New Hope Church Welcomes 2 New Pastors

This month we spoke with Lead Pastor Dr. Ryan Whitson and Youth Pastor Jake Sanders of the New Hope Church in Adel. Both have recently joined the church and Adel community with their families.

L-R: Jake Sanders, Michelle Jenkins, Dr. Ryan Whitson

New Hope Church launched on Easter Sunday, 1999 and will celebrate their 20 year anniversary this spring.

For the first few years, New Hope gathered weekly in the public high school for worship. In 2010, a permanent location was built 2 miles east of Adel on Highway 6

Today, New Hope Church has grown substantially, with an office, youth center, and mobile food pantry at the intersection of Hwy 6 and Nile Kinnick drive, and Beginnings Preschool at the worship center east of town.

New Hope Church Worship Center Highway 6

Part of the New Hope Church Kids ministry, Beginnings Preschool utilizes “Creative Curriculum”; a project-based, goal-oriented developmental program that focuses on social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language skills.

The mobile food pantry at the New Hope Youth Center is associated with the Food Bank of Iowa. The fourth Monday of each month, volunteers set up a distribution system similar to a farmers market where individuals and families can shop for produce, meat, bread, and non-perishable items. 

Keeping with the New Hope Church values of Love, Grow, Go, Pastor Ryan is excited to meet and serve the Adel community during Love Adel Day on October 6th.

“On October 6th we have Love Adel Day where we’re serving all over the community. It’s our first time, so we’re starting small and hope to develop it in years to come.

We’re doing 4 projects. Anyone can opt in and sign up for one of 4 teams. It’s fun for families and the elderly.”

“We have a team that is going out to Adel Acres Nursing Home to spend time with the residents- everything from music to bingo to crafts. We have a team that will be praying for the community and prayer walking all over the city. We have a team going out to 500 Van Fosen and Adel Manor to throw a massive pancake breakfast.

Then we’re sending a huge team to the River Vista Trailer Park to do a Block Party out there. BBQ, bounce house, bags tournament, games for kids, music; just for that community so they can meet each other and we’ll be there to relate with them, too. There is no agenda, this is just loving our community and begin out there.” ~RW

Lead Pastor Dr. Ryan Whitson

Lead Pastor Dr. Ryan Whitson is originally from San Diego, California. With his wife, Laura, and their 4 school-aged children.

Ryan moved to Adel from Denver after seeing the listing online for New Hope Church and learning he had friends in the area.

“I’ve been a pastor for about 20 years. I have my doctorate in Philosophical Theology, and I’m a professor of Philosophy.

That background definitely informs the ministry and how I approach that.

I’ve published a couple books, recently Reasons to Believe that deals with 10 questions people often ask, and we tackle one each chapter. Dangerous Discipleship was published 8 years ago and is about how to help people grow in their faith. So if you wanted to mentor somebody, if you wanted to help them understand how to read the Bible and what it means to follow Christ, how to pray, how to answer the questions of life we all have; it helps people do that.”

“In terms of Philosophy and Ministry, connecting is a big driving force for me. Because of my teaching background (and certainly my love for the Church, and helping people grow in their relationship with Christ is important), but also relating with people outside the church.

Connecting with them and being a safe place to have conversations with them to explore the questions of life- why are we here, what’s this all about, how do I have a healthy marriage AND healthy family AND balance the checkbook?” ~RW

Youth Pastor Jake Sanders

Youth Pastor Jake Sanders also grew up in California, then moved to Iowa for school at Faith Baptist College in Ankeny.

How these two California natives found themselves working together in Adel, Iowa is simply a coincidence.

“It was a coincidence. Faith Baptist is a tiny little Bible college, and I grew up 2,000 miles away from it. Its the one, my pastor, recommended most so I moved here.

I did a lot of volunteering with youth ministry going through college and afterwards but never got to a chance to do it as an actual job.

So I bounced around. I cleaned schools, worked at Subway, outside sales. I did residential plumbing for a while, some of the houses in Adel actually. I started dating my now wife, who lived out here and went to New Hope Church. We were talking about getting engaged, her church was looking for a youth pastor, it worked out.” ~JS

Pastor Ryan is very happy with Jake’s direction for youth ministry at New Hope Church. “Jake’s new and he is doing a great job of getting infrastructure built and his ministry going.

He’s reaching probably 50-60 kids a week that are involved in youth ministry.” ~RW

“Every Wednesday we have middle school youth group, and we play games. Along with our values of Love Grow Go, my goal with youth is not to have it be something that I do, but something they do.

Every time we have a couple of the kids plan the games for us and run the games. Usually, there is some teaching, sometimes its a video, other times I’m talking. Small group discussion is another big thing we do Wednesday nights, and we’ve got parents that help with that.” ~JS

 
In addition, New Hope Church presents Amplify, an extravaganza of crafts, science experiments, games, worship and small group discussions every 1st Wednesday of the month from September 5th through the first week in May for children age 4 through 5th grade.

“Looking forward in October, we’re going to kick off our youth band and have an all-nighter for the high schoolers at the Youth Center. We’re planning a middle school all-nighter in November.” ~JS

New Hope Church aims to connect with community members in a casual, relatable way that Ryan personifies. “Stylistically, we are casual. I wear jeans on the stage, play contemporary music, we open the Bible every Sunday; we communicate in a relatable, relevant way. We have online services so people can utilize Facebook and watch our services online from home.

We have people in the community that are unchurched, who may not step foot in New Hope or any church, but tell us, ‘We watch every Sunday.’  We have almost 1,000 people who engage this way every Sunday.”  ~RW

 
New Hope Church is also partners with Right Turn Cowboy Church, a traveling gathering that blends fellowship with Iowa’s natural beauty.

“I think the motto of Cowboy Church is ‘come as you are.’ Its very family oriented; people get there about 3 pm, and they’re riding horses, having the kids lead around in the big circle, playing games. The last one had some goat roping, its fun. There’s usually a message about 5-5:30 pm.

They have a violinist who plays with the Des Moines Symphony who plays hymns and stuff everybody knows. After that, they do a potluck and hang out. Very casual, kids running around barefoot, very cowboy culture. Cowboy Church was that beautiful front door for people to come and build relationships.”   ~JS

Ryan and Jake are proud to call Adel their new home. We welcome them to the community and look forward to engaging with them in their community-focused project yet to come.

“We like Adel a lot, we love the people, love the relationships. The people are very sweet and kind. We’ve had a great time getting connected. That’s the heartbeat of who we are and where we’re going.” ~RW
 
New Hope Church
25712 Hwy 6
Adel, Iowa 50003
Phone: (515) 993-5325
Email: office@NewHopeAdel.org
Website: www.NewHopeAdel.org
Facebook: NewHopeChurchAdel