33^rd Anniversary Celebration 2025

Aug 3, 2025

Happy 33^rd Anniversary to Hope of God Church Hong Kong !

The theme of this year’s celebration is “We are Celebrating! Glory to God”. At 1:00pm, Pastor Gavin shared about the Bible verse Joshua 8:1 during Refreshing Moment. The Israelites dealt with their sin after their defeat at the battle against Ai. Then God told Joshua not to be afraid or discouraged and attack Ai again, for God has given them the city. Ai is a picture of our flesh. We often feel defeated because of our weaknesses. God encourages us that He wants to help us stand strong and remove the feeling of defeat within us.

After that, sister Elaine led us to dwell in a powerful praise and worship, expressing our thanksgiving to the Lord.

Following the Holy Communion, sister Gloria from Faithful Group testified how she experienced God’s guidance and blessings upon her work in a video. Her family has a company based in China selling kitchen ware. Due to the pandemic, their business was greatly affected. Moreover, because of the tariff war between the US and China, many of the deals from their US clients were cancelled. Thus, they had to find clients from other countries. She then went on a business trip to Germany with her colleagues. The weather was extremely cold that her feet were like frozen. Her colleague suggested her buying boots to keep warm and she said if she saw a pair of boots that cost 10 euros, she would buy them. The usual price of a pair of boots was around 100 euros at that time. However, she miraculously found a pair of boots on sale, which cost exactly 10 euros. Sister Gloria was so touched as God knew her needs and concerns indeed. She was also thankful that God opened up the Germany market and other markets for their businesses. God is really the Mighty One that provides.

After that, Pastor Gavin preached on the Scripture Joshua 8:31. The title of the sermon is “We are Celebrating! Glory to God”. God has already given us all spiritual blessings, but we still need to get them; there are victories we have to win. The Battle of Jericho represents how we conquer the world full of temptations. The Battle of Ai represents the battle within us, the biggest enemy is ourselves. We all have lots of weaknesses, for example, bitterness, anger, hatred, laziness, etc. but God wants to help us. When the Israelites tried to conquer Ai in their second attempt, God told Joshua to set an ambush. The attack included an “ambush”, meaning that men should be involved to cooperate with God. The ambush symbolizes that we should expose the pride and overconfidence of our flesh. Ai represents flesh, sinful nature or self. We have to be alert and have full attention of our focus to make sure our sinful nature will not take charge of our lives. “Attacking Ai” means we have to deal with our sins head on with the Lord’s help. The hanging of the king of Ai on a tree symbolizes Jesus taking all our sins and be nailed on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, He has won the victory for us, so we can take the victory and blessings. By keeping celebrating and giving glory to God, we can maintain the victory, joy and faith in our lives. Praise the Lord !

“Spiritual Feast”

After the service, at about 3:30pm, brother Lawrence and sister Rachel welcomed everyone and announced the start of the anniversary’s “Spiritual Feast”. First of all, the starter was presenting membership awards to members who have joined the Hope Family for 7, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years. Then came the soup which was the “Recap 2024-2025 Video”. It captured the joyful and touching moments of our church in the past year. Thank God for such a fruitful year.

The main course included snack time and the making of a painting from modelling clay. After Pastoral Lead Team’s (PLT) toasting and cake-cutting, pastor Gavin gave thanks to start the snack time. Each group had prepared different kinds of food to share – Love Group, fruits; Kindness and Faithful Groups, Ribena juice (symbolizing Jesus’ blood); Joyful Group, mini cakes; S&C Group, square biscuits made of 33 layers (same number as our church’s birthday); Goodness Group, fish biscuits (fishers of men); Gentleness Group, dried fruit and Peace Group, homemade desserts.

Then everyone was given a wooden frame where we could decorate it with different colors of modelling clay. We all became an artist decorating our frame with colorful shapes and also went around to decorate others’ frames, representing our willingness to be a part of the family. We enjoyed the activity so much and took group photos with our masterpieces.

Then the dessert was another round of praise and worship. Pastor Arlene closed the feast with a prayer at 6:00pm, blessing all brothers and sisters.

Praise the Lord for this wonderful family of God !