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Women On Mission - May 2023

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Oakhill Baptist Church Time Line

We look forward to celebrating our 60th anniversary as a church in October.
This is a partial timeline of our history.

Jan. 24, 1960     Rev. C. E. Wiley, area missionary, met with 25 people in the home of Mr. & Mrs. John Hughes for the first fellowship meeting.
June 1960           Keck Ave. Baptist Church voted to sponsor Oakhill Baptist Chapel.
Sept. 1, 1960     Rev. Paul Bowles was called as first Pastor.
Nov. 1962           Rev. William Weedman served as Interim Pastor.
March 17, 1963 Rev. William Tucker was called as Pastor.
Oct. 8, 1963       Chapel organized into Oakhill Baptist Church with 68 charter members.
Sept. 13, 1964  Ground breaking for new building.
Dec. 16, 1964   Rev. Jeff Mitchener called as Interim Pastor.
April 18, 1965  New building completed.
July 1965            Rev. William Carter called as Pastor.
1970                      Steve Cook, Summer Youth Director.
1970                      Randy Dill, Summer Youth Director.
Oct. 15, 1972   Oakhill voted to sponsor Southwind Fellowship. Rev. James Trader was Pastor of Southwind.
1973                      Garry Bailey served as part-time Youth & Music Director. 
Feb. 1973            Delores Zahm came as Church Secretary.
June 1973          Tom Traylor, a student at Southern Seminary, came as Summer Youth Director. (Her served as Interim Pastor in 1974).
1973 -1974       Cindy Boultinghouse, Summer Children’s Worker.
Sept. 1974          Rev. Joe Hasson called as Pastor.
1977                      Rev. Irvin Parrett served as Interim Pastor. Other Youth workers were: Brenda Keller (1976), Danny Garnett (77-79), Jim Trader (1982), Bruce Wilson (1983),                                    David Russell (1984).
Sept. 1977         Rev. Roy Jones called as Pastor, served until Sept. 1984.
Nov. 1984          Rev. Irvin Parrett served as Interim Pastor .
March 1985     Rev. Glen Flowers called as Pastor, served until Jan. 2006.
March 2, 1986 101 volunteers participated in Good News America Bible distribution - 400 Bibles given in area.
May 1986          Rev. Randal Bratcher came as first full-time Minister of Youth and Music.
Nov. 1986        “Together We Build” campaign brought pledges of $221,746.00 - $21,746.00 above Hallelujah goal.
March 1987     Ground breaking for new educational building.
Jan. 19, 1988   Dedication of new building.
June 1991         Joe Hopkins called as Minister of Music (part-time). Also served on the music faculty at University of Evansville. Served until March 1998.
Dec. 1993         Rev. Joby Tricquet called as full-time Associate Pastor. Served until 1997.
1994                    Terry Frank called as part-time Minister of Youth until 1998.
June 1994        Kathleen Qualkenbush came as Church Secretary.
January 1998 World Mission Club plan for mission giving began.
April 5, 1998   Rev. Kevin Royalty served as full-time Minister of Music and Education. Served until 2004.
May 2000         Oakhill began the Weekday Childcare Ministry with Vanessa Wagler as the Weekday Childcare Director and Amy Dassel as the Assistant Director.
                                Both ladies served until 2004.
Oct. 2000         Paul Hollis served as part-time Minister of Youth until 2001.
Feb. 2004         Lisa West, Weekday Childcare Director - presently serving.
Oct. 2004         Jason Woolsey came as Minister of Music - served until 2014.
Jan. 2006         Retirement of Rev. Glen Flowers.
May 2006        Rev. Alan Scott came to serve as Senior Pastor - presently serving.
March 2007   Rev. Bryan Gotcher came as Minister of Students & Education - presently serving as Senior Associate & Children’s Pastor.
2011                   April Sharp came as Children’s Ministry Director - served until Dec. 2018.
Oct. 2011        Polly Todd came as Administrative Assistant. Presently serving as Administrative Assistant of Finance and Facilities. 
Feb. 2016        Pastor Nick Scott came as Pastor of Spiritual Development - served until Dec. 2020.
Feb. 2016        Pastor Jared Mitchell came as Pastor of Worship - served until Feb. 2020.
Oct. 2016        Pastor Brian Van Doren came as Student Pastor - served until 2022.
June 2017       Shirlene Kilgore came as Personal Assistant to Lead Pastor & Ministry Coordinator - presently serving.
Jan. 2019         Cheryl Rollow came as Administrative Assistant - served until Sept. 2019.
Feb. 2019        Pastor Leonid Marsan Rodriguez came as Hispanic Church Pastor - presently serving.
Sept. 2019     Jen Church came as Administrative Assistant of Students and Worship. Presently serving as Communications Coordinator and Worship Ministry Assistant.
June 2020      Pastor Derek Niffenegger came as Pastor of Worship - served until Feb. 2022.
Aug. 2021      Molly Morris came as Children’s Ministry Assistant - presently serving as Student Ministry Assistant.
July 2022       Michaela Jones came as Children’s Ministry Assistant - presently serving.
Aug. 2022      Pastor Evan Gray came as Pastor of Worship - presently serving.

Women on Mission will meet next on Thursday, May 4th in the Grace classroom at 1:00 pm.

Posted by Women On Mission with
in Kids, Newsletter, Missions

Spare Change - April 2023

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The Pattern of Prayer

If you study the patterns of Jesus’ life you will notice one thing.  He spent a significant amount of time in prayer.  The Bible records several instances when Jesus went away by Himself (Matt. 14:23, Luke 5:16, Mark 1:35, Mark 6:46).  This was a normal pattern for Him.  Why would Jesus, of all people, need to spend a lot of time in prayer?  Maybe He
understood something about the power of prayer that we just don’t get.  

In Luke 22:39-46, Jesus takes His disciples to the Mount of Olives to pray. Verse 39 tells us that this was His usual custom.  This meant that Jesus regularly went to the garden to pray.  This fact was so known to His disciples that Judas is able to easily find Jesus when he betrays Him.  How many times did Jesus go to the garden to pour out His heart to His Father? This time, Jesus is grieved beyond what any of us can comprehend.  He knows that He will suffer greatly and die for the sins of mankind.  The fact that Jesus turned to prayer in this season should not be lost on us.  When Jesus is faced with the hardest test of His life, He goes to deep, soul-moving prayer.  He prayed so much, His spirit was so grieved, and He was in such agony that His sweat was like blood dripping from His body.

The fact that Jesus turned to prayer during this time should give an obvious indication of how important prayer is.  Jesus also instructed His disciples to pray so they would not enter into temptation.  What was the temptation of that night? To abandon their faith.  Even though Jesus had warned them that He would be tortured and killed (Matt. 16:21-23), they still did not fully understand what was to happen.  Jesus' main weapon was prayer and that is why He instructed His disciples to be committed to prayer.  During prayer, the disciples ended up falling asleep and when Jesus was arrested, they all abandoned Him except for Peter and John.  Peter ends up denying Jesus three times as He prophesied.  

This all points to the fact that prayer is essential in the life of a believer.  When the disciples were faced with their biggest temptation from Satan himself, what did Jesus tell them to do?  PRAY! Do you have the same emphasis on prayer in your life?  Do you underestimate its power?  I feel like many of us treat prayer like something we say is
important, but we don't really practice it like it's important.  It is one thing to say you value something, however, your actions show what you value.

If prayer is the weapon that Jesus says it is then we need to be committed to it.  Not just with trite promises like, “I’m praying for you,” but with actual prayer.  Why does it feel so awkward for Christians to stop what they are doing to pray about a situation wherever and whenever the need arises?  It should be the normal outpouring of God’s work in our lives to pray for people on the spot.  We should also be committed to daily times of prayer.  We should be persistent in our praying as Jesus told us in Matthew 7:7-11.  Jesus tells us to persistently pray as if someone is knocking at a door repeatedly until someone answers.  Let’s knock on Heaven’s door with our prayers until the Father answers.

Jesus believed that prayer was effective and lived it out in His life.  We should follow His example and make prayer the priority of our Christian faith.  I wonder what a difference it would make in our lives and the lives of those around us if we committed to being people of prayer.  The church needs to remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 21:13, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.”  Our churches, as well as our lives, should be filled with prayer.  Let’s look to Jesus and make prayer the normal pattern in our lives.

Posted by Bryan Gotcher with

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