Our Blog

Pastor's Point - February 2022

Dear Church Family,

I thought it might be fitting to share some from my heart about the importance of corporate worship in our church family.  As most of you should know by now, Pastor Derek is leaving our church to accept a call back to his home church in Michigan. This is a unique and special opportunity for him to minister in the church where he was raised with the same pastor that pastored him while he was growing up.  We will be praying for Derek, Laura, and the children as they go to this new assignment. We have already put in place a short-term plan to cover the worship responsibilities with talented people from within our church. We will continue worshipping God each Sunday by giving Him the worship that He deserves. 

Please be praying for me as I initiate the search for our next worship pastor.  Our church graciously allows me to begin the process as Lead Pastor which I am very thankful for. Our worship pastor position will be advertised in different places and as people submit their resumes, a vetting process will take place that will include considering the candidates philosophy of worship, theological convictions, experience in ministry, and training in worship ministry. Through this process I will be talking to those in our worship ministry for input into the search. They minister weekly with our worship pastor, and I would like to hear from them and gain their input into the process. As God leads us to a few leading candidates I will also be talking and consulting the other elders in our church as well. When the search narrows and focuses on one specific candidate, we will then have that person meet with our personnel team to be interviewed.  At that time, if all goes well, we will plan for this person to come in for a weekend to meet with the people of our church through meetings, and then lead worship for us on that weekend. By God’s grace we would then ask our church for a vote of affirmation to issue a call to that person to come and be the next worship pastor of our church. Please be praying for this very important time in the life of our church family.

I agree with this quote about worship that I found by John Wesley. He states, “Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength.” I would want our next worship pastor to know that I agree with that statement.  And I want this person to know that our worship services need to be marked by three key ingredients. 
The worship at Oakhill needs to be God Centered. 
The worship at Oakhill needs to be singable, powerful, dynamic, and moving. 
The worship at Oakhill needs to be led by people who love God and love leading others to worship the one true and living God. 

I want people to enter our worship services and take their eyes off themselves. I want them to take their eyes off the trials and pressures of this life. I want them to worship the One who has saved us, and the One who ministers to us while we live in the middle of this desperately hurting and hard world.  He is worthy to be praised, and we need to make sure that we are doing that correctly every time we gather for worship. 

I love you and I love being your pastor!

Pastor's Point - January 2022

Dear Church Family,

As we enter a new year together, I want to encourage our church family to resolve ourselves to some things.

On December 19^th I preached on the topic of The Lowly Lord. It was a message that encouraged us to look to the perfect model of humility that Jesus chose for His life and lived out perfectly. The church at Philippi was struggling in their relationships, and so the Apostle Paul encourages them to look away from self and to look to Jesus. He explained to them that Jesus had always been God and as He came to the earth, He chose the form of a servant as He came to serve and not be served. Jesus prioritized perfect obedience to God the Father instead of clinging to His exalted position in Heaven. And then He also chose sacrifice and perseverance as He made his way to the cross for those lost in their sin.

The second point of my sermon on the 19^th was simply for us to understand that we must prioritize humility in our lives, and then exaltation will follow. This is where we get things wrong so often. We mistakenly seek to exalt ourselves instead of living in humility with others. I shared a quote that reads… “The way of exaltation is always through humiliation. If that principle was true for the Son of God, how much more is it true for His followers”? 

So, let’s spend our lives seeking to have the attitude of humility mark us. This is us living in such a way that we are mindful to what Paul warns the Philippians about in vv.3-4 of Philippians 2. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

To guard against selfish ambition, and looking to our own interests, let’s prioritize humility in our lives! Remember humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is simply thinking about yourself less. So, let’s have the attitude of humility mark our lives in 2022!!  Resolve yourself to…

1. Count others more significant than yourself.
2. Look to serve instead of being served.
3. Seek God’s will instead of your will.
4. Be teachable instead of thinking you know it all.
5. Live your life by God’s wisdom instead of your wisdom.

As we live resolving ourselves to these things, we are practically choosing to live in humility, which is exactly the way we are to live. This is us making a conscience effort to push back against a culture that tells us to exalt ourselves. Let’s prioritize living faithfully in humility right now in life and let God bring the exaltation in time to our lives.

I love you and I love being your pastor!