Our founding fathers (waaaaay back in 1987) had an insightful and compelling vision for who and what New Hope Christian Chapel would become. They penned these two statements as part of our founding articles of incorporation within our Organizational Structure and they were true then and remain true today. Take a minute to get a glimpse into what sort of unique family New Hope began as and continues to be!
AS TO THE DEVELOPED “CULTURE” OF NEW HOPE CHRISTIAN CHAPEL
- We believe and accept the need for strong leaders understanding that “strong” is not synonymous with “dictatorial”.
- We are not affiliated with any given Protestant denomination. We choose rather to be more balanced in our approach to denominational dogma. We recognize, however, that positions that conflict with ours, held by other churches or groups, are not (by definition) automatically wrong. We do expect, however, that those seeking to join with us have chosen to voluntarily adhere to The Chapel’s Teachings, (for example, what we project to others, how we instruct our children, etc).
- We are a non-traditional in our approach to many things. We do-not, however, disdain tradition. Indeed, we see tradition as healthy and necessary to stability, and that as time goes by, The Chapel is, in fact, establishing its own traditions.
- We do not choose, however, to become the servants of tradition for tradition’s sake and feel free as a body to exercise a very wide degree of latitude in the manner in which we conduct the activities of The Chapel.
- We are a creative group of people opting, almost without exception, for a common sense and rational course of action.
- We choose to be self motivated, yet diplomatic, in our interactions with each other while understanding that diplomacy does not mean that we will not confront issues and situations directly.
AS TO THE DEVELOPED “PERSONALITY” OF NEW HOPE CHRISTIAN CHAPEL
- We are a loving and tenderhearted people willing, if so moved, to show appropriate emotion in public.
- We are not overly judgmental.
- We are tolerant “of human frailty”.
- We choose to be happy and joyful.
- We are (as much as personalities and respect for the private space of others allow) affectionate and appropriately physical with each other.
- We are openly generous to each other and, whether on the giving or the receiving side, we see generosity as a gift from God and an act of love, not a reason to feel the weight of indebtedness.
- We seek to be open minded to the opinion of others in terms of political and stylistic disposition. We understand that adherence to the Bible does not necessarily mandate any one given political or social philosophy. We do believe, however, that some things are wrong because they are clearly so taught in Scripture. We will always defer to Scripture as our decision point.
- We choose to be flexible.
- We seek to be non-sexist and non-racist and further, do not seek to compete with each other in terms of economic status. There are no favored people or families at the Chapel.
- We do not honor materialism; understanding rather that God chooses to bless different people in different ways at different times.
- We seek to “do the right thing” versus “doing things right” in that we are not necessarily trying to make everyone happy. Our allegiance is solely to the Bible and the leading o f the Holy Spirit (and although not mutually exclusive) not to the acceptance of people.
