Change Is Hope
Change is Hope
June 14, 2026
By: Heath Mann
Change is hope, and When we hope, don’t we most often hope for change.
I am not sure you are all aware, but we appear to be moving into a period of change, here at First United Methodist Church in Pocatello. A period of adjustment. This adjustment allows us the opportunity to choose our direction. To hope for…
I am not going to finish that statement because I believe that everyone in the room just thought of something different.
It is said that Change is the only sure thing in life.
If that is the case than why are we so afraid of change?
The band U2 released the song Yours Eternally, on their Days of Ash EP this spring and a particular lyric caught my attention, and once again challenged the privilege that I have benefited from for my entire life. That lyric is “if you have the chance to hope it’s your duty!” So if Change is hope than we must have a duty to hope for and to embrace change.
It made me sit back and realize that hope is not afforded to everyone in our world, or perhaps even in our communities, and our sphere of influence. There are times in life and situations when one cannot hope to change their situation. Can you hope when you are living in abject poverty? Can we have hope when we have just received a terminal cancer diagnosis? When we’ve lost a loved one? When we’ve gone through a divorce? When we face the politics of the current moment?
But that lyric remind us that we have an obligation to hope, if we are afforded that privilege? And doesn’t hope itself rely on change? A change in our circumstance, a change in our life, whether it be at work, our health, our current situation.
When planning this sermon series with Mike, Lou, and April, they gave me the task of creating a message based off of John 21 and specifically Verse 10. At first I found it difficult to find a message in change in this chapter, but then recognizing that during Jesus’ tenure on the planet, the men he was now talking to were his followers, his students, they were learning from him. But during this chapter, this was Jesus prepping them to become the teachers, to lead, to share faith to change your roles. “Cast your net on the other side of the boat” (change your tactics, adjust your thinking, believe!)
Methodist’s practice itinerant ministry traveling from place to place spending short periods of time sharing their gifts and teachings, then moving on to the next place, so in essence to change constantly. With Mike leaving, and Pastor DePak coming in to town, we are in the process of change. What change do you hope for? What changes during Pastor Mike’s tenure are you happy with, and what has changed that keeps you coming back to this Church or brought you into this church during the past 5 years?
To think this through, and admit these things, we must contemplate the things we want to see changed, the things we want to stay the same. The things we want to enhance and make better and the things that we feel are currently working well.
This requires a lot of us. It places on us the responsibility to maintain, and enhance the community we have currently and the community we desire as we move on and through our next itineration. What does that look like ? What is our wish, our hope for change!
Better, more interesting sermons…just kidding, I believe we will all be shocked if we receive a better orator than Pastor Mike! But what does that mean? What Change are we hoping for?
I would love to ask for a little bit of audience participation at this time, Please contemplate your answer to my following questions:
Do you love the community we have become through the leadership provided over these past 5 years?
Have our numbers grown over the past 5 years?
Do you feel like we have more energy as a congregation?
Are we in a period of ascendency as a congregation?
Now that these 5 years are complete, what is our responsibility to the legacy that Pastor Mike is leaving?
What is our responsibility to our fellow members, our church community, and our community at large?
What is our responsibility to our new leadership under Pastor Depok?
What is our responsibility to be stewards of the Methodist faith, our community, and our church family?
The beauty of our current position is that just like Jesus gave the disciples what they needed to move out of the role of student, and into the role of teachers, Mike, and the leadership of this church, through the investment of their time and knowledge of the scriptures and their experience have provided us what we need to move through this period of change.
So, what is our responsibility? Look around you, how do the faces you see form or fit your community? How do they impact your life? How important is this family to you? Why? Why is it important to you? What is your responsibility to this community?
To touch on this, I do think it is important to look at our history, and to where we are at today.
Over the past couple of months, since Mike ruined our summer with his announcement, I have watched this community show love, happiness and excitement for Mike and his family, but also express fears, doubts, and concern for this community and for what it has become for each one of us. We don’t want to lose this; we don’t want to lose what we have found. So what is our responsibility to ensure this doesn’t happen? To grow not to regress.
To look at our history, Maggie and I have been a part of this Church for over 31 years now. We remember when we had two full services, a very active youth ministries program that included programs for all ages. And a very welcoming and close culture. I in fact if you can believe it at first helped Maggie was hired as the director of young adult ministries for this church and after a 18 months, she moved on to a position at Southeast Idaho Public Health. Later a few years after that, I became the youth director, what can I say they were desperate. During this time we experienced a significant loss in support, and participation in our youth ministries programs, losing our paid positions in our Sunday school program, and our youth ministries program. I bring this up because this decline lasted almost 20 years, it is only recently that we are seeing a church wide support to bring these programs back.
The Church continued and struggled, then Mike came and created a community, a community of acceptance, a community of love, and a community that is invested in each other. I failed this congregation, by not being mature enough to fight for what was important to myself, to youth that was important to not just me but also the church. I relay to you only to try to convey that we, those of us who remain have a responsibility to ensure that we maintain the community, and the priorities we are proud of, and continue on this journey, just as the disciples had a responsibility to continue the teachings of Christ.
So how do we do this?
How do we ensure that the change is positive?
I do not have a concern that this congregation will be welcoming to Paster Depok and I know that we are excited to experience the teachings of Christ through a man whose life experiences are different from ours. To see how these amazing lessons of christ’s teachings can cross cultural, economic, and geographical boundaries. To learn more about his journey, and why this Christianity thing is important to him. To share our similarities, and our differences to learn…to change, to grow as a community, and a congregation.
So how do we ensure as a community that we grow during Pastor DePoks time, and that we enhance the things we are most proud of, and not let them diminish?
So why is community so important to us?
Communities were first created for protection, for food security, and for the ability to ensure the success of our species. This is pretty basic stuff, I wonder if the first homonids understood all of the other benefits that a communal life would provide?
Benefits of connection/comradery, collaborative decision making, sharing of joy, sharing of sorrow, and sharing of grief. Ingenuity found through differences in experience….
So how do we keep the community that we are currently enjoying? How do we enhance it? How do we maintain the Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors mantra of the United Methodist Church? How do we embrace this change? How do we maintain our momentum?
This morning while prepping this talk, I reflected on one of the things I love most about the methodist faith, and belief structure. The Methodist faith to me requires me to be an active participant in my relationships to the faith, to god, to study to learn, and to grow in my faith. I have to put in the time to be a good methodist. In essence this is what Itneracy requires of its congreations. It means we need to engage with eachother, this congregation, and our community at large.
I would ask you again to look at those faces in the community that are sitting here today.
How did they become your community? What barriers and discomfort did you overcome when you first darkened the door of First United Methodist Church, were first greeted by a member, first greeted a new face when you were a member of the community. (Not a member of the church necessarily), but a member of this community.
I am now going to ask you to look at this and consider how these periods of being brave, of moving outside your comfort zone, and of knocking down barriers have impacted your life. Why did this allow you to become a part of this community, and how did this strengthen your life.
In today’s world where our computers provide us with immediate answers, where we know longer have to go to a library to search for solutions, to meet a librarian, where online or at the table ordering at a restaurant removes our ability to engage with a person, and AI now is providing someone….something to talk to…replacing our need for friends for each other. This lack of connectivity creates a gap of connection, a gap of understanding and love.
Our political leaders further the gap between us by creating an us versus them scenario, that allows them to win a few thousand votes as opposed the majority, Using hot button topics to simplify our understanding of each other. I think those of us of a certain age, will agree that our species and our individuals are anything but simple. These tactics, these technological marvels can remove our connectivity to one another, in essence destroying our community. What is our responsibility for maintaining this community? To fight for the change, the hope the progress we wish to see.
I believe that Christ showed the way, and Mike has reminded us this over the past 5 years. During the scripture Christ brought his team back together, showing up in person, not just in spirit. He brought them back in order to remind that they are not alone, that they are a community that was created to go back out into the world and spread the good news and the joy of this new community called Christianity. Now it is up to us. Not just here with in these walls, but in the great community, our country, and our world.
Do this we must remember that we are not simple, that we have all walked a different, but we all have a lot more in common than we have differences. Like our community Pastor Mike, and Susannah have hope for the future in Washington, Pastor DePok has hopes for his future in Pocatello, all of us have hope for this congregation, and hope for our community, and by remembering that HOPE is most often hope for change. We do have some responsibility to not only be a part of the change we hope to see but be open to the change the lord sees for us.
As followers of Christ, students of the scripture and members of this community, this congregation, this world, we have been well prepared to deal with the change that is in front of us. As we move forward and work through this change, when we have a moment of concern, a moment of doubt, a moment of disappointment, and or anything that if left to fester could damage our community, this is the time to look to your community for the unity of purpose to carry us forward. I believe that if we remember these words and how they unite us all. “Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love!” If we do, and understand how they unite us all, this congregation, this community, this country and this world, we will all make it through these changes, and we will all be better for it!