What are your hopes for the Church? All sorts of ink has been spilled on what makes for a good church or a healthy church or an effective church. In fact, even those adjectives (good, healthy, effective) betray a little bit of what we might be hoping for in a church. Some church hopes are built around the “3 B’s” (budget, building, butts in the seats). Other church hopes are built on activity and activism. Still yet other church hopes are built around new believers and baptisms. Other church hopes are formed around doctrine and dependability. There are more than this. In fact, most listings of what a local church could hope for are about 20 items long. 
Just like our personal hopes, our hopes for the church can be sometimes varied and situational. We are different people, different parts of the Body of Christ, and because of this we show variety and diversity within the Body. Sometimes that variety and diversity forms clumps. Those clumps are usually congregations of people who have similar hopes. Because we are finite people who gather together in finite congregations, our hopes will never be all inclusive. In some ways, that’s ok. Grappling with out finite nature as a church often times gives us the humility to see our place in the Universal Church, just as grappling with our finite nature as human beings gives the humility to see our place in the church.
It is actually good for us to recognize where our hopes come together and bring us together as local church. God has allowed His Universal Church to gather together in local churches, denominations, and traditions because when we gather together as people who have similar hopes, we can focus collectively on those specific hopes. So Lutherans hope slightly differently than Baptists, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod hopes slightly different from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and Epiphany Lutheran hopes slightly differently than University Lutheran. And we would do better to focus on what our hopes actually are that bring us together than to disparage the hopes of those who are different from us.
So what is it that you hope for? What are your hopes for the church? How do those hopes line up with the hopes that you have for the Universal Church? How do they line up with Scripture? This week, we’re encouraging you to consider what those hopes might be that you have for the church and the Church. Get clear on them, because when you’re clear on them, you can bring them to God in prayer. You can seek His Kingdom’s coming in your own life and the lives of others – and remember that at the end of your hopes, you will always find a Cross planted there to assure you that you are not hoping in vain, that you ARE made a part of the Body of Christ by the power of that Cross, and the Body of Christ hopes together for coming of the Kingdom. Next week, we are going to talk about your hopes for your neighbor and the world.