Vision, Values, & What We Believe

Our Vision

“Hope Philly is a place where people can feel safe, loved and known as they encounter Christ.”

Our Core Values

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Kingdom Oriented

The good news of Jesus is that safety, refuge, and flourishing is possible. The real world is dangerous and violent – it is broken and it enslaves, oppresses, induces anxiety and exploits inequality. But it doesn’t have to be this way!  If Jesus is truly God and King, he can renew this world for us, in us and through us. This new King-Jesus-world will be known for peace, safety, hospitality, love and flourishing. This is what the Bible calls the Kingdom of God, and Jesus tells us to seek first this Kingdom. We believe that this beautiful Kingdom of God oriented world only happens through the presence and action of Jesus working through people.

We are committed to building spaces where we seek Jesus’s Kingdom together.

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Restoration

Jesus stated plainly that we must be holy as God is holy. We find that the idea of holiness is deeply misunderstood. Sin disfigures and destroys everything that it touches and living in a world marked by sin gives us all trauma. Holiness is not ‘right-living”, but “healed-living”. In Jesus, the sin-trauma world is reversed. In a Jesus healed community, we are made whole and are called holy. This new-life holiness, and all of its blessings, are now contagious. Since Jesus transforms the broken and makes us holy, he compels us to heal the effects of sin we once sought to hide from God and each other. 

We are committed to bringing Jesus’s holy-healing into the world.

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Justice

Chrsitians typically call the beginning of their new life in Jesus “justification”. This means that the justified are now right with God.  It not only means that we are individually made right with God, but also that the good news of Jesus affects the cosmic realities of sin. Justification always has to lead to justice. As those made right with Christ, we are called to join Him in his redeeming work in our community through word and deed. 

We are committed to seeking justice within our community and throughout the world.

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Hospitality

When God created our world, it was supposed to be the place for us to live and to thrive. But this is not the world that we know, is it? What the Bible calls sin makes our world grossly inhospitable. Sin takes a world made good by God and turns it into a place filled with greed, envy, violence, and death. It is hard to feel safe or that we belong here, but in Jesus, God has reversed this. Through Jesus we have a way created for us to belong, adopted as his family.  This is why our church is all about hospitality. You are welcome here! All are welcome here. This is not an option, as we are commanded by Jesus to welcome everyone. 

We are committed to befriending any who feel outcast, rejected, or lost and to provide them a haven where they can live and flourish.

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Discipleship

 Jesus instructs his community to spread his good news and to make more of his disciples throughout the world. So what does this mean? Being a disciple of Jesus means to know him and to learn to obey his teachings and ways. The space in which the traumas of sin can be reversed and healed is found through living out the ways of Jesus. While it is easy to want this new life, we find that it is a lot harder to make it a part of our everyday lives. Living in a dangerous and broken world is what still feels natural to us and we need guidance to experience and practice the life-giving ways of Jesus. There is a process or journey that we humans have to go through to adopt new healthy Jesus oriented patterns of life. This process, Jesus called being a “disciple”, begins with the sacrament of baptism and happens as we pursue this life together. 

We are committed to providing the space, support and teaching to make the life-long journey of discipleship realized.

What We Believe

 Hope Philly is a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, whose motto is: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things charity.” Our statement of faith is contained in the Westminster Standards and in the seven essentials of the faith:

  1.     We believe in one God, the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be all honor, glory and praise forever!

 

  1.     Jesus Christ, the living Word, became flesh through His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and His virgin birth. He who is true God became true man united in one Person forever. He died on the cross a sacrifice for our sins according to the Scriptures. On the third day He arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, where, at the right hand of the Majesty on High, He now is our High Priest and Mediator.

 

  1.     The Holy Spirit has come to glorify Christ and to apply the saving work of Christ to our hearts. He convicts us of sin and draws us to the Savior. Indwelling our hearts, He gives new life to us, empowers and imparts gifts to us for service. He instructs and guides us into all truth, and seals us for the day of redemption.

 

  1.     Being estranged from God and condemned by our sinfulness, our salvation is wholly dependent upon the work of God’s free grace. God credits His righteousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, thereby justifies them in His sight. Only such as are born of the Holy Spirit and receive Jesus Christ become children of God and heirs of eternal life.

 

  1.     The true Church is composed of all persons who through saving faith in Jesus Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit are united together in the body of Christ. The Church finds her visible, yet imperfect, expression in local congregations where the Word of God is preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered in their integrity; where scriptural discipline is practiced, and where loving fellowship is maintained. For her perfecting, she awaits the return of her Lord.

 

  1.     Jesus Christ will come again to the earth—personally, visibly, and bodily—to judge the living and the dead, and to consummate history and the eternal plan of God. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).



7.     The Lord Jesus Christ commands all believers to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and to make disciples of all nations. Obedience to the Great Commission requires total commitment to “Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.” He calls us to a life of self-denying love and service. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).