Core Values
Expositional Preaching
At Hopewell, we take preaching seriously. We believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, Word of God, and we believe the preaching of the Word is one of the primary means God uses to build and strengthen His people. We specifically emphasize expositional preaching, which simply means that we point people to the text of scripture, and we emphasize the point of the text as the point of the message. Because of this, most of the sermon series at Hopewell will be through books of the Bible, and we will equally emphasize the Old and New Testament as we believe the whole book is good for the church.
We are a Baptist church, not just in name, but in conviction. That means that we hold to Believer’s Baptism and a congregational church government. All that means is that under the headship of Christ, the congregation as a whole is the authority in the church. Each member of our congregation is responsible for making sure we continue to honor Christ and not lose sight of the Great Commission.
As for being Elder led, we believe that the term Elder is synonymous with the term Pastor. Thus our pastors are the ones who lead us, not by being in charge, but by guiding us by the Word of God and with wisdom.
Elder Led Congregationalism
Multigenerational Community
At Hopewell we believe that what draws us together as a community that is like no other is simply our unity in the gospel. Therefore, we encourage people of different ages to get to know one another, serve with one another, and love one another. We do have certain age based ministries like children and youth, but beyond that we don’t break any of our groups up by age or stage of life. The reason is because we believe there is great value in having fellowship with others in different stages of life so that they can share wisdom and experience.
Mission Focused
Hopewell has been established since 1803, which is a long period of time. Over those many years, God has been good and faithful to our church. We are convinced that it is God alone that allows us to still be here today, and we don’t that for granted. Rather, we take seriously our Lord’s command to go and make disciples of all nations, and so we make sure to stay missions minded about all that we do. We are active in local and international missions, and we are intentional about our gospel witness with every community event we host. This emphasis on God’s mission is a rubric by which we evaluate all that we do at Hopewell.