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March 2017 Worship

Church Family,

Hebrews 4:14-16 says, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then draw near to the throne of grace to help in time of need.”

This is my prayer for our Church family as we move into a new season of spring. I pray we could consider Christ, who He is, and the implications that His perfect, sinless life has on our lives. Jesus knows. Jesus understands our struggles. He understands our weaknesses. He understands our temptations. But Jesus, who was without sin, he is our Great High Priest. Because He is our Great High Priest, we can draw near to him at all times. In the good, in the bad, in the uncertainly, and in the valley, we can draw near to Him. We can draw near to him with confidence that he knows us, he understands us, and he loves us. It’s an honor to know Jesus, which we are unworthy of. And there’s power in being known by Him. As we move forward together, let’s lean into Jesus. Let’s depend on Him. Let’s learn from Him. And let’stake comfort in knowing that we are known by Him and loved by Him. Let’s worship with this truth deep in our hearts. On
Sundays, we’re singing to and worshipping to a God who knows us and loves us deeply. It doesn’t get much better than that.

On another note, as we move forward, there are few thing that I want you to be aware of. To begin, our next Kids Praise Saturday is on Saturday, March 17th. This is during our next Growth Initiative Weekend, and we want you and your children to be involved in both. So, if you are planning to come to The Growth Initiative that day, please bring your children so that they can be involved in worship. The children who come on Saturday will learn the worship set for Sunday, and on Sunday, they will lead our church in worship in our 2nd and 3rd services. Please plan to be a part!

Lastly, on Friday night, April 14th, we are having a Good Friday Night of Worship. I want to ask you and your family to make every effort to be a part of this. It will be a powerful evening as we come together and contemplate the Cross, Jesus’ death, and what that means for our lives. We will then follow up with a huge celebration on Easter Sunday, April 16th, in light of Jesus power of death, and his resurrection. What a great weekend it will be! Make plans to be present! I love you all, and I love worshiping with you every week. See you Sunday!

In Christ,
Jared

March 2017 Student Ministry

Dear Church Family,

         I want to share with you a little of my heart and philosophy for student ministry. It is quite similar to how I view adult ministry or ministry of any kind really. What I want to share with you has to do with how to reach the lost. Much of student ministry has to do with how to reach out to lost students who don’t know Jesus. This is what drives much of what many student ministries do. This is obviously a very correct motive that drives youth ministers. I have that same drive. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) is one of the most important motivating factors for how and why I do ministry. No one would disagree with the fact that we must be reaching out to the lost students in our community. The question is: how do we go about doing that?

Many student ministry philosophies take the approach that the best way to reach students is to get them into our building and around Christians so we can share the gospel with them. We must figure out ways to attract students to us so that we can give them what they need. This is not an altogether ineffective method of ministry. There are very many churches who attract hundreds of students to their facilities and then share the gospel with them. There has been fruit from these ministries, as to be expected any time we share the gospel. We have, and will continue to have, events that bring students into our sphere of influence! But I wonder if the Bible leads us to make that our entire focus for ministry? My argument is simply that you never see Jesus and His disciples attracting people to them with anything other than Jesus Himself. I think that we tend to forget that Jesus is attractive to a world that is lost and suffering. I just wonder if we are sometimes too focused on attracting people to us, or if we are focused on taking the attractive gospel to them?

In scripture, I see the early disciples taking the gospel to the people they knew, sharing their faith with those in need. My hope is that our students would be people who would go and share their faith with their friends and families. My goal with our students is to make them “fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). I want to equip them for ministry for the rest of their lives (Eph. 4:11-13). I want them to be the catalyst for reaching the lost. That is what I see in scripture. God uses His people to reach those in need. I want to show the students how to be used by God to make an impact on this world.

There may be some who will disagree with this ministry philosophy. “What student wants to come to church when it’s not all about having fun together??” someone might say. Be encouraged! Students who love Jesus will come. They will also go and make disciples of their friends who will then come too. Lost students want to come to church only when it no longer looks or feels like church. That is why we must be equipped to go to them and share with them where they are. If only 20 of our students shared the gospel with only 5 people each year, and only 1 of those 5 got saved each year and repeated the
process, then in three years 140 people would get radically saved. 140 people… My prayer is for the Student Ministry at Oakhill to be used by God to make an impact on Evansville like never before! But for this to happen, we will need to be patient, faithful to the Lord’s way, and prayerful. Would you please pray with me for our students and their friends who need the gospel?

Sincerely,
Brian Van Doren