BLOG

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, ...

READ MORE...

18
SEP

1

Share

There are some other items in our prospectus like our proposed budget and 5-year timeline, but I’m going to blog about that stuff separately. The last major piece of our plan involves our statement of faith. We worked hard to speak the truth without feeling like we were watering down any aspect of the Gospel. We also chose to stick with foundational doctrines and leave the often dividing issues on the table for discussion. Our beliefs are written in more ...

Moving people from where they are to where God wants them to be should not be a complicated process. We share the Gospel to bring people to Christ to grow disciples who share the Gospel to bring people to Christ. Simplifying our activities and ministries allows us to concentrate on better ways to more effectively evangelize and develop disciples.

INSPIRE
There are a lot of great churches in Canton doing a lot of great things. We want to come alongside them ...

This teaching thing is still a little new to me. I read a ton and study my tail off trying to a) make sure what I’m teaching is Biblically & historically accurate and b) have some fresh new perspective that keeps people’s interest so no one is snoring in the middle of a sermon (though I’ve got plans to stash a water gun on stage just in case someone does).

But no matter how much I read or how much ...

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” – John Wodden

This is one of our core values. We believe it is demonstrated throughout scripture and we want to reinforce it in everything we do. Just one example off the top of my head is when Jesus told Peter to go back out and fish again after he had spent all day trying and caught nothing. They could’ve pulled in a ...

Stephen is widely considered the first martyr of the Christian faith because he was stoned outside the city for professing Jesus as the Messiah and only way for eternal salvation. Do we consider him a martyr only because he died a brutal death for his faith?Is that all we need to learn from the character of Stephen?

The word martyr comes from the Greek word for witness – martys (scroll down to see Greek and Biblical reference). The modern definition ...

seriously…this made my day and made we want to go back and watch some old He-man cartoons to see if they redrew the animation or if they just labored and found clips that worked.

In the past, I’ve found myself always wanting people to watch me do it then mimic what I did. It was how I directed theater. It was how I taught songs to people who couldn’t read music. It’s what I do when my wife has a problem on the computer thinking she can learn in 60 seconds what I’ve learned over many years. This is not teaching. This is demonstration. This is learning by rote. This critical step sets ...

Our summer marriage class ended with a surprise…free child care & gift cards to local restaurants. Jamie & I try to go on at least one date a week but that doesn’t always happen. On top of that, we know so many couples in our church, especially with kids, that rarely, if ever go on a date. We thought it would be a nice treat to send everyone off on a date for the last week of our class so ...

Several months ago, our team spent a fair amount of time wrestling over what we wanted to say were our non-negotiables. We don’t talk about them as much as we should to the whole church but they work well for us. I’m sure eventually they’ll make their way to some over-sized prints behind some recycled wood frames.

At Oak Leaf Church Canton, we have 5 core values that surround our commitment to be a Biblically-focused community of faith. These 5 key ...

READ MORE...

19
JUL

0

Share