Mission and Core Values
We’re working at building a community that follows His way of life, a way that models love demonstrated through inclusion. At Hope, followers of Jesus are fully included in all aspects of the life, leadership, and sacraments of the church regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We think the truth about life just may be love and love just may be the way.
Our Mission:
- Helping people find and follow Jesus
Our Core Values:
- Jesus is Life. The rest is details
- Lost people matter to God and so they matter to us
- We worship God, not tradition
- Following Jesus is a growing experience
- We are one body, united in Christ
Staff
The Senior Pastor serves as the chief of staff for the staff team at Hope and is accountable to the Church Council. The next Senior Pastor will work with a vibrant and fun-loving staff specifically in the areas of worship, congregational care, and shared ministry. She or he will help the church continue to grow worship attendance and participation with an emphasis on Biblical preaching, leading liturgy, and serving the community with joy, laughter, and spiritual maturity.
Current staff members and pastors come from both inside and outside the Lutheran tradition bringing their unique experiences and points of view to the growing ministry of Hope.
Hope currently has 30 total staff positions, 19 of which are part time and 11 are full time.
Key Responsibilities
- Leadership: Offer primary leadership in a collaborative environment with the current pastoral leadership team. Intentionally lead staff and congregation to instill our values across all ministries and both service styles of the church.
- Traditional Worship: Plan and execute (in partnership with other pastors, the Director of Music, and the Choir Director) the weekly Traditional Worship Services. Preach and administer the sacraments during Sunday services and midweek services during the season of Lent.
- Modern Worship: Be a regular presence in the Modern Worship service. This presence could be reflected in multiple ways, such as preaching, administering communion, or making announcements. Any of these methods would be done in coordination with the pastor of the Modern service, who is responsible for the planning and executing those services.
- Equipping the congregation for ministry both inside and outside of the church: This could include methodologies such as leading bible studies, teaching classes, training events, or planning seminars with guest speakers.
Theological Distinctives
Hope Lutheran Church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The key doctrinal and theological beliefs where alignment is essential are: Hope confesses the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, in our preaching and teaching the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.
Hope’s teaching, or theology serves the proclamation and ministry of this faith through grace. It does not have an answer for all questions, not even all religious questions. Teaching or theology prepares members to be witnesses in speech and in action of God’s rich mercy in Jesus Christ.
Hope’s Confession of Faith identifies the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds; and the Lutheran confessional writings in the Book of Concord as the basis for our teaching. This Confession of Faith is more than just words in an official document. Throughout the week Hope’s people continue to live by faith, serving others freely and generously in all that they do because they trust God’s promise in the Gospel. In small groups and at sick beds, in private devotions and in daily work, this faith saturates all of life.
We’re working at building a community that follows His way of life, a way that models love demonstrated through inclusion. At Hope, followers of Jesus are fully included in all aspects of the life, leadership, and sacraments of the church regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We think the truth about life just may be love and love just may be the way.
The Challenge and Opportunity
This is a great opportunity for an innovative pastor who has an appreciation for the Lutheran tradition, a desire for and understanding of church growth and the flexibility to try new ideas that may not always be typical in a Lutheran context.
Some of the upcoming challenges that you’ll have the opportunity to lead through include:
- Continued Growth with a Limited Physical Footprint
While the physical size of future building expansion and parking expansion is limited, the church continues to grow in this season. The next pastor will need to help lead innovative thinking for how the church would continue to grow and grow its ministries despite the limited physical footprint.
- Caring for Both the Traditional Lutheran Experience as Well as the Modern Outreach
Hope desires to continue to see significant growth in Kids and Student Ministries, while also continuing to reach a broader group of people from outside the Lutheran tradition, and sustain a strong Online Campus community. All of this while also recognizing that the traditional Lutheran experience continues to be a vibrant part of the church alongside the growing Modern experience. The next Senior Pastor will need to continue the visionary work of being able to have a vision for both forms of outreach and church growth and ensuring that both expressions see themselves as vital parts of the life of the church.