Living Hope Church of Westport is our official name.  Why this name?  How did we choose it?

In late 2009 after a year of tough events, including the untimely death (in human terms) of our well loved board chair Lee Smith, the entire church felt a need for a change.  We had talked about what our focus should be and how we could best carry that out for months but now we were sure – what the South Beach needs is hope and we need to let them know their only hope is in Jesus Christ.

We realized that our new name needed to reflect this idea so we began a long process of choosing a name.  Everyone was encouraged to submit names that they thought might work.  In fact as many names as they could think of!  For months we voted on names – any name that had even one vote was kept.  Sometimes people would write new names on the ballot so we’d add those. 

We began to realize that we needed to focus on what it is about Jesus that makes Him so important to our faith.  Sure, we know He is God the Son but what is it about Him as Jesus the Messiah (Christ) that is important?  Well, that He is alive!  He truly died and he truly rose from the grave.  As the apostle Paul wrote – “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins”.  (1 Corinthians 15:17)  He went on to say “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

So it is because Jesus is alive that we have hope – hope for eternal life.  In fact we want to say just what Peter said “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3 ESV)

Now we knew what we wanted to say to the people of Westport, the South Beach and all the World – you have a Living Hope of eternal life because The Living Hope, Jesus Christ, is alive.

Please join us to shout this wonderful news to Westport and the world!

There is Hope for Westport, Hope for the World.