The Case For Hope Order Printed Copy

Author: Lee Strobel
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About the Book

"The Case for Hope" by Lee Strobel explores the power of hope in the face of life's challenges and hardships. Strobel shares personal stories and insights from experts to make a compelling argument for the importance of hope in navigating difficult circumstances and finding purpose and meaning in life. The book encourages readers to embrace hope and to believe in a brighter future, no matter what they may be facing.

John Wesley

John Wesley, (born June 17, 1703, Epworth, Lincolnshire, England—died March 2, 1791, London), Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and founder, with his brother Charles, of the Methodist movement in the Church of England. John Wesley was the second son of Samuel, a former Nonconformist (dissenter from the Church of England) and rector at Epworth, and Susanna Wesley. After six years of education at the Charterhouse, London, he entered Christ Church, Oxford University, in 1720. Graduating in 1724, he resolved to become ordained a priest; in 1725 he was made a deacon by the bishop of Oxford and the following year was elected a fellow of Lincoln College. After assisting his father at Epworth and Wroot, he was ordained a priest on September 22, 1728. Recalled to Oxford in October 1729 to fulfill the residential requirements of his fellowship, John joined his brother Charles, Robert Kirkham, and William Morgan in a religious study group that was derisively called the “Methodists” because of their emphasis on methodical study and devotion. Taking over the leadership of the group from Charles, John helped the group to grow in numbers. The “Methodists,” also called the Holy Club, were known for their frequent communion services and for fasting two days a week. From 1730 on, the group added social services to their activities, visiting Oxford prisoners, teaching them to read, paying their debts, and attempting to find employment for them. The Methodists also extended their activities to workhouses and poor people, distributing food, clothes, medicine, and books and also running a school. When the Wesleys left the Holy Club in 1735, the group disintegrated. Following his father’s death in April 1735, John was persuaded by an Oxford friend, John Burton, and Col. James Oglethorpe, governor of the colony of Georgia in North America, to oversee the spiritual lives of the colonists and to missionize the Native Americans as an agent for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Accompanied by Charles, who was ordained for this mission, John was introduced to some Moravian emigrants who appeared to him to possess the spiritual peace for which he had been searching. The mission to the indigenous peoples proved abortive, nor did Wesley succeed with most of his flock. He served them faithfully, but his stiff high churchmanship antagonized them. He had a naive attachment to Sophia Hopkey, niece of the chief magistrate of Savannah, who married another man, and Wesley unwisely courted criticism by repelling her from Holy Communion. In December 1737 he fled from Georgia; misunderstandings and persecution stemming from the Sophia Hopkey episode forced him to go back to England. In London John met a Moravian, Peter Böhler, who convinced him that what he needed was simply faith, and he also discovered Martin Luther’s commentary on the Letter of Paul to the Galatians, which emphasized the scriptural doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. On May 24, 1738, in Aldersgate Street, London, during a meeting composed largely of Moravians under the auspices of the Church of England, Wesley’s intellectual conviction was transformed into a personal experience while Luther’s preface to the commentary to the Letter of Paul to the Romans was being read. From this point onward, at the age of 35, Wesley viewed his mission in life as one of proclaiming the good news of salvation by faith, which he did whenever a pulpit was offered him. The congregations of the Church of England, however, soon closed their doors to him because of his enthusiasm. He then went to religious societies, trying to inject new spiritual vigour into them, particularly by introducing “bands” similar to those of the Moravians—i.e., small groups within each society that were confined to members of the same sex and marital status who were prepared to share intimate details of their lives with each other and to receive mutual rebukes. For such groups Wesley drew up Rules of the Band Societies in December 1738. For a year he worked through existing church societies, but resistance to his methods increased. In 1739 George Whitefield, who later became an important preacher of the Great Awakening in Great Britain and North America, persuaded Wesley to go to the unchurched masses. Wesley gathered converts into societies for continuing fellowship and spiritual growth, and he was asked by a London group to become their leader. Soon other such groups were formed in London, Bristol, and elsewhere. To avoid the scandal of unworthy members, Wesley published, in 1743, Rules for the Methodist societies. To promote new societies he became a widely travelled itinerant preacher. Because most ordained clergymen did not favour his approach, Wesley was compelled to seek the services of dedicated laymen, who also became itinerant preachers and helped administer the Methodist societies. Many of Wesley’s preachers had gone to the American colonies, but after the American Revolution most returned to England. Because the bishop of London would not ordain some of his preachers to serve in the United States, Wesley controversially took it upon himself, in 1784, to do so. In the same year he pointed out that his societies operated independently of any control by the Church of England. Toward the end of his life, Wesley became an honoured figure in the British Isles.

host as you are - practicing hospitality as a family

Love God and love your neighbor . This is the Butterfield family motto. It makes us humble, messy, and on the frontline in our neighborhood. And being on the frontline isn’t pretty. “Hospitality means being profoundly unselfish, and small children need help to see the blessing in this.” Take for example last March, when the pandemic hit. We were supposed to batten down the hatches, disinfect everything, including the family cat, and remain socially distanced at all times, but schools closed before parents were home from work. So after the first week of lockdown, I looked like the little old lady who lived in the shoe. Our house was open, boisterous, noisy, and full of students who would have been in class. I could visualize getting arrested in my apron for violating governor’s stay-at-home and social-distancing orders. While that hasn’t happened, other things have happened that have made me realize that children play a vital and central role in Christian hospitality. Indeed, I couldn’t practice hospitality without them. Consider six touch points for children’s central role in Christian hospitality. 1. Hospitality is a mission of the church. Sometimes we American Christians privatize hospitality in false ways. Hospitality isn’t a Butterfield thing. It’s a church thing. And children are a blessed part of our church. Jesus loves children and so do we. As the church seeks to evangelize the world, the homes of church members become gospel outposts, places where we bring the gospel to the neighborhood. This is very good news for people with young children. It means that the burden is not on you to be different. It means that your unsaved neighbors will benefit from seeing that you also decorate with plastic dinosaurs and LEGOs. And it also means that you do not always have to be in hospitality mode. As Edith Schaeffer said, doors have hinges for a reason. 2. Hospitality puts the church on the frontline. When inviting unsaved neighbors over, Kent and I always invite our church family, too. The more the merrier, especially in the summer. Your unsaved neighbors will benefit from seeing many different models of the covenant family, including singles (whose church membership renders them a covenant family) and older people. Many Christian hands make the care of little ones easier. Also, with the church family on deck, your children will not feel neglected or isolated as they participate in hospitality. Hospitality means being profoundly unselfish, and small children need help to see the blessing in this. 3. Hospitality puts hot-button topics on the frontline. Our family is made by adoption and all of our children are biracial. Christians know that oppression, violence, and discrimination are sin, but we do not believe that racism, for example, is itself a “meta-narrative” — a paradigm that declares all white people are racists, all black people victims, all social structures complicit in a white hegemonic hatred machine, and any white family who has adopted children of color as colonizing micro-aggressionists. If these things were true, then the Butterfield family doesn’t exist. And yet here we stand, opening the door to everyone. When your family is on the frontline, it has the opportunity to showcase the love of Christ, the purpose of natural law, the harmony of the biblical callings of male and female, and the shallowness of the modern social construction of race. It exposes idols and tears down strongholds and reveals how the love of Christ transcends sociology (shocking as this may be). 4. Hospitality builds relationships within the family. Hospitality is a joy for small children when they get to have some agency in the process. Especially when you are opening your home to others in the neighborhood with small children, your children should be enlisted as hosts. They can set the kids’ table and make the kids’ menu. And with platters of chicken nuggets, watermelon, and popsicles, don’t be surprised if some of the neighborhood dads are found sampling the children’s fare. Your children can also be prepared to think like Jesus would about having children over who haven’t gone to church and don’t (yet) know Jesus. Your children need to be guided in how to be good hosts who lead and set examples (and don’t follow bad ones). And you should set clear boundaries for safety. In our house, there is no playing in children’s bedrooms. Ever. We have a big back yard with a trampoline, and we think that a knock on the head is safer than anything that happens behind a closed door. Working together to have a hospitable home also puts all hands on deck — from the smallest to the largest. Children can’t clean the house as well as you can, but even a small child can sweep up tumbleweeds of dog hair and throw trash in the kitchen can. Value their contributions. 5. Hospitality cares about what neighbors care about. When you open your home to neighbors, you set a table that welcomes them. You ask them about food allergies and other sensitivities. You remember these things and you go out of your way to care about what they care about. You practice becoming all things to all people in the hopes of saving some (1 Corinthians 9:22). You help your children to respect differences that they don’t understand (yet). 6. Hospitality is all for one and one for all. If you have small children whose bedtime is 7:30, consider having neighbors over for Saturday lunch instead of Saturday dinner. Don’t think of your children as a burden — ever. Work with the capacities, limitations, and skills of each member of your family. Be a team. Be in sync with each other’s rhythms and needs. “Hospitality isn’t a performance. It’s a Christian grace that involves the whole family.” And when guests arrive, don’t segregate the children, but integrate them. We live in a world that segregates everything. Show the beauty in working together. And at the end of the meal, the older children can put the dishes in the sink and distribute the Bibles. The little children can play with LEGOs on the floor while the family patriarch opens the Bible to the watching world and prays for the power of the resurrected Christ to guide, encourage, correct, and save. Your children will grow up watching you plead for your neighbors to put their faith in Christ. They will inherit an integrated faith, not a compartmentalized one, where parents act like Christians from ten to noon on Sunday, but the rest of the time operate in an orbit of selfish ambition. Hospitality isn’t a performance. It’s a Christian grace that involves the whole family.