God has allowed Living Hope to become a place of authenticity, where communities or “small groups” of people experience life together and equip each other to advance the Gospel. As a result of God’s blessings on Living Hope, the elders and the church body recognize the need to be more than a temporary or transient style church. They have prayed, fasted, and openly discussed the best options for supporting and growing the mission of Living Hope.
We believe God is calling us to do more.
In obedience to Him, Living Hope will embark on LH360. Our focus is taking the gospel to the world and being all we can be for Christ – fulfilling our mission in 360 degrees.
Simply put, LH360 is an extension of Living Hope’s operating budget, a separate fund that will provide financial resources for special missional projects for years to come.
LH360 will facilitate the construction of a new physical space, but it’s much more than a building. It’s a mission-focused facility that will be used to equip believers and to plant churches locally, regionally, and globally – a mission that will change lives for eternity.
LH360 is made up of three primary components:
1. Mission-focused Worship and Training Facility
This facility will further enable us to serve and build community and provide an authentic, mission-oriented hub that is permanent. It will establish a center where we can train and equip people for missions and church planting, host team meetings, provide community group meeting space, create an effective environment for our children and youth, and grow our worship and outreach opportunities. We believe God will use this facility to change us as a body, as a community, and as servants of Christ.
2. Church Planting
From its inception, Living Hope has felt the call to be a body that plants churches both locally and globally, with the goal that these churches will continue this vision and mission and plant churches of their own. LH360 will support a multi-year effort of planting churches in and around Memphis and the world. An exciting part of this church planting mission will be the utilization of existing assets Living Hope has invested in over the last few years including sound equipment, chairs, media and other elements that will be used in the planting of our first church. Our local vision is to focus on areas within the city of Memphis, providing an opportunity for worship and community in neighborhoods that have tremendous opportunity for cultivation and growth. LH360 will also support the efforts of our international mission partners to plant churches abroad. This facility will serve as the primary training and development hub to raise and equip people to move forward and plant these churches. Our strategies for how Living Hope moves forward in church planting is represented in the following goals.
1 Year Goals
- Plant a church within the I240 loop.
- Continue mobilizing Living Hope community to serve Memphis through various ministries and relationships.
- Begin recruiting and training future church planters to be sent out in and around Memphis.
5 Year Goals
- Plant five churches; ideally two urban, two suburban, and one international.
- Establish a formal leadership training program to raise up church planters, entrepreneurs, and business/civic leaders.
- Establish a center for training and equipping people to integrate their faith and work.
- Develop a relationship within the eastern/southeastern suburbs of Memphis that solidifies our commitment to be a church for the city, in the suburbs.
10 Year Goals
- Plant ten churches.
- Church plants reproduce at least five churches.
- To launch a Living Hope small group in every geographic region of the eastern suburbs of Memphis.
- Collaborate with 2-3 entrepreneurial start-ups that will be a blessing to the city, for the city.
- Establish a suburban/urban church partnership that works to encourage reciprocal relationships between churches.
3. Serving Our World
Following the commandments of Christ, we are called to love God and our neighbors. Through LH360, Living Hope will follow this commandment by partnering with non-profits and other community development organizations in alternative and creative ways. These organizations will fund efforts that will focus on specific neighborhoods in Memphis to secure and develop affordable housing for ministry purposes, create after-school and senior ministry programs, and provide seed money for ministries. Internationally, these organizations will expand their mission efforts to support education initiatives for orphans and underprivileged children.