An Emerging Hope
Hope Reformed Presbyterian Church is now nearly two decades old. It is hard to believe that so much time has passed since that first morning worship service at the University Lodge on December 9, 1990. About 140 people showed up that first Sunday. Some of them were friends and well-wishers from sister congregations. Many from the community were just plain curious about this new church. But as it turned out about 90 persons from that original group remained at the end of the first year. We thank God for the good beginning he gave this new congregation. It seemed that we were on our way. Now the hard work really began.
The foundations for this new church actually began to be set in place almost a year earlier. In the Lord's Providence, Reverend David Cross, pastor of the PCA congregation in Carlisle, had had contact with some folks in the Shippensburg area who were interested in starting a new church. Specifically, they were interested in a church that would be true to the Scriptures, true to the gospel of grace, and true to the last Great Commission that Jesus gave his disciples: to spread the good news of God's grace into all the world. With that dream in front of them, four couples began meeting in the home of Peter and Cheryl Hill on chilly Sunday evenings in February to study Scripture and, as it turned out, to have their hearts more strongly united in a common purpose. Shortly after this Bible study group began, it moved to a community room on East King Street.
It was at this new location that some other families took an interest in the new endeavor and joined the study group led by Reverend David J. Fidati. It seemed that, in one way or another, each group member was searching for something to sustain them, searching for some good news that is really good, searching for hope. So, it is really no surprise that, when it came time to choose a name for the new congregation, we chose "Hope."
Establishing Hope
On September 15, 1990 the Susquehanna Valley Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America formally called Reverend David J. Fidati to the church planting work in Shippensburg. Preparations began immediately for the first worship service. After phoning 12,000 residents of the area and receiving 1,200 positive responses, this small group completed five mailings to those who requested information about the new church. Humanly speaking, the stage was then set for the first service on December 9th. It remained for us to see what God would do.
After the first service the team that had begun the work of gathering a congregation then set about the task of helping a group of strangers and mere acquaintances become a true community. As time went on, we added a Sunday school, a youth ministry, and small groups in order to better achieve that goal. Something more was added than the tangible evidence of new programs, however. Brotherly love began to grow and flourish. We could see clear evidence that God was at work. This young congregation had begun to grow into a true ‘household of faith.' But every family needs a home.
Hoping Against Hope
It was in 1991, during the first year of Hope's existence, that we began our search for a more permanent location and facility. Some leaders in the community pointed us in the direction of Walnut Bottom Road, noting that community development would probably move in that direction and that it was easily accessible from the interstate highway. We started praying fervently that the Lord would give us property along Walnut Bottom Road. We had no money. We had no endowments. We had only our hope in the Lord's provision.
In the Lord's Providence, within several months of a concerted effort of prayer, the owner of the tract of land we wanted began attending Hope! To make a long story short, within a year of his first attendance, the church had concluded a deal to purchase five acres of land for less than the average cost of one acre or $30,000. More than that, he agreed to finance it himself at no interest. In other words, he simply told the church that when they had raised the money, they would settle the deal.
Though the church was able to raise the funds within fourteen months, some serious financial difficulties made it impossible for them to go to settlement. The church's General Fund giving was not keeping pace with expenses. The Session presented the problem to the congregation with the projection that, unless trends seriously changed, the church would be financially insolvent in three months. The congregation responded with extraordinary generosity and sacrifice, and the Lord's Providence was evident once again.
During that time, however, some things had changed. Water and sewer lines had been installed by the owner himself at a cost of $10,000. This, of course, made the land more valuable. By the time of settlement, the land was valued at $260,000. Yet, the patient and generous owner held the price at $30,000. He even paid for the appraisal of the land that showed the disparity between its value and the selling price! Hope Church was then in possession of a great financial asset that we could quite literally take to the bank.
Since we had enormous equity in a piece of land that was growing quickly in its value, the bank did not hesitate to approve a loan for the construction of our new facility. Yet, how were we to furnish that facility? Where would we get enough money to cover the cost of tables and chairs, nursery equipment and blackboards, or even a pulpit?
Once excavation on the building site began, at least part of the answer to these questions came to light. For some odd reason, the lot was covered with such a deep layer of topsoil that we were left with a surplus of about 200 truckloads to sell. Together with generous gifts from some individuals outside the congregation and from some of our sister congregations in the Susquehanna Valley Presbytery this surplus topsoil provided us with the means to furnish the entire building!
On June 6, 1999-about eight and a half years after our first service at the University Lodge-we held our first service in our own facility. Almost from the first week the congregation began to grow. During the first year several new families and individuals began to find Hope to be a congregation in which they were accepted and cared for and, most of all, a congregation in which they learned the depths of God's love and grace to us through Christ.
Hope for the Future
What lies ahead? What is God calling us to be and to do? First, we are convinced that God himself is on a mission. He is on a mission, not to collect a religious elite, but to build a new world-a new heavens and a new earth inhabited by a new humanity. Secondly, we are convinced that the church is a new community created and led by the Spirit of God to cooperate with God's mission. We believe that God is calling us to be a Spirit-led community that both represents and participates in the expansion of God's redemptive reign. In other words, we believe God is calling us to be an outpost of heaven and an instrument of kingdom expansion. The first aspect-representing the kingdom-requires community formation. Heaven is a world of love and joy and peace.... So, as an outpost of heaven, the church must be a reconciled diversity that is marked by those same qualities.
The second aspect-participating in kingdom expansion-requires the fulfillment of our commission. The Cumberland Valley, then, does not exist for the sake of Hope Church. Hope Church exists for the sake of the Cumberland Valley and the world. It is not the church, but the world, that is the horizon of God's redemptive activity. This means it is our calling to bring the healing grace of the gospel, in word and deed, not merely into individual lives, but into the institutions and social structures of this Valley and the world.
This is what we mean by a missional church. God is on a mission to build a new world inhabited by a new humanity. It is our calling to cooperate with that mission. So, it is the mission of Hope Church to...
engage people with the gospel of grace,
embrace them in a community of grace,
equip them to live by the power of grace,
So that together we may
exalt and enjoy the God of grace.
Hope for Eternity
The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews has summarized our hope like this:
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.
Hebrews 6:19-20 (NIV)
The life of a congregation, like the life of an individual Christian, is a pilgrimage through this life to eternity. How can we find our way? Where is the pole star by which we can navigate in this world that is so darkened and confused by sin? Jesus told his disciples, "I am the way...." The writer of Hebrews, using a different metaphor, tells us that Jesus is our hope. He is our anchor. He is anchored in the presence of God in heaven; and if we are united to him by faith, we have a secure hope that, one day, we will be there with him.
As Jesus Christ has led us on the brief pilgrimage of the last two decades, so he will lead us through the next decades and on into eternity-on into the presence of God-on to heaven our real home. During the coming decades we may build larger facilities. We may build more elaborate ministry programs. We may develop a more complex organization. But God help us if, while we live in this broken world, we ever become convinced we have arrived at home. Ultimately, our hope is not found within this present world, but in Jesus Christ himself.
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