Multiplying Hope

A Note from Luminex: Throughout the Advent season, our Monday blogs are centered on the Advent theme of the week (Faith, Hope, Joy, Love, Christ), and about how the theme in some way informs our mission to multiply. Today’s post is on Hope, and comes from Art Wiers, Luminex Church Health Catalyst.

Occasionally I am confronted in conversations by individuals who see the church as something that is outdated and irrelevant. In the midst of such conversations I will suggest that the person consider what our society would look like if every church and its influence were removed. The point I try to make is that even with its weaknesses and faults, the church brings something this world desperately needs: hope. Not a false optimism that if you wait long enough things will get better, but a genuine hope that is not based on what we do, but rooted in what we believe.

Nearly thirty years ago I was asked to travel to a communist country to help support Christian pastors who were leading a revival in a nation that was suffering terrible oppression.  It was unmistakable in that setting to see that the church brought hope where there was no hope.  The leaders there were giving everything they had to multiply the ministry of the church, for the sake of bringing hope to the people of their country. Some of the leaders were imprisoned for their faith while others became martyrs for the cause of bringing the hope of Christ to the hopeless.

When something is important it needs to be multiplied.  I can think of nothing more important than bringing hope to a world that is filled with hurting and hopeless people.  We need to multiply disciples, leaders, ministries, and most of all churches so that the power of true hope in Christ is brought in greater measure throughout our society and world.  If I learned anything on that adventure some thirty years ago, it was that I don’t want to live where there is no hope.

Is your church serious about multiplying for the sake of bringing true hope to a lost and broken world?