Our Blog

Spare Change - May 2021

VBS – IT’S WORTH IT!

I don’t know if you can tell but I love VBS!  In fact, there are a lot of us at Oakhill that love VBS!  Vacation Bible School (VBS) is this crazy week-long evangelistic outreach to children in the summer.  We are hosting our VBS on June 21^st-25^th for kids 4yr-5^th grade.  Even though it takes place in the summer we are right in the middle of VBS Season.  We just had our training rally for our volunteers and participant sign-ups start the first week of May.  It takes a lot of planning and preparing to make VBS work.

While VBS has become a huge event that most churches participate in; it has a very humble beginning.  In 1894, a Sunday School teacher, D.T. Miles, started a summer Bible school for kids. Initially it lasted four weeks; over time it was narrowed down to one week.  Other churches picked it up until thousands of churches participated every summer. Recently the question has been asked if VBS is worth it. Is it worth the volunteer hours and church resources?

Lifeway, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptists, did some research and found that of the 60% of adults who attended VBS, 9 out of 10 have positive memories.  On top of that VBS is one of the only intentional ways our churches evangelize. We are in an evangelism crisis right now– 48% of church goers are not inviting unchurched people to visit and 61% are not sharing Christ with anyone.  VBS helps with both of those problems. It is a huge opportunity to invite families in our community to participate in something the church is doing.  It is also a way that we can share Christ with those children and their families. We take seriously the call to share the good news with everyone we can.  Our VBS teachers intentionally weave the gospel through all their lessons.  In addition, I get the opportunity on the Wednesday of VBS to share the gospel with the entire group of kids.  We have seen many kids respond to the gospel through the years. It is an amazing privilege to be a part of something so gospel focused and God honoring.

2019 was our largest VBS ever at Oakhill.  We had over 200 kids.  In 2020 we were gearing up for another great VBS, then Covid hit.  We had to move the date twice, however, VBS is so important that we wanted to make it happen anyway we could.  So, we did it in September on four separate Sunday nights.  God blessed our faithfulness, and several kids were saved.  Over the past few months many of these kids have been baptized!  VBS is most definitely worth it!  That is why we invest the man hours and resources to make it happen every year.

You might be asking yourself, “What can I do to help?”  The answer is simple: Pray and Invite!

1. Pray about who you can invite to VBS, then invite them!
2. Pray that kids would be saved and families impacted with the gospel.

We need prayer warriors that will surround this important event, all our volunteers, and the children attending in prayer.  Please join us in praying for opportunities to plant and harvest gospel seeds.  To register kids or for more info visit oakhillbc.org/vbs2021.

Student Ministry - May 2021

Dear Church Family,

Is freedom a Christian virtue? Most people would agree that freedom is a good thing that one should strive for and protect. But is freedom something we as Christians should hold as a necessary reality for our lives? You might be surprised to hear that for many people today this is a difficult question to answer. Some might say that freedom is simply a cultural value. Many people of the younger generation are willing to trade freedom for safety. Don’t worry, this is not a political conversation, but because of the reality experienced by many people today (especially the younger generation) we have to ask this question: does Christianity value freedom? 

The answer is an emphatic YES! To be Christian is to be free. Now, this does not mean that people will never try to force us to act against our freedom. It doesn’t mean that we will never suffer for the sake of our freedom. It does mean, however, that while people will push vigorously against our freedom, they can never take away our freedom. But what freedom are we talking about? We know Christians have been imprisoned and enslaved for millennia, so in what way are we immutably free? We are free in the most significant way. We are free to live according to the truth. We are free from things like the fear of man and the fear of failure. We are free from performance driven lives. All of this is true because of the ultimate freedom we have; freedom from sin and the result of sin.

Listen to what Jesus says about the freedom He gives to those who trust in Him in John 8:31-36:
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 

Here Jesus is telling us that everyone is a slave to sin, and that He is the only one who can give us freedom. This means that freedom isn’t just a virtue of Christianity, but that Christ is in fact the only source of freedom at all. Without Jesus, all other freedoms in life are nullified by mankind’s slavery to sin. We have to understand that real freedom is only attained in Christ. This is true because in Jesus, no weapon can defeat us, and even our own failures have been overcome. Sin is no longer our master, and death itself cannot separate us from our freedom to live.

This means I don’t have to cave to peer pressure. I don’t have to give in to lust. I don’t have to bow down to cultural idols. I don’t have to compete with the Jones family. I don’t need to have the nicest newest things. I am so free that I don’t need anything, because I have what I need the most, Jesus. And in this, we are not isolated and enslaved to selfishness. Paul reminds us that this freedom does not lead back to sin when he says, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). In Christ, we are free from only loving and protecting ourselves, and now we can love God and love each other without fear.

This is the freedom that the world needs. We have the key to their freedom. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We just need to share this amazing truth and boldly let freedom ring.