Daily Inspiration: Meet Brett Weston

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brett Weston.

Hi Brett, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
We launched Elevate Hope Centennial in 2019 to bring hope to our surrounding community of South Metro Denver. At the time, our community was seeing a lot of youth suicide, the opioid epidemic and just a general sense of hopelessness. As a new church in the community, we wanted to help our community lift their eyes to hope in Jesus.

We have a vision to not just be the church gathered in worship on a Sunday, but to be the church scattered in our communities during the week to be present in the life of our city making it better for everyone. We choose to gather at a local elementary school as just one more way to serve and be present where the community is. One of my favorite verses of Scripture is Jeremiah 29:7 “7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you…and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Most people would be surprised that is in the Bible.

We had only been a church for 5 months before COVID 19 hit and we lost our meeting space. We shifted to online and began letting our community know that they were not alone. That we were here to talk at any time. We were able to come alongside a lot of people who were isolated. We did neighborhood well checks and just tried to help where we could.

We were able to help our school district with a lot of needs they had during the pandemic.

It was at that time that we began to partner with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention helping to sponsor Denver’s Out of the Darkness Walk each year to walk alongside those struggling with Mental Health and suicide. And we began to partner with Arapahoe County Human and Family Services as well to help serve the most needy in our community.

Our motto is: “A church for people who aren’t perfect and don’t pretend to be.” And that is who we are. The temptation of suburbanites is to keep our needs and flaws covered so we have so much pretending and performing and pressure. The good news of the Bible is that you don’t have to do that anymore. God takes us as we are, but doesn’t leave us there.

That is the message of hope we share as the church gathered and scattered.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been hard. As I mentioned before, we launched Elevate Hope 5 months before the pandemic hit. Like everyone else, we had no idea. The school system really liked having us be in their school, but they couldn’t rent space to anyone anymore.

At one point we just made a drive through for all the teachers and staff at our elementary school where teachers could come drive up and we would give them a meal from a local restaurant and they could just process all the loss of the pandemic hitting. It was a hard time, but there were sweet moments like that in the midst of it.

We started small groups in homes where we would study the Bible together and pray together and share a meal. One of my neighbors came to one and then passed away from COVID 19 shortly after. That was rough. We would get phone calls from people isolated who wanted prayer or had discovered hope from the Bible and wanted to talk. We would talk with them and then a relative would call us and say they passed away from COVID and that our interaction with that family member was very meaningful so they wanted us to know. It was brutal.

But we continued to grow and made it through and I think it really expanded our urgency and vision for being present in our city and coming alongside people.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are a church in Centennial, Colorado. We are about 6 years old. Our motto as a church is “A church for people who aren’t perfect and don’t pretend to be.” We serve a God of grace and a lot of times the church in general doesn’t message that grace very well. We don’t want to do that. We want to be known as a church where you can come and not have all the answers and not have it all together.

We tell people, “You can belong before you believe at Elevate Hope.” We try to make everyone feel welcome. We will all be challenged to be different than we are–to be changed by the grace and love of God. But our starting place is all the same. We are all in need of forgiveness and change. So we try to make everyone feel welcome whether you have never been in a church before or you grew up in one. Whether you have questions or doubt or are coming to grow in your faith. We want to be a place that is known for how we know and follow Jesus and how we love like he did.

We want to be a church that is inwardly vital and welcoming and full of life, and also is outwardly facing toward the needs of our neighborhoods and city. I think that sets us apart a bit. And that you don’t have to have it together or know all the answers or pretend to be perfect when you show up to Elevate Hope!

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
I wish I knew that the pandemic was coming! No, just kidding. I think of a verse of Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:5, “I planted, [another] watered, but God gave the growth. ” I think we do what we can to be faithful to the vision that we have and there will be times of growth and times of setback and that is all part of growth! I have learned more in the setbacks than I have in the seasons where everything was easy. As you start out building something you need to take time to work at it and work on it. There will be day to day stuff that needs to be done, but make time to work ON your start up as well. Think about what your vision is and what ways you could be reaching it more and give time to that as well. We can really get caught up in having to do everything as we start out, but don’t let all the day to day details take all your vision away. And if you have time for one thing, spend it meeting with people. Listening to their stories and their needs. We can’t come into a space with just our ideas and what we think will bless people the most. We need to be listeners and be present with people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://elevatehopechurch.org
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/elevatehopechurchcentennial
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/elevatehopechurch