"We are the People of Hope! And Jesus is Lord!"
A Year in Review on the Occasion of our 44th Anniversary as a Community
We are the People of Hope! And Jesus is Lord!
This year, in spite of everything, we have pursued the Lord as a community of disciples on mission.
We have had 8 prayers meetings, 5 fully virtual, 3 with both in-person and virtual options.
We celebrated 7 new publicly committed members and 21 initially committed members.
We have come together, whether virtually or in-person, to praise God, to encourage each other, and to be People of Hope for the World.
(Anchor)
With 32 small groups and 24 weeks of meeting, we have met together as small groups over 750 times this year.
The Daughters of Hope has continued to be active with drive-bys and visits, served by a wonderful team of younger sisters.
A tremendous thank you to our 9 People of Hope members who have been active Healthcare workers, working on the front lines, as well as to many of our family members and close friends.
(Compass)
With 50 active members and 6 small groups, our young professionals branch, Compass, has continued to take courses as a group, hosted 10 Lord’s Day dinners, met in small groups, and come together to praise and worship the Lord.
(Ignite/Ignite Middle)
With 33 active teens and 10 youth workers, our high school ministry, Ignite, has hosted 10 Ignite Nights and 8 small groups and was able to send 27 teens and 10 chaperones to the Kairos national retreat.
Ignite Middle, which serves about 50 middle school students hosted 3 major events this spring.
(Missionaries/SPO)
We continue to encourage and support the 14 Saint Paul’s Outreach missionaries in NJ, who serve both Seton Hall University and Rutgers University, by facilitating our “Adopt a Missionary” program and providing active support through small groups, formation, and worship opportunities through our Compass Young Professionals branch.
We are grateful for their evangelistic efforts on college campuses!
(Retreats/Conferences)
As a community, we were able to host and participate in almost a dozen retreats and conferences throughout the year, many of which were national or global in scope:
-Ignite Camp Hope Day
-Ignite Middle Camp Hope Day
-Elementary School Camp Hope Day
-Pronto: Sword of the Spirit Global Young Adults Virtual Conference
-People of Hope Fall Retreat
-Compass Fall Retreat
-Kairos Youth Workers Training
-North American Virtual Regional Prayer Meeting
-YES Retreat for Sword of the Spirit Teens
-People of Hope Community Conference
-Marriage in the Holy Spirit Weekend
(Media Initiatives)
Through your generosity, we raised roughly $10,000 for our tech needs to support livestreaming, worship, and media initiatives.
-We launched the Tiny Chapel Sessions with the goal of prompting prayerful worship by collaborating with local Christian musicians as well as a Meet the Artists series to help support and encourage Christian musicians.
-We were privileged to film for C MAX TV to provide footage for their upcoming Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa documentary
-We look forward to many more media initiatives in the coming months
(In Closing)
Although the world has faced hardship, loneliness, brokenness, disunity & little hope this past year, the Lord has been faithful to us as a People & has drawn us closer to Himself & to one another. Thank you Jesus for your faithfulness to your People of Hope in this past year.
You can watch our "Year in Review" video here.
Want to read more about our life together? You might like our recent article "Let Your Light So Shine" about making public commitments to each other as a community.