Dear New Hope family UPDATE

Dear New Hope family UPDATE

Dear New Hope family,

I hope this post finds you well during these uncertain times.

As you know, we previously postponed all church activities through April 1st. Now, in light of the Governors’ Statewide Curfew (which is “until further notice”) and the President’s Guidelines (which have been extended for another month), the session is further postponing all church gatherings for the month of April. We want to encourage you to stay home as much as possible—please be safe!—until we can see each other again.

We are working hard to stay in touch with everyone to ensure that all is well and that everyone’s needs are being met. Please help us out by letting us know whenever you become aware of needs within the family, church family, or community. Please keep one another in your prayers.

Once again we will be sending out a link for Sunday’s worship; it should arrive in your inbox by Saturday afternoon at the latest.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share with you two questions from the Heidelberg Catechism that seem particularly helpful:

1. Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil.  He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

27. Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. God’s providence is His almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand.

Know that you are loved, prayed for, and safe in the Father’s hand—and that we stand ready to help as we are able.

In Christ,

Pastor Claude Taylor