January 2024 newsletter

 House-to-House

Family of Hope House Church              __   January 2024

A House Church In Name Only?

Family of Hope began as a group of believers who, with the blessing of the overcrowded Zion Mennonite Church near Broadway, began meeting to pray and to discern whether to plant a new church somewhere in the northeastern part of Rockingham County.
    The group eventually became involved in working with homeless and needy individuals and families, and a number of visionary seminary students and others joined. The group became the Virginia Mennonite Conference’s first and only house church congregation, and focused on investing primarily in ministry rather than in real estate and paid staff. Members experiencing church in its most basic essence, as an assembly of believers gathering for prayer, study, fellowship and in a mission of serving others at home and around the world. From the first, carry in meals were a regular part of each Sunday afternoon gathering.
    The spread of Covid brought about a change to meeting by Zoom rather than in person, and ever since, for a variety of reasons, including becoming a more aged and ailing congregation, the group never resumed regular meetings in person in each others’ homes.
   So are we still a “house church,” or has the name of our monthly newsletter, “House to House,” become a misnomer? 
    Recently we have spent considerable time in prayer and discernment about our future. A survey of members revealed a wide range of views as to whether we should continue as an organized congregation, and if so, whether we would have hybrid, Zoom and/or in-person services. On October 23, in a meeting in the patio of VMRC’s Village, we had only five people arrive in person by 3:30, but eventually had eight present in person and six online, indicative of some of our mixed feelings about where and how to meet.
    I do sense, in our aging and ailing congregation, that the “ties that bind” are deep and strong, but we clearly need to discern what God wants for our future. We will have our annual business meeting January 21, and I suggest we meet in person. 
                                                                                             - Harvey Yoder

Notes, Prayers and Praises
LOIS RIVERA WENGER will be leaving to be with her daughter Lorna and family in Kentucky. We will greatly miss her and pray for a good (and temporary?) stay.
PRAY FOR MARGIE VLASITS as she continues her measured recovery at the UVA Medical Center.
JANUARY BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS to James Stauffer 1/8, Susan Campbell 1/17, Becky Morlan 1/28, and Dick Dumas 1/30! 
WE WILL HAVE OUR ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING at the first floor conference room at VMRC’s Crestwood at 3:30 pm Sunday, January 21. 
BIBLE STUDY TEXTS for January will be chosen by Bible study leaders.

January Services, 3:30-5:00 pm 
7 Location: online

Worship and Sharing: Elly Nelson
Bible Study: Dick Dumas

14  Location: James and Ruth Stauffer’s apartment in Crestwood’s Redbud unit, with worship and Bible study on the Lord’s Prayer led by Harvey Yoder

21 Location: FOH annual business meeting at Crestwood’s first floor conference room. 
28 Location: online
Worship and Sharing  Kent Palmer
Bible Study: Elly Nelson

December 2023 newsletter

House to House 

Family of Hope House Church                             December 2023

Christmas As A Birthday Extravaganza For Jesus         Harvey Yoder                                                               

Many of us put a phenomenal amount of thought and effort into selecting just the right gifts for our loved ones, and spend an extraordinary amount of cash every year doing so. Our economy is highly dependent on this kind of year end Christmas sales for its survival.

    There’s one side of me that sees this as a kind of positive thing. What isn’t there to like about spreading some holiday cheer and focusing on how to make our loved ones happy, plus maybe singing some carols and being generous with Salvation Army bell ringers. It was Bart Simpson, if I recall, who once exclaimed, “We Christians get to celebrate Jesus’s birthday by getting lots of really cool stuff. Is this a great religion or what?”

    But there’s another side of me that asks how all of the spending we do on each other, all the shopping and gift wrapping and feasting that goes with the season, really has much to do with honoring the one whose birth we are supposed to be celebrating?

    William Wood, a retired professor of economics at James Madison University and a member of the Beaver Creek Church of the Brethren, wrote a piece some time ago that was published in the Wall Street Journal, lamenting the fact that our national celebration of Christmas has become so pagan and so unChristian that we ought to just call it what it has become, a "Merry Excessmas", and call the Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth something else, like "Holy Nativity" (or "Feliz Navidad").

    There’s an organization called Simple Living Works that promotes a joyful, freeing kind of more with less lifes, which for many years produced an annual collection of alternative ways of doing Christmas under the heading “Whose Birthday is it Anyway?” suggesting that in the spirit of the real Saint Nicolas of Myra, that we make this a time of extravagant giving for the needs of our hungry, homeless and the displaced neighbors around the world.

    But maybe we can learn something from the way we have traditionally gone about observing the season and apply that to the way we share God’s lavish gifts with those in the greatest need. In imitating God’s generosity toward God’s own loved ones, can we make our life all about lavishing gifts on Jesus through generous giving to the least of these, thus celebrating Christmas year round.

Notes, Prayers and Praises

THE WALKING ROOTS BAND will be presenting a benefit concert at 6:30 pm Sunday, December 10, at the EMHS theater to benefit Mennonite Central Committee and the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale. A freewill offering will be taken.

DECEMBER BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS to Karen Campbell 12/26/69! 

DECEMBER BIBLE STUDY LEADERS may select passages of their own choosing, preferably on an Advent theme.

PRAY FOR MARGIE VLASITS and for success in the treatments she's receiving at UVA.

December Services, 3:30-5:00 pm 

3  We will again meet in person with Jim and Ruth Stauffer in the Redbud unit on the second floor of Crestwood for a time of singing, sharing, praying and communion together, led by Harvey Yoder.

10 Location: online

Worship and sharing: Lois Rivera-Wenger

Bible Study: Dick Dumas

17 Location: 

Worship and Sharing: Lois Rivera Wenger

Bible Study: Kent Palmer

24 We encourage everyone to visit another church of their choice, in person, this Sunday.

31 Location: online

Worship and Sharing: Harvey Yoder

Study: Elly Nelson

House to House 

Family of Hope House Church            November 2023

My Sister Maggie Schrock 1936-2023—Graveside Reflections 10/28/23

Today we lay to rest our precious Maggie here beside her husband of so many years in a space shaded by trees, a place inviting to some of Maggie’s favorite things—birds and wildflowers, bees and butterflies and all things beautiful. She loved nature, loved people, loved her family and friends and neighbors far and wide, and above all she loved God. I’ve been so blessed by growing up in the circle of her loving kindness and sweet spirit, blessed by having a next older sister who looked after me, loved me, worked and played with me, had many conversations with me, sang hymns with me and with others as we got older, encouraged me, and sent us wonderful letters and cards laced with her faith and hope and love.
     For our wedding she gave us a priceless gift of an oil painting of a nature scene she did as a special gift for Alma Jean and I nearly 70 years ago now. We’ll miss her talents and her many gifts freely shared with family and friends  and neighbors and with the students she taught and loved at the Oak Hill School.
    Since we grew up just 3 years apart we shared many first things together, our first big train trip to Virginia when our family moved to the Valley from Kansas, our first school bus ride to the Stuarts Draft Elementary school, so big compared to the one room school we attended together in Kansas. Childhood and youth were full of first things, and now we are experiencing last things, last children leaving home, last paying jobs, last years of robust health and energy. Maggie has been just ahead of me in experiencing good hearing, 20-20 eyesight and good heart health for the last time. We are here today for this last farewell because she has drawn her last breath. The days and years between first things and last things have gone by “swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,” as Job laments. 
    As we and her beloved children became more and more aware of Maggie’s failing health and a great heart that finally just gave out, we were becoming prepared  to see her go, yet not prepared to see her gone, even though we know she is with God. She has gone ahead of us but she will always be with us, will live on in us through all the ways she has blessed, enriched and influenced our lives for good. May God be forever praised.              - Harvey Yoder

Notes, Prayers and Praises

WE ARE GRATEFUL FOR MARGIE VLASITS improvement after being hospitalized for a serious form of spinal meningitis.

NOVEMBER BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS to Neal Nelson 11/2 (in absentia), Paul Swarr 11/10 and Guy Vlasits 11/21. Neal and Elly Nelson’s anniversary is November 26.

FOR OUR NOVEMBER BIBLE STUDIES leaders may again choose a passage from the book of Acts or one of their own choosing.

November Services, 3:30-5:00 pm 
5  Location: We will meet in person with Jim and Ruth Stauffer in the Redbud unit on the second floor of Crestwood for a time of singing, sharing, and praying together.
12 Location: online
Worship and sharing: Lois Rivera-Wenger
Bible Study: Dick Dumas
19 Location: 
Worship and Sharing: Kent Palmer
Bible Study: Ellie Nelson
26 Location: online
Worship and Sharing, Lois Rivera Wenger
Study: Harvey Yoder 

October 2023 newsletter

House to House 

Family of Hope House Church            October 2023

God’s First, Foremost And Final Focus

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."   - Steven Covey

     After a lifetime of reflecting on the narrative of scripture, I've concluded that its main theme is that of God's love for enemies. In other words, God's ultimate purpose, hinted at in the Bible's beginning but becoming abundantly clear in its conclusion, is that of restoring what is broken in creation and reconciling all that has become divided and alienated.

     God's story begins with the shalom we call Eden, centers on the cross-based, enemy-loving life and resurrection of Jesus, and ends with a new heavens and a restored earth. In Christ, God comes to bring an end to all of the enmity that exists between us and our Creator and between us and our fellow creatures. All alienation is over.

    I used to wonder about the meaning of the phrase in Psalm 23, "You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies." Why not in the presence of my friends? Does God simply invite our enemies so they can look on with envy as we good people enjoy a table spread with abundance?

     No, God is inviting us to a Eucharist in which former enemies are being transformed into friends of God and friends with one another.

     Here's one of my favorite examples of this main theme, found in Paul's letter to the Ephesians (3:14-18), in which he addresses the foremost enmity of his time:  

For Christ is our living peace. He has made a unity of the conflicting elements of Jew and Gentile by breaking down the barrier which lay between us. By his sacrifice he removed the hostility of the Law, with all its commandments and rules, and made in himself out of the two, Jew and Gentile, one new humanity, thus producing peace. For he reconciled both to God by the sacrifice of one body on the cross, and by this act made utterly irrelevant the antagonism between them. Then he came and told both you who were far from God and us who were near that the war was over. And it is through him that both of us now can approach the Father in the one Spirit.  

 - J.B. Phillips translation

     This is God's dream. Let's make it ours, praying that every congregation of believers becomes a living demonstration of divided, broken and alienated human beings becoming one, truly a foretaste of the shalom to come.

Notes, Prayers and Praises

ANYONE UNABLE TO ATTEND THE VIRGINIA MENNONITE RELIEF SALE can make a contribution on the Sale website or write a check made out to Virginia Relief Sale (with SOS on the memo line).

OCTOBER BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS to Joyce Ulrich 10/14 and Elly Nelson 10/28!

FOR OUR OCTOBER BIBLE STUDIES leaders may choose a passage from the latter part of the book of Acts or one of their own choosing.

October Services, 3:30-5:00 pm 

1  Location: We'll meet in person in James Stauffer’s room at Oak Lea for an informal time of singing, sharing, praying together rather than our having our usual FOH service.

8 Location: online

Worship and sharing: Lois Rivera-Wenger

Bible Study: Dick Dumas

15 Location: 

Worship and Sharing: Harvey Yoder

Bible Study:Kent Palmer

22 Location: online

Worship and Sharing, Ellie Nelson

Study: Harvey Yoder 

29 Location: online 

Worship and Sharing, Lois Rivera-Wenger

Bible Study: Ellie Nelson

September 2023 newsletter

House to House 
Family of Hope House Church            September 2023

A Spirit-Driven Church Becomes Amazingly Diverse

The God-movement unleashed on the day of Pentecost was revolutionary in the way it brought diverse and disparate people together. Quoting from the prophet Joel, the apostle Peter noted that young and old,  men and women, slave and free were are to be formed together into one living, loving community. 

     But that was just a start, the coming together of Jews of different languages and cultures from all over the then known world--Parthians, Medes, Elamites, citizens of Mesopotamia, Judaea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya and Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians. From there the circle of inclusiveness continues to expand at a breathtaking rate.

     Philip, one of the Greek speaking Jews appointed to oversee the daily distribution of food among needy followers of the Way in Jerusalem, goes on a preaching mission to despised half-breed Samaritans, baptizing scores of them into the new movement. Immediately afterwards, he is led to speak to a eunuch who is a Jewish court official on the road to his home in Ethiopia from Jerusalem, where he would have been excluded from access to temple worship due to his status as an emasculated male. The eunuch is baptized and "goes on his way rejoicing." 

     It is soon thereafter that the most dramatic kind of inclusion imaginable takes place. The apostle Peter is called to visit and to baptize the household of Cornelius, an uncircumcised Roman occupier who is a "God-fearing and upright" Gentile. This represented the crossing of the most fundamental of all barriers, an act which would have been anathema to a devout Jew like Peter. But according to the text, God's Spirit gave him no choice but to fully embrace a hated and uncircumcised oppressor whom God had declared "clean." 

     Meanwhile, new believers who were scattered all over the empire after the wave of persecution that took place after the stoning of Stephen, carried the inclusionary message of the Way to places like Antioch of Syria, which became a northern hub of the Christian movement, one that openly incorporated both Jews and Gentiles into the church.

     Soon thereafter, Paul, once a terrorist prosecutor of followers of the Way, with his companion Barnabas, went on a 500 mile preaching tour in which they baptize Jews and Gentiles alike into the movement. This creates major problems on the part of believers in the mother church in Jerusalem, and results in a summit of church leaders being called to resolve the rift created by the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles. 

     It is hard to overestimate the gravity of this question among early believers. It could not have been more abundantly clear, in the only Bible Jesus and the early apostles knew, that God had initiated this special rite of inclusion as mandatory, first to Abraham, at age 90, and then 400 years later, to the lawgiver Moses. There were to be no exceptions. 

    So for people whose faith was deeply rooted in Judaism, any thought of being a part of God's covenant people without that kind of sacred initiation was nearly unthinkable. Clearly the first century church could have easily divided over this issue, but instead felt led to draw the circle of welcome wider rather than to exclude those being drawn into it. That appears to be the trajectory in which God is forever moving.

Notes, Prayers and Praises

THE VIRGINIA MENNONITE RELIEF SALE is set for October 6-7

SEPTEMBER BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS Lewis Overholt (9/5) and David Weaver (9/23)!

THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS for those overcoming Covid!

September Study Theme: “Paul, a master communicator”

3   Paul addressing members of Jewish synagogues Acts 13-14:7

10 Paul shares good news with pagan and mixed audiences Acts14:8-28, 16:11-34

17 Paul adapts his message in addressing Athenian philosophers Acts 17:6-34

24 Paul addresses Governors Felix and Festus and King Agrippa Acts 24:1-26:32

September Services, 3:30-5:00 pm 

3  Location: online 

Worship and sharing: Lois Rivera-Wenger

Bible Study: Dick Dumas

10 Location: online

Worship and Sharing: Harvey Yoder

Bible Study:Kent Palmer

17 Location: online

Worship and Sharing, Ellie Nelson

Study: Harvey Yoder 

24 Location: online 

Worship and Sharing, Lois Rivera-Wenger

Bible Study: Ellie Nelson

August 2023 newsletter

House-to-House

Family of Hope House Church                             August 2023

Three and a Half Decades Of A Lived Dream

This month marks 35 years since Alma Jean and I transitioned from a 20 year period during which I was pastor of the Zion Mennonite Church south of Broadway to the beginning of what became Family of Hope House Church. The Zion congregation had been experiencing significant growth and was in need of either planting another church or expanding its meeting space. 

     At this point, some of us, with the blessing of the congregation, began having some prayer and discernment meetings with a few like minded persons who were, like us, more interested in the former than spending nearly a half million on the latter, noting that most of Zion's members commuted there for Sunday services from outside our rural community.

     Over time, after becoming involved in ministry to homeless and transient people in the run down former Star Gables Motel, we evolved into Virginia Mennonite Conference's first and only house church. Some Eastern Mennonite Seminary couples, including Ron and Laurie Czecholinski and Guy and Margie Vlasits helped the congregation grow into two separate but affiliated living room size  groups who formed one unified congregation. 

     When a significant number from the second group affiliated with the Twelve Tribes movement in the 90's we became just one group again, and have remained so in the years since. 

     Our aim has been to provide an alternative kind of New Testament-based church family for those who are less comfortable with traditional forms of church life that require paid staff and the maintenance of real estate used primarily for only a fews hours a week. A house church model utilizing the gifts of its own members was seen as one where participants' spiritual and other needs could receive attention at every gathering, and where all would be focused on being God's people in training to minister to people wherever we live and work, and not simply a group primarily inviting others to well planned inspirational services.

     Judging by our numbers, we haven't been very successful in attracting new people or in recruiting and training new leaders devoted to keeping the dream of that kind of missional church alive. Thus we are at a place where we are are asking whether God will create new wine and raise up new models of church life where existing churches are in decline.

Notes, Prayers and Praises
IN OUR AUGUST 6 SERVICE we will be hearing what the Spirit is saying about our future, and about whatever we may have experienced in our church visits July 23 and 30.

AUGUST BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS  to Kent Palmer, 8/10. Also, Alma Jean and Harvey Yoder’s anniversary is August 8, and James and Ruth Stauffer’s is August 30. Blessings to all!

AUGUST STUDY THEMES (below) are only suggested texts, not a part of the lectionary, and whether or where we meet is up to the group. If we choose to use these texts, each participant should come prepared to respond to the question for that Sunday and reflect on how the passage might apply to us today.

Proposed August Study Questions 

6   "What kind of house does God need?" Stephen affirms a revolutionary, tent-dwelling God in Acts 6:8-53

13 "Who is welcome in God's household?" Philip baptizes former outcasts and outsiders in Acts 8:4-40, 10:1-48
20 "What kind of church leaders does God choose?" A former persecutor becomes the church's lead evangelist in Acts 9:1-31
27 "What should God's people require of new members?" A summit at Jerusalem comes to a dramatic, Spirit-driven consensus in Acts 15:1-35

Proposed August Services, 3:30-5:00 pm 
6  Location: online 
Worship and sharing: Elly Nelson

Bible Study: c/o Harvey Yoder
13 Location: TBD 

Worship and Sharing: Lois Rivera Wenger

 Bible Study: c/o Dick Dumas
20 Location: TBD
Worship and Sharing: Kent Palmer
Bible Study: c/o Elly Nelson
27 Location: TBD 
Worship and Sharing: everyone brings a hymn, a scripture, a word of testimony
Bible Study: Harvey Yoder

July 2023 newsletter

House-to-House

Family of Hope House Church                            July 2023

From Richard Stearns' The Hole In Our Gospel

"For the past two thousand years, "loving our neighbors as ourselves" has meant exactly that--loving our immediate neighbors, those people we encounter daily in our communities... That one's neighbors might include those living on another continent was ludicrous until recent times. In fact the great disparity between rich nations and poor nations... largely didn't even exist... Prior to 1800, disease and inadequate health care were facts of life that affected all people. Lack of clean water and sanitation would have been virtually universal. Droughts, crop failures, famines and epidemics would have periodically devastated almost all countries. Illiteracy was common everywhere. It was the legacy of colonialism combined with the advances of the Industrial Revolution that ultimately resulted in the rapid development of some economies over another." (p. 100)

"Only about 4% of all U.S. charitable giving goes to international causes of any kind." (p. 102)

"If your income is $25,000 a year, you are wealthier than approximately 90 percent of the world's population. If you make $50,000 a year, you are wealthier than 99% of the world's people." (p. 215)

Notes, Prayers and Praises
BIRTHDAY BLESSINGS TO Lois Rivera-Wenger July 30!
OUR NEXT IN-PERSON SERVICE is planned for July 23.
VIRGINIA CONFERENCE ASSEMBLY meets at the Park View Mennonite Church July 14-15. Everyone is welcome to a public Assembly worship service at 7 pm Friday July 14.
LEWIS AND MARY ELLEN OVERHOLT will be leaving July 18 for an extended time with family in Germany.

WE ARE ENCOURAGING EVERYONE to visit other churches July 23 and 30, then report back in an August 6 Zoom service.

July Study Themes (or study leaders may choose their own passage)
2   2 Peter 1:1-11 (Matt 13:44-46)
9   2 Peter 1:16—2:2, 15-19 (Mark 13:5-7)
16 2 Peter 3:1-10, 17-18 (Matt 24:42-44)
23 Proverbs 1:1-7; 3:1-8 (Matt 13:34-35)
30 Proverbs 8:1-11, 22-36 (John 8:56-58)

July Services, 3:30-5:00 pm 
2  Location: online 
Worship and sharing: Harvey Yoder
Bible Study: Elly Nelson
9 Location: online
Worship and Sharing: Lois Rivera-Wenger
Bible Study: Dick Dumas
16 Location: VMRC Village Hall
Worship and Sharing at 3:30
Jamaican guests Sister Yvonne McDonald and Sister Regina Taylor at 4 pm
23 Location: No service, visit another church
30 Location: No service, visit another church