Our Blog

Student Ministry December 2016

Dear Church Family,

I hope you are just as excited about the Christmas season as I am! While it may not be all that it is cracked up to be, the Christmas season is a great time for us as Christians to share our faith in Jesus with a world of lost and self-centered souls. The commercialism of this time of year is to be lamented, but we cannot let selfish consumerism quench the truth of the gospel that we can so easily point to at Christmas time! I hope you will celebrate (as we should normally) the wonderful reality that our Lord became flesh in order to take the punishment of death that we deserved for our sins. I also hope that we all will share that truth with the lost people we see around us.

What does this time of year usually mean for our students though?? Often it means telling family members how they can best appease their desires for worldly goods. There is nothing wrong with letting people know how they can best bless you with a gift, but it is utterly devastating if that is the only thing our students are thinking about. If you are a parent or grandparent, I encourage you to take some time this Christmas season to sit down and talk with your children/grandchildren about the true meaning of Christmas. If you have prayed for opportunities to share the gospel with your young-ones, the Christmas season is one answer to that prayer. What better time than now to go shopping with your student(s) and ask them what they think Christmas is all about and how that should affect their lives? Even if you don’t have children or grandchildren here at Oakhill, there are plenty of students who need spiritual parents to reach out to them and show them the gospel this Christmas. It is my prayer that we would show our students at Oakhill the gospel in a fresh way this season.

One way we hope to accomplish that this December is by discussing the good news of Peace with God through Christ. Peace is not something we often talk about. We mention it as a good ideal, but we rarely discuss it as a genuine reality for believers today. It is Jesus who brings peace between God and man. Peace on earth is the good news of Jesus’ arrival on earth. Because of Jesus and his sacrifice for our sins, we can have genuine fellowship with God and other believers in Christ. Genuine peace in fellowship can be hard to find, but it is not impossible to have. It is the peace of Christ that we pursue in our relationships here on earth. Christmas is a time for us to be reminded that Jesus left his heavenly throne to be born a peasant and die on a cross so that we can have real peace and fellowship with God and each other. I am so happy he did that! I hope that truth gives you joy as well!

The student ministry will be expressing some of our joy together on December 14 at our annual Christmas party! This year’s theme is Christmas Movies/Characters. We will dress up as our favorite Christmas movie characters, play some games, and have a white elephant gift exchange! We will talk about the meaning of Christmas and enjoy such sweet fellowship. If you can join us, then you are more than welcome! Just because it is a “youth” Christmas party, it doesn’t mean adults are unwelcome. We would love to see students and adults continue to build and grow relationships with one another this December, and what better time to do that than at a party? If you are interested in hanging out with the students, either at this Christmas party or just in general, come talk to me about how I can help you get connected.

Merry Christmas, and may God bless you and your family!

Brian Van Doren

Worship December 2016

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! I love Christmas. Christmas means a lot to me, and I hope it means a lot to you too. As Christians, we celebrate Christmas for more than just Christmas trees, lights, and presents. These things aren’t bad things, as I love all of these aspects of Christmas and look forward to them every year. But we celebrate Christmas because of one thing - the birth of Jesus Christ. This is the day we celebrate the world changing. Jesus came and from the moment He was born of a virgin, the world would never be the same. But Jesus would go on to live a perfect and sinless life as the son of God and would die a death in our place for our sins, so that we could have eternal life with God. Now isn’t that better than gifts, lights, and hallmark Christmas movies? I would say yes! It’s worth celebrating not only during this season, but every morning of the year as we open our eyes to the grace that God has poured out into our lives through his son Jesus.

Every year during the Christmas season I always get the question, “Will we sing Christmas carols at Church?” My answer is always a resounding, “Yes!” I love Christmas carols, and I think it’s important that the Church worships with them during this season. So why do we sing Christmas carols? I’d like to point to Keith Getty (author of “In Christ Alone”) and his thoughts on this. He says it well,

“When we look at the simplicity and focus of the early apostles, especially Paul, we see
individuals who were uncompromising about the gospel but sought to use strategic opportunities and platforms for its spread to those who had yet to believe. Since Christmas is a time of year when many unbelievers visit our churches, we should be on the lookout for creative opportunities to share the good news. If the question is about church music, I’d suggest that singing the great Christmas carols is one obvious place to start. The best of them tell the gospel story in some of the most innovative and inviting language we’ve ever seen in religious verse, certainly in the English language. In terms of art, they are the masterworks, the treasured heritage of the church we shouldn’t ignore. Young and old, churched and unchurched, are united in wanting to sing Christmas carols during the Christmas season. More than that, however, I’d say it’s our responsibility to have a high view of congregational worship. Our singing is always a witness; therefore, if our churches don’t sing well, or sing apathetically, or sing while distracted by iPhones and casual conversation, we become an appalling witness to outsiders. So let’s take these songs and use them as a galvanizing force for our singing—that we might declare to all who are present the breathtaking good news of
Jesus.”

At Oakhill, we want to have a high view of Jesus and what he did for us. We want to sing about his birth, and how the birth of Jesus changed the world and our lives. So join us on Sundays throughout this Christmas season, as we sing songs old and new to give honor and praise to our great God.

In Christ,

Jared