Our Priorities

What we share in common with other faithful churches is most important, but these distinctions are near to us and part of what makes us who we are.

1. Pervasive Gospel

The gospel pervades every aspect of our life together as a church family—our corporate worship, our communal relationships, our spiritual growth, our gifted service, our hospitable posture toward neighbors, and our missional engagement with the world. And we are committed to discovering, understanding, believing, and proclaiming the wonderful truths of the gospel and cooperating with the Holy Spirit in applying those truths to every area of our lives with the purpose of growing in Christ-like maturity (Rom 8:1; 2 Cor 3:18; Eph 5:15–6:20; Col 3:12–4:6).  

Group of people in a cozy living room setting, including a smiling elderly woman, a baby held by an adult, and three men sitting and standing near a bookshelf and a couch.

2. Church as Family

The family of God possesses spiritual bonds that are closer than physical family ties. Covenant membership is a living, breathing web of committed, interdependent relationships where we intentionally, love, serve, and help our Christian brothers and sisters, taking responsibility for one another’s well-being. Regardless of station in life—whether children, youth, single, married, widowed, or divorced—we want our covenant members to experience church like a family as God intended: a mutually supportive fellowship that consistently points each member to our hope in Him.

Black and white image of bread and a cup, possibly symbolizing communion.
A smiling woman wearing glasses hugging another person with braided hair in a crowded indoor setting.

3. Deliberate Simplicity

Church programs can be helpful, and we will benefit from some, but we believe that those we do have must support our primary responsibilities as a church. Keeping our systems, structures, and programming relatively simple creates margin for missional engagement. If our calendars and lives are too full, we will never have the time or capacity to engage our neighbors in meaningful relationships. Our collective central identity, after all, is the church gathered and so we endeavor to orient congregational life around the ordinary means of grace, emphasizing personal initiative and committed relationships—with our weekly service and neighborhood parishes as the central programs of our life together.

4. Unity in Diversity

We are fully committed to reach our neighborhood—the Heights—which is nestled in the heart of Houston—one of our nation’s most ethnically diverse cities—with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe we will be most effective in doing so when we embrace God’s gracious redemption through the gospel and our supernatural unity in Christ over any shared social, cultural, political, or other demographic commitments. While we have control over this conviction, we don’t have control over whom God brings to our flock, and yet we acknowledge that a more diverse church family—and not just ethnically, but also culturally, linguistically, socioeconomically, and generationally—will likely have a broader evangelical witness in such a diverse city like Houston. Our hope is to reflect the Heights community around us and the heavenly community that awaits us (Rev 7:9).

Residential neighborhood with tree-lined street, sidewalks, and single-story houses featuring well-maintained lawns and gardens.

5. Purposeful Proximity

Proximity with fellow Christians allows for local churches to form—local churches composed of people who are able to worship God, follow Jesus, and walk in the Spirit together and experience the manifold blessings of life in Christ’s body on earth. Our ability to contribute meaningfully to the discipleship of our fellow church members, to portray for the world the true unity of Christian fellowship, and to reach the lost with the gospel is deeply enhanced by our proximity to one another. At Christ Our Hope, we see great value in living near other covenant members in the Heights and adjacent neighborhoods, and thus proximity is the primary (although not only) factor in organizing our parishes. 

A man holding a young child, standing among a group of people in a room with microphones and music stands.

6. Generational Investment

We are committed to equipping families to love and serve Jesus and to include their children in His worship and exaltation. We invite children and youth to participate in the Sunday service with the broader church family since this is a discipline that requires observation, patience, and practice. In supporting the spiritual development of children, we also seek to provide age-appropriate opportunities for biblical learning and discussion in venues like Sunday school and youth group, which will ideally reinforce discipleship at home, but in many cases, may provide the only discipleship for participants.