Our Vision, Values and Goals
We want to see Christianity expressed in a fresh and relevant way and to help transform lives and communities through the message of Christ.
We believe that what’s on offer in the Christian faith is so dynamic and meaningful that it must be communicated, so that people can understand the message and not get put off by the trappings that so often surround it.
With this in mind the first thing to strike anyone attending Hope Church Nottingham will be our open and friendly atmosphere. We want to connect with people where they’re at and we are working hard at building a Church that’s accessible.
What’s on offer at Hope Church Nottingham is not a religious way of life, but an introduction to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. A relationship made possible not through hard work or human effort but God’s kindness and mercy as presented through his good news.
We welcome people on the basis of the Christian invitation to forgiveness, acceptance and belonging. We openly acknowledge that for many people life is a search for meaning, acceptance and identity and for people who are on that journey, the Church is an exciting place to be.
All the time people try and understand why they exist and seek answers to what life is about, and the Church must recognise its role to assist people in that quest. Church is not a place for people who have all the answers, but for those who want to ask the questions. We believe that the Church should be a safe and welcoming environment in which people can raise their questions, air their doubts and learn to overcome their fears. It should be a safe haven in an unstable world.
The Hope Church vision is born out of this passion, to make faith accessible to all. To remove the dark veil that leaves people cold and disinterested and ignite a flame of interest that enables them to explore and discover for themselves the purpose of life.
For through grace we see the nature of God’s love towards his world, how that is expressed in his Son, Jesus Christ and how we can receive that love through his favour and generosity.
It all starts and finishes with grace.
At Hope Church Nottingham we have two main aims; to share the good news of God’s grace and to see people grow in this grace. To enable this we have four core values which we try and keep central to everything we do. We spent some time thinking about what this might mean in practice and this is what we came up with…
We believe that through worship we are responding to the words of Jesus who said, “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24).
We recognise that discipleship is a process that we enter and the church encourages and nurtures of which Christ likeness is the goal. We also recognise that as disciples we all grow at a different pace and therefore encourage people to discover their own pace within the church’s life. Christian’s are called to a life of freedom and we believe that discipleship is the context in which that freedom should be expressed.
We believe that Christian care should be foundational to the church community and that love and compassion are the hallmarks of true Christian work. As part of our caring philosophy we have defined that our Christian care should be offered on the following basis:
The church exists primarily for the purpose of mission, which is why we have been mandated to take the good news of the gospel to the world. We aim to do this through the development of an effective mission’s programme that targets both our own locality and city and opens our eyes to the wider issue of Christian Mission abroad.
If you would like to know more about our vision for the church and what is important to us, then please click below.