A True Hope

Since 2025 has started, I’ve been incredibly encouraged by our church family and sense of mission as a body of believers. Guys, it’s a new year! There’s something very special about contemplating the newness of starting again as we take on another year together. Whether it’s at the church, within our families, or in our personal lives, we are at the beginning of something great if we put our minds to it with Jesus at the helm. I think of a few examples of this exciting new season within our church context. For instance, our ministers are finally fully staffed again for the first time in two and a half years with Michael Ware joining Michael Slaughter in the Music Ministry. Our new Preschool playgrounds and Sonshine Room have officially opened and volunteers have stepped up to grow this new ministry. I’m very excited for this year with you all, South Tulsa!

Recently I was thinking about this outlook I have of 2025 and how that was dependent on my faith in Christ. It is so easy to be overwhelmed in the mess of our world, but Christ makes all things new and gives us a true hope in the future. That type of hope changes everything. In a book my 5 Group has started reading titled Fighting Shadows written by Jeff Bethke and Jon Tyson, there is a chapter on hope and fighting despair. A large part of what they attribute to perseverance and having the strength to push on in life is having our telos right as believers. They write, “What’s telos? It’s a Greek word that can be translated as ‘chief aim.’ In other words, if your life is an arrow, where is it pointed? That’s your telos. Your telos dominates how you live. It fuels everything.” A question we need to ask ourselves is where are we pointed? What do we want to accomplish this year within our families, or for our personal missional goals, or with our church? How do we want to make an impact for the Kingdom and share the Good News that Jesus Christ still brings to every tribe, tongue, and nation on Earth? Let your hope be contagious, and as we see instructed in 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Let’s give them a reason to ask us!