Rooting for Bright Hope

Living nearby, I was close enough to know the highs and lows of Bright Hope Fellowship: a strong start, the disruption of masonic issues, recovery and growth, construction of a building, mortgage repayment, eruptions of conflict, a measure of relational healing, a new look for the sanctuary space, major upgrades in technology, and a first-rate livestream.

Called to be interim pastor in the fall of 2021, Connie and I were privileged to partner with folks at Bright Hope in fulfilling their mission to be “a loving community pursuing grace, truth and hope in Jesus.” Our aim and hope was to make headway in steps that would prepare the way for a new pastor.

To do this, our first initiative was to pray. To start, we took prayers that people were already praying and shaped them into ten key requests for Bright Hope. We prayed these prayers for 40 days—and we began to see God’s answers!

As a next step, we proposed to pray and work toward seven aims in the next year, 2022: start outreach events, enhance music ministry, enfold new people, expand children’s ministry, launch a youth group, bond with the new pastor, and see people saved, baptized, and healed.

One initiative was to invite family and friends to Bright Hope. A survey found that a third of practicing Christians stopped coming to worship during the Covid pandemic. Bad as this was, it created an opportunity for Bright Hope. We offered relevant and practical preaching and planned a series of outreach events as opportunities to find and invite these folks to join us at Bright Hope.

To enhance our worship, we brought in a seasoned worship leader for a training day with our worship team. To welcome families with children, we showed children’s videos in our onsite worship services. To be ready for more youth, a stretch for us, we began to talk about ways to launch a youth group.

In all of this we endeavored to pay attention to what the Lord was saying and doing among us. To our joy, some new family and friends joined us for a modest bump in worship attendance. We regained a sense of health and vitality. The culminating blessing was the appointment of a new pastor with the heart and gifts to carry on the Lord’s unfolding work in and through Bright Hope Fellowship.