, the Nelsons went along with that for, for a season that, that we, we watched 10% of our people. They were the non-students. So that was like 20 to 25% of our income just walked out the door to start this new church, which was great. And it’s still, still, uh, going today. Uh, but I, I remember thinking, uh, wow, how are we going to ever get into a building?

And within one year we had, God had given us more people. We had more income and God had given us a free building. And I was just like, you love showing off like that. Don’t you, God? It’s just beautiful. And I remember standing in that sanctuary where 200 people, two and a quarter or so. And I remember thinking, um, my dream of the church was always 300. I just thought 300 would be the best number ever in a city. That’s a fairly large church and you can have multiple staff. You can start churches and all that. So we, we, I remember looking at that sanctuary, which sat 425 and I thought to myself, I can retire here. This is great. No problem. And, uh, and again, I wanted 300 and we, we, we, uh, we closed the church building when they closed.

There was no worship in there for one month. And then we opened it, I believe in the beginning of September, if I got my months right. And we instantly went from 225 to about 330, 340 instantly. Just boom. And a lot of them were just hope people that came back and said, oh, you’re a real church now. So you have a building, I guess, or something, but it was like, not even for one day, do I get my dream number of, of 300. And off from that day on, it kind of had a bit of a J curve. It’s like, oh, we keep starting churches, but it’s kind of like shoveling the ocean. Uh, we’re not going along there and, and pretty soon we get ourselves into a pretty significant mess. I remember one Sunday we had people in that sanctuary.

So this is the hope West sanctuary seated in the aisles and up the stairs going along the, the sides there. And somebody, I don’t know what the number is. I don’t want to know. I’m sure we’re way over it in the green room down below. Yeah. Garden level. We like to call it garden level. We tried everything there with the, what, what God was doing at that time. And so we were in a world of hurt because we just thought, what are we going to do? We don’t have a lot of money. We can’t be adding on huge sanctuary space. In fact, we got to hire, hire an architect for, for a bit to show us, you know, we had two problems. We’re not handicap accessible and we’re way short. So they put together a project that was a million dollars and it was putting in an elevator shaft and we lost 30 seats.

It was like, uh, 1 million bucks. We’re down 30, you know? Well, in the elevator shaft, they said, uh, we’ve, we’ve surveyed your building. There’s 13 levels in this building. You have to, none of them are level. Yeah. 13 buttons you’d have to have on the elevator. You’re up to that level. I mean, because you’d go along and then there’d be a step and it’d be a two down, two steps. And you know, that building, it’s just, I don’t know who and why they designed it that way. Um, but that, that led to some consternation. I mean, those were every, I, I know it and I’m very thankful for it and I’m not complaining, but all of my pastor friends said, well, that’s a great problem to have. And I just kept wanting to punch him in the throat saying, this is not fun.

I’m not, we’re not having fun here. That there’s just all these people, every single place. And so, uh, uh, of course you’d love to tell this story about how we moved, what, what God did to help us with that problem. Yeah. So I remember a distinct elder retreat where it was a single agenda item retreat. What are we going to do with this spacing reality? Cause it’s easy to neglect it, keep moving ahead. We can move to an entirely different location. It just seemed like every option was a bad option.

And so Monday morning, I’m going to go into Hope that night. We’re going to head up North to the retreat. And as I’m kind of walking out the door to go into Hope to start my work day, I’m stopped by a woman at my door and she, uh, drops off her son. My wife was able to stay home with the boys for a season and she ended up doing some in-home childcare. Well, this woman, uh, stops me and she says, Hey, Hey, Hey, uh, isn’t your church downtown and kind of figure out like, yeah, you’re thinking of the right church. Oh, well, I have a, I have a friend that works right next door to you guys at church called Augustana Lutheran. And I was like, Oh, okay. And she said, actually, I heard that she might not have a job for too long.

They’re considering a change. They might close down. They might move. It’s just too much building for the size of the congregation that they have. And this seemed ironic to get this news of a building in downtown sits on the same block as our current building, Hope West. And so I go to Hope, I set my bag down in my office and I immediately walk next door and start banging on the door of this building, um, called Augustana Lutheran. And so end up over time, getting a connection with the pastor there. And we entered into talks with, um, their leadership team about the possibility that we could buy this building and operate out of not one, but two buildings in downtown, which makes it a little bit of a mess, especially for our children’s ministry, having kids spread out over two buildings for six months out of the year.

It’s not that bad, but the winter months between November and April get a little dicey. So, yeah. So we entered into a conversation with them that ultimately resulted in us buying the building. And now we affectionately call it Hope East. Uh, and so the, and, and they, they, Augustana to their credit, we’d always been a good neighbor with them. We had, we always felt kindred with them and, and, and those kinds of things. But, but, uh, uh, obviously they’re not in our denominations or anything. And so, but, but they, they decided to go along with that as well. And so they sold us the building for what they paid for it.

Uh, and then we went into extensive remodeling, uh, and that, that remodeling was painful. Uh, several times we had to keep coming back to the congregation saying, yeah, about that. Uh, we hit more asbestos and more mold and, and different things. And we just, it, uh, uh, tripled the timeline and doubled the money.

Uh, I know that people say that, that childbirth is one of the most painful things you can go through and maybe it’s just cause I was really young, but I don’t remember being that painful. He’s been working that joke in all nights.

That will be cut, I’m sure. But the, uh, but that was one of the most painful, what was it? 13 months of, of our, our lives. Was it only 13 months? No, we got it in April. We got it in April. We wanted to open it by Thanksgiving and we did the next year. Oh, okay. I would have, I would have said it was two and a half years. It was, it was about a year and a, uh, a year and a third or so. It was pretty, pretty rough. But, uh, so, but it is funny. I, I have just this incredible affection for Hope East. I don’t, I don’t remember all those crazy things. I do look down at the floor sometimes and remember some of the issues and remember the, there is nothing level in that building ever, anywhere.

And so to, to get it all figured out, it was, it was really good. But then, uh, uh, uh, 2013 when we occupied that space and probably the Beck’s, uh, we continue to plant churches, of course, in that history, but the kind of the biggest next step was in 2020 when, uh, just by God’s grace, uh, we found it to be time. I know that I had always wanted to, uh, step out of the leadership of the, of the downtown campus. By the time I was 60, I was 56 at the time. And, uh, and that’s when I remember having the, uh, we was during COVID too. So we met at the outdoors at the, uh, the, uh, all square down here at the, where they make great sandwiches. And, uh, we had our talks about what that would look like.

And you became the lead pastor of downtown. Yes. True statement. There was a passing of the baton ceremony that I recall as well. He was on Zoom. It was a Zoom passing. You were in your office and you walked over to his office. I was in his office. I came over, we handed it over. No, no. First, first you put on rubber gloves. Oh yeah. And pulled out a sanitizing spray and sprayed down a baton. We’re the only two people in the building. Everybody else is tucked in at home on this annual meeting, Zoom call. It’s like August of COVID year. Yeah. 2020 and, uh, yeah, you invited me into the building. So I’m in my office, you’re in your office. We’re having the meeting. And then it comes to the point to pass the famous baton that I’m not supposed to drop.

And Colin said it too. After sanitizing it, he walked into my office and then I’m just kind of sitting there. Everybody’s looking, right. We’re all just looking at the screen and all of a sudden you just kind of see this baton and I’m just receive it. And I just see silent applause staring back at me. No one unmutes. Just like I had dreamed of receiving a baton of leadership. Yes. Not, you know, surrounded, laying hands, prayer, you know, it was COVID. So that was how it went down.

The unexpected realities that came with that, that year, that season. So yeah, super honored, thankful. Yeah. To be a part of it. How does it feel, Cor, to now have your boys doing LDI? Yeah. We were the generation of leaders that y’all hope for, I think, right? Some of you have invested significant time in my disciple making. Maybe some tears and maybe some frustration and prayer. Yeah.

But like, how does it feel having your sons now do LDI and know that now this next generation of leaders, here they come. I feel like I need to put out a disclaimer that says, Jill and I did not recruit them to this. There was no pitch. This was something that they came up with in their college house and it shocked us that they wanted to join the staff. And yet, from their end, having grown up in this church, it’s been a positive experience. Church, having a dad as a pastor. And that’s, I think, a tribute to you all in the kind of culture that was established. And so it was normal for people to grow up and then to do this leadership development program. So I’m overjoyed at the chance to have them as co-workers and super excited to see what God does in their lives.

They’re very different individuals, but super excited, thankful. And yeah. The last, one of the last lines in your son’s first newsletter, do you know what it said? No. It says, Naty is awesome. No intern’s ever written that in a, so A plus. Okay. Isaac Chmieleski, you don’t have to include that. Just wanted, just those funny. I was like, I don’t think anyone, interns even mentioned me, let alone say that. Yeah. Okay.

What did you pay him? Nothing. Oh, okay. Just a nice little, nice young man. You shouldn’t say little. They’re all tall and adults now. I’d love everybody to answer. 30 years. You think about it. Some of you weren’t around quite 30 years ago, but one word, what would you use to describe that? If you could, one word.

Family. Good. I’d say humbled. A blast. I think it’s just been a ride. I’d say home. Home. Feels like family and home. I’ll say grateful. Be part of it. Amazing God. That’s one word. It is if you’re Piper and you hyphenate it.

In the Greek. I’ll say blessing. I was thinking gratitude. Yeah. I was thinking mostly I would say fun. I mean, fun with an asterisk, of course. Yep. Because it’s always difficult, too. But it’s been a good, good ride.

I’m so bad with the one word thing. Go ahead and hyphenate it. I mean, I guess what I was, just life? Like, I guess it just was my, it ended up being my life. Yeah. And I don’t mean, yeah, this was just the, it’s wild right at the beginning. Who the heck knows you, you, I don’t know. And then it just, it was, it was our life. Graham just met someone at a, went to a flea market when he was out east. Anyway, this lady was talking about, I don’t know, some event in her life. And she said, well, you know, hindsight, it’s 50-50.

It’s so funny. That’s great. I know. We’ve used it a few times in our house. But it’s, yeah, I don’t know. You just don’t know what it’s going to be on the front side. And it’s. Which is probably a good thing. We didn’t know what it was going to be like. Yeah. It was just.

That being my life. Yeah. I’d be remiss not to mention Bill Berg. So he’s a long tenured pastor at Augustana Lutheran. And, you know, one of the things that I’ve taken away from his life, from his legacy, from his leadership, when he was getting ready to be a part of this transfer of their building to us, he just said, we’re not moving.

God is moving. And that’s what would later kind of become the title of our financial campaign, God is moving. The God is moving campaign. And that has proven true for the last 30 years. And I just pray will remain true that it’s not about us. It is about God. It’s a, this whole story called Hope Community Church is a testimony of God moving in our midst. And it’s super special to have a front row seat as a leader, as a staff member, as a person who’s, who’s been a part of it. It’s super special to see God at work in people’s lives. And it doesn’t mean that every day is fun. There are tough moments, but undeniably God has been at work and God remains at work. And it’s, it’s special. And it’s true. I mean, we, we get the privilege of having been here from the beginning, but there, God is starting new stories every day in the people that are walking through.

And he’s not done. He’s not done with each of us. In the early days of Hope, baptisms we would call payday. I think we still do every now and then, but it was having, having not been able to be there for the last baptisms and being at Hiawatha, which is their, one of the churches we started in 2026, excuse me, 20, 2006, and they’re having their 20th anniversary and not being there, but then watching some of the testimonies, it’s like, it’s, it’s payday once again. It is really hard to, to have navigated this a little bit, the conversation, because you just think, oh my gosh, there’s so much we’re, we’re not talking about. But, so, from your perspective, 30 years.

In some church traditions, they call the senior pastor’s wife first lady. So, all will rise as first lady speaks. Toss a log on while you’re up. No, I’m just kidding. Well, you know, you think about when we ask the question, will this, will this survive and will it take off? And, and yeah, early on, I, I probably was like, well, we’re, we’re, we’re here, we’re doing it. And, you know, I’m a mom of three little kids and, you know, going to church on Sunday mornings by myself.

Because he’s already there and, you know, a lot of us, like, you know, felt that same thing. You know, our husbands are doing different things than we were at the beginning and kind of got the mom responsibility. But, yeah, then it, it, it became more as like, this is God’s thing. This is, this is no longer, you know, we had served as a campus ministry and, you know, we’re, we’re, you know, had it boundaries. And now it’s just like, this is going to keep going. And I saw, um, health in it just because of the people that were coming and the people that were enthusiastic. And, and I remember the times when, you know, we were asking the college kids, are you going to stay here when you’re not a college student anymore? And it was kind of like, no, this is college church.

We’ll probably go find something else. But that, that changed. Yeah. They stuck. And like you’re saying, you know, raising up leaders and just always, um, seeing your tenacity and even through the, you know, it seems like there’s seasons, you know, springtime rolls around and he’s just like, but you get energized again by, you know, time falls coming around and, and, uh, yeah. Seeing the new crop of people that are wanting to make hope they’re home in the fall and, and, uh, it’s just been amazing to see it just keep going. So, yep. That’s great.

Anybody got a burning story? They just, this, you got to share this. And I’m sorry. I am. It feels like I have a cold. I’ve been. That’s yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. You guys have really been, uh, sorry. I’ve been trying to keep it hot because if it’s burning, it gets less smoky. But it’s the wind is right. Yeah. I’ve been, every time I used to just see the smoke, I was adding a log, but. Have I ever told you I’m kind of superhuman? So an average person sitting here, they’d be on the floor. They’d be. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Not a story, but it’s amazing and unusual, um, that we all are still here and love each other and are really in this and enjoying the process 30 years later. And I don’t hear about that too often.

So that’s a big gift I think God has given us. Yeah. It’s like a genuine joy to go to work almost every day. Some days I’m just tired because I’m human. But like, even those days I’m excited to see Brooke come into my office with that smile and have Cor make coffee while he bobs his head cans and he does things. Is this together? Did you guys notice that? It’s my Cor imitation is always like, of course. Sorry. You don’t know you do that?

This is one of the people that stand up front. We have to go to therapy. All these people that notice things about us. He puts the dishes away from the staff lunch the previous day while he makes his coffee every single day. You just know what’s going to happen. Jordan in his office was like, hey, just from his chair, barely says it, but he gets out and it’s just fun to come to work every day. And I don’t think most people get that joy and to have known people for me now, what, 27 years? Is that what I meant? I can’t do that. I feel pressure.

Yeah. And to genuinely actually like everyone here and appreciate them for their uniqueness. Thank you, Stan, for all the teaching and shape class and to appreciate their uniqueness and see what God is uniquely doing in each of your lives and who he’s uniquely created you to be. It’s been just a huge blessing, so.

Definitely. I think when you said you described it kind of as your life and I use the word family, I think that is, that’s it. Like we just, it’s just such a beautiful thing to do life together. It just, what a gift. And there’s highs and lows to that and we will be hurt, we’ll bring joy, we’ll celebrate, we’ll annoy, whatever. Like it’s all part of what family does and this is just such a great, beautiful family that we get to be part of. So I’m really thankful.

Yeah. One of the words I was going to say is ordinary. It’s a weird word to use, but I just mean in that, like, I think what you just said, what you just said is so true. Like we’ve been through highs, we’ve been through lows. We’ve, I think you’re right. We do get along. We’ve had conflict. I mean, that’s part of it. You know, we’ve been through things together and so, but that’s ordinary. That’s what family does and families around and they don’t give up. Cancel no one. You know, you just kind of keep going and so that’s been great. And being willing to work through those things. Yeah. Right. That we can enjoy it. Right.

People do that, which is fun. It’s a great one. One rule. I think there’s also an authenticity at Hope that is unique. So this isn’t a story either, but I feel like there’s a, as you talk about family and enjoying the people you work with, I know there’s conflict there too, but there’s a willingness to say, yeah, we’re going to work through it. We’re going to be together. There’s an authenticity of, we’re trying to figure this out. I love that from you guys to preach it often from this. You did it today in this room. Yeah. I’m, I struggle with this. This is hard for me. And that just lowers the, the lowers the steps at the front of the church to say, we’re, we’re all working through this. And that authenticity is, it’s so beautiful.

So thank you for doing that. Cause that’s not easy. It’d be a whole lot easier just to tell us what to do. And I’m sure there’s a big temptation to do that. You’re looking at scripture going, it’s pretty clear. You guys got to pick it up.

Right. Cause sometimes it feels like that, but it’s like, oh, you guys dig deeper and find the difficult stuff below the surface. Thanks to you founders for having the faith to say yes to this crazy thing called hope.

This is literally our careers. And you guys, I mean, that’s, it’s wild that this one Sunday school class and it’s been our careers. Right. I mean, yeah, it’s crazy. Yeah. And it’s crazy as only God could design it. Right. Yeah. I was just going to say, of course, funny about the small words, but Trike’s small words. I just think of, we talked about LDI, we talked about Hope House, which is what it started, Restoring Hope, that these things don’t, you don’t have to go to seminary. You don’t have to, it doesn’t have to be this professional, official, formal to have huge impacts to, I mean, when I did work with you, Carol, I would say Restoring Hope is listen, pray with people, and point them to Jesus. And there is a place for professional counseling, I would say that 100%, but it’s amazing how far you can help somebody and remove obstacles.

And LDI, like, seminary’s great, there’s a place for seminary, but let’s not put obstacles of money or time that don’t have to be there. And that started with you and just what you wanted the church to be, Hope to be, like even the tendrils, the different parts of it, have that stamp on it, which is really, really cool. I love it. I think it would be fun to go back, I’m sure you’ve got it written down somewhere, but I remember the vision, used to be on the back of the bulletin. The dream. The dream, sorry, the dream. And just to look at that and say, how much of that dream, looking, thinking back on what, some of the things that were there, I’m like, I remember reading that going, well, that’s, I don’t know that, I don’t know that that’s going to happen.

I love the dream. Yeah. But I think God has done that and more. Yeah. And I would have, I mean, to be part of that and to think that it’s going to, I mean, our prayer is that it outlives us, right? Yeah.

Aren’t you glad I talked to you into it? Yes. You were right. You were right. Say that again. You were right. Lorelei was right. Y’all heard it. Y’all heard it. One last story. So we’re at one of the first marriage retreats. Stan and Carol were leading it, but we had, I think Greg Heinch had come in and was the main, but we did this experiment, not an experiment, but exercise where we divided into our different personality types. I don’t remember if you used the Gary Smalley, otter and golden retriever and beaver and lion.

And so Bart, of course, is in the beaver group, you know, which is the meticulous, get everything right. And, uh, Lorelei’s in the otter group with me having fun and, and Bart stands up and says, listen, cause we had an assignment to do. He said, listen, we had a really hard time doing this because these instructions are not super clear. Don’t tell us exactly what we needed to do. And Lorelei just stands up and she says, and I’m married to that.

It was a great moment. Yes, you are, Lorelei. Yes, you are. Still. Still. Since you brought that up, um, when Greg was preaching, he had a clock up there, if you remember, it was a wrestling clock or something that it ticked backwards. Huh. Uh, I don’t know if you remember, this really struck me. Huh.

Uh, he said, when that clock hits zero, I’m going to be done preaching. It’s just wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I’m just going to stop. Uh, and he went into his, whatever he was talking about on marriage and he hadn’t finished, but the clock went to zero. And he said, that’s it. I’m done.

Uh, and I thought, that’s what’s happening in life. Uh, you don’t know when the clock is going to strike zero, uh, whether it be for hope community or be for my life or my, you know, there’s just this, um, everybody has a time when the Lord’s going to call them back. Uh, and as we get, as old people, I mean, it’s, uh, it’s getting closer. Uh, the clock, the clock, the clock, the clock is ticking. Everybody’s on that clock. What I love about hope is that it puts that clock in front of us and says, we’re, we’re on a clock. And to love as hard as you can and to serve as hard as you can and to work as hard as you can and to let the Lord do every, he’s going to do with you as hard as you can.

You know, let’s not, this isn’t about works, but it’s just about God’s grace that he allows us to be a part of it. And that clock’s going to stop and somebody watching this video someday, all these people here, we’re not going to be here, uh, but hope’s going to, by God’s grace, going to continue on. Praise God. And, uh, I think it’s going to reach the next generation. It’s really excited about. So one of the things too, Cor did his doctoral work on this, uh, but it’s oftentimes the, the founders of the church or the old guard can get in the way.

Of releasing, letting it go. It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to let it go from, from, uh, before I retired. I wanted to, to, to model that, but also just to say, no, I want to see the next generation go. And so, uh, Cor and I’ve joked, like from the movie Apollo 13, when Tom Hanks just accidentally sits in the captain’s chair again, even though he’s not the pilot on the return. And Kevin Bacon kind of looks around like, oh, and Tom Hanks, sorry, Jack, just have it. And he moves out of the seat. But I’ve been fairly impressed with the old guard at Hope and how they have really loud, you know, and I know the, the new, new generation and the generation will follow. We’ll say, you kidding me. You guys need to go away quicker.

But, uh, I’ve seen it the other way and I’ve seen it brutal and it’s like, yeah, we just don’t want to do that. People gave us all the opportunity to run. We want to give you all the opportunity to run.

That’s it. We’re done. Oh, that didn’t help. Do it again. Ready? One, two, three.