Finding Our Center
It’s official! Hope Church is moving to Mallard Creek Elementary School on June 21st! We are so excited for this incredible opportunity to partner with our community and get to the exact center of where God called us to locate this church.
I remember when I first pulled into North Charlotte when Dara and I were considering making the move to be a part of Hope Church. I was driving around one day and came to the intersection of Mallard Creek Church Road and Prosperity Church Road. That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks: this was the “Hope neighborhood”. That feeling was confirmed a couple of months later when I found out that Mike had the same feeling about that area.
Nothing in that area was available to rent, so we followed the open doors that led to meeting at the Starlight Theater. During our 8 months at the theater, God has done some amazing things. Lives have been changed. Community is forming. But there was still this feeling inside of us that our center was 5 miles east of where we were currently meeting. We kept our radar on for potential meeting spots. I would drive around the area and pray.
I remember pulling into Mallard Creek Elementary School two months ago. I just had this feeling that this was our location for Hope Church. The previous administration was not inclined to have a church meet at their school, so this was definitely a closed door. I simply prayed that if God had it in our future that he would work out the details. Sure enough, a new principal came to town and almost immediately approved us to meet at their school.
We are so excited. Beyond the fact that this is a great location on a major road in North Charlotte, we are also going to have the opportunity to serve and partner with the school. We are already working with a local food bank to distribute food on Fridays to the kids on the free lunch program. We will be able to give them groceries on the way out of school for their families to make it through the weekend. So excited! This is just one of many new opportunities we are going to have in this location.
Thank God for his favor and direction! Our prayer is that we would be a blessing to this school and the surrounding community. We love this area and believe that we have truly found the central location to where God called us to serve this community. Praise God!
