I love the traditional aspects of Hope UMC.  The sermons are always moving and thought provoking.  I love the family feel of being a member.

I was approached by Jennie to consider being someone who would have conversations with people attending Hope UMC.  I wasn’t sure just what that meant and she said it was just visiting with people about Hope Church.  Later, another person asked me if I would be interested in helping with these conversations.  After thinking about it, still not sure what it was about, I found myself emailing Kathy to tell her I’d be glad to help however I could.  After the email was sent, I felt like I had been guided by God to send that email because I still didn’t know just what I was doing.

Then I went to the training on how to have these conversations.  A group of fellow Hope members who had also said yes to helping, met and got some great training, we did a lot of sharing about ourselves and actually had a conversation with someone.  I thought I knew the people in the group, but learned a lot about them that I hadn’t known before. After that training, I went home wondering what in the world I’d gotten myself into as this was really out of my comfort zone!  I had to do a lot of praying about this, and asked for God’s guidance.

Each of us was paired up with a partner and Otto and I were paired.  The first issue was finding time to meet with people that would fit all of our schedules.  Not an easy task, but we worked it out and got people scheduled.  As we visited with the people, they shared some things about themselves and why they chose Hope Church.  Some were long-time members and some were newer, but basically, the answers were that this church is so friendly and welcoming.  They were glad to be able to visit with someone else from the church because we weren’t asking them to do anything or get involved with anything in the church; that we’d just come to visit with them.   We got some ideas about things we could start doing socially to get people more engaged with other Hope members.

I feel God wanted me to be a part of these conversations, and I was the one who was blessed by each family Otto and I visited with, as well as being partnered with Otto.  I feel much closer to these people and always make sure I greet each of them when I see them. I thank and praise God that He is alive and present here at Hope Church.