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“If Necessary” Use Words

A commonly used quote is often (mistakenly) attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi – “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words.” This article lays to rest the delusion that Francis said anything like that and actually demonstrates the...

Stages of Christian Growth

This Sunday I will sketch four stages of growth for a follower of Jesus. They are inspired by a book called Disciple Shift and its predecessor Real Life Discipleship. You can read through a helpful summary of the stages here (this author uses five instead of four, but...

An Atheist on Evangelism

Penn Jillette is the famous magician who performs alongside the far less talkative Teller. He is also a vocal atheist. A few years ago, after a show, someone approached him and offered him the gift of a Bible along with a simple and sincere presentation of the Gospel....

Overcoming Fear in Evangelism

There are lots of reasons that Christians don’t share our faith as much as we should. Probably the main one is fear. We are afraid of how people will respond. We worry about how to start a spiritual conversation. We stress about causing friction in...

To Tithe or not to Tithe?

Our sermon series is called Serve the Church. We started in John 13 and then walked through Romans 12. Most of this series has focused on using our gifts to love one another and build up the body at Oakwood. But this week there is a specific command that we...

Serve the Church Covenant

We, the children of God gathered as Oakwood Community Church, in view of God’s mercy to us in Christ, this day present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, made holy and acceptable to Him by the blood of Jesus. We commit together today to help each other resist the...

Urban Rescue

Our students will introduce us to an Urban Rescue song this Sunday called Run. Check it out now, and see below for two more of their powerful Christ-exalting, Gospel-centered...

Local Christian Artist in a Powerful New Film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75qN9lzVdvg&feature=youtu.be Luke Benjamin Bernard studied theater at UCF and went to Hollywood to try to break into the industry. But God had another way for Luke. In 2013 he was in a terrible car accident that left him in a coma...

What are Spiritual Gifts?

“Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.” Romans 12:6 How can we obey this verse if we don’t understand spiritual gifts? 1 Corinthians 12:1 says, “concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to...

I Can Only Imagine

We finally saw this film people have been talking so much about – and now we can see why! This is a must see movie, and it just came to Redbox, so there are no more excuses! It is the inspiring story behind the powerful MercyMe song, I Can Only Imagine. What a...