Today we’d like to introduce you to Richard Williams Jr.
Hi Richard, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Hope City is a Church that got started in the middle of COVID in January of 2021 with 5 people. We started in my wife and I living room on a cold snowy morning with little sight for the future of what was to come, but we had a lot of Hope that this Church could grow!
I remember before we ever got started my wife and I would have dreams of what we were supposed to do dating back to 2018. We would have people tell us of what they see us doing but we never felt like we were quite ready yet, in fact, prior to what was to come, we were actually Youth Pastors for a number of years until November of 2019 when we felt it was finally time to start Hope City.
Fast forward, once we started, we had no idea that with in 3 months time we would start feeling up our living room with no clear idea of where we would go or how to even navigate all the growth and changes we were experiencing. Every Sunday morning felt like we were going to a CHURCH! We had people that would dress all up, just to take their shoes off at the door just because every service was on our living room carpet, but it didn’t stop what God was doing. Every Sunday more and more people would come until we started looking for a place.
In February of 2021, my wife and I in search of a building drove past a storefront in North Olmsted, OH on Lorain rd. where we felt would be perfect for us and what we could afford, not to mention we felt there was something special about this building and where it was placed. So we called the phone number in the window and without an answer with left a voicemail feeling a little defeated because we knew we didn’t have any finances to buy anything or rent any big spaces because we had just started. Well about a week later to our surprise the owner called us back and wanted to meet with us, and now while we are extremely excited, we’re also nervous because we did not tell him we wanted this space for a church. So after a few days we prayed and met with the owner and as he’s showing us the building, I could see us using this building not for just having “church” but for outreach efforts in our City because of where it was placed, so as he continued to talk he finally got the question, “So what do you plan to use this space for?” , and after taking a big gulp and looking at my wife a said,” A Church”. Afterward there was a moment of silence, the owner lite up and said, “No way! I’m a retired Pastor… This Must be God” and we all looked at each other in complete disbelief thinking, God really does orchestrates our steps!
So we stayed in that store front for a little over a year and a half. During that time we were the first to hold an Easter Service at the old Regal Cinema in the Great Northern Mall, along with doing outreach efforts for the homeless and less fortunate, from handing out bottles of water and feeding our community, to giving away clothes and even having “Drive-By Prayers” for those that were in a hurry but needed prayer. We began to fill up this little 900 square foot plaza to where we took out chairs and started putting in pews because people started sitting on the window seal, we just didn’t have ANY room. Then one day our lives miraculously changed AGAIN to where we are now.
I remember it like it was yesterday, our church of about 50-60 people was now praying for more space, we were literally crowded every where, so much so, that we hardly had room for a children’s/nursery room. So we began to pray as a church and I remember in May of 2023 we received an email that I thought was extremely random, but it really turned about be a God move. There was a former Pastor that would drive up and down Lorain rd and would notice how stuffed we were in our little plaza and because he was in the process of transitioning to another role in his life, he thought of reaching out to us to see if we would be interested in taking over this 6,000 square ft building… Needly to say, after multiple conversations and meeting with the landlord of that building we are gearing up to celebrate a year being in our new Church in Westlake, OH.
Now in 2024, God has blessed to have 3 services weekly, with 2 services on Sunday’s at 10am and 1pm, and a midweek service called ” Hope Word Thursdays” every Thursday at 7pm. We have seen God’s hand from 5 people to now close to 200 people a Sunday and he continues to do great things through us and we are excited for the journey and what’s to come!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
This journey came with same major struggles, one of the first and biggest one being COVID… We had NO IDEA if it was every going to end. We were unsure if people would ever go back to leaving their houses to go to church after spending a lot of time watching online. To be totally truthful we knew as a BRAND NEW CHURCH plant we could not keep up with the top line productions that other churches were doing so we depended solely on God and him sending people and what people would experience when they actually visited because we didn’t have the money or the start that other successful churches had.
Another obstacle was space. My wife and I understood very early that being in our living room and in the store front, while it served its purpose, it would eventually be a hurdle for a lot of new people that maybe didn’t want to sit shoulder to shoulder with someone they’ve never met and again there was COVID so people weren’t as comfortable as they use to be in packed rooms and smaller places and these thoughts a lone presented a lot of anxiety because we had a vision but it felt like we just didn’t have the resources for it to happen but we learned quickly that we do have a mighty God!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My wife and I are the Pastors of Hope City in Westlake, OH and our motto is to LOVE LIKE CRAZY and to DO IT FOR THE ONE.
What sets us apart and what we’re most proud of is that God has done the growth within our Church. We strive to truly be the Church that City and the world needs and are looking for. Our hearts has always been centered around loving people like Jesus would and truly being an example of peace and love in our community, We are truly a Church that strives to help others.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Some books that I read as a Pastor would be, of course the Bible and then some others are,
Everyone’s a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology
Book by R.C. Sproul
Discipleshift by Jim Putman
and I use the Bibleapp for ways to dive into study plans or devotionals.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://HopeCitynow.Net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richardwilliams_89/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.williams.5872
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PastorRich_12
