A missional church is a church designed to reach members of a non-Christian culture. America, especially urban America, is becoming increasingly post-Christian and needs missional churches in order to engage those whose worldview is profoundly non-Christian. Yet, a missional church is much more than a church with an evangelistic program. It means creating a church where all ministry is conducted with the mindset that non-Christians will be present.

We are irreducibly hope-based creatures. If we believe that this world is an accident and that when we die we rot, then that lack of hope will cast a shadow on way we live and see all of life. But if we believe the Christian Gospel, then no matter what happens in our lives, we possess a hope that will always strengthen us. Christians find their hope in the certainty of God’s love for them through Jesus Christ. Christians live in the hope of knowing that the entire physical creation will be renewed into a perfect world without pain and death.

John’s Gospel begins by teaching that Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Just as we come to know a person through speaking to them and listening to their words, we come to know God by listening to Jesus speak to us. Yet, Jesus did not come solely to speak. He came to live among us so that there is nothing we will suffer that He has not also suffered. But most of all, He came to die for us. In the incarnation, God became vulnerable to us—even to death—and yet He loved us so much that He was glad to so.

Abraham, in his intercessory prayer for Sodom, engages in the first priestly action of the Bible. His intercession implies a corporate responsibility in which righteousness as well as sin can be ascribed to a people, and his actions point to Christ, the great priest, and our role as the royal priesthood

We need a living hope to get through life and endure suffering. A living hope enables us to have both sorrow and joy. Our living hope is an inheritance achieved for us by Christ.

Many Americans disregard Christianity not because they don't believe in God, but because they don't believe in the church. Jesus exhorts the church to be a "city on a hill," a community where people love and serve one another, in fellowship with God as well as with our neighbor. When he fulfills our deepest needs, we can find resources that we never knew we had for serving others.

God has an infinite willingness to forgive, but forgiveness is not easy and comes at infinite cost. If we resist the work of the Holy Spirit, showing us where we're wrong and leading us to repentance, it is possible for us to deny God and put ourselves outside of his power to forgive. Only through an understanding of the gospel can we come to confession and repentance.