In "The Church's Heritage," we are highlighting theological reflections from Christian pastors and theologians that have encouraged the church throughout 2,000 years of Christian history. In this article, we are taking a section from Martin Luther's writing called The Freedom of the Christian. Within it, Luther provides a hidden gem of meditation on salvation from sin thro...

Why do we do what we do as a church? Upon consideration of a philosophy of ministry, it would do well to remember the apostle Paul's description of his ministry in 1 Corinthians 4:1. He writes, "this is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." In light of Paul's apostolic authority and position as foundation of the church (Ephe...

In America today, we are inundated with books that focus on our personal happiness, personal fulfillment, self-improvement, self-help, and every other self-therapy and self-healing strategy we can think of. Unfortunately, this so-called happiness is far from the reality that the psalmists portray for us in many of the psalms. The psalms are filled with deep, dark, persona...

Why do we do what we do as a church? Over the next few months, we will take some time to consider together the marks of a healthy church. We will do this by laying out a philosophy of church ministry to underscore what or who the church is as the bride of Christ. A church's mission will only be on target to the degree that her philosophy of ministry is consistent with her ...

Preaching to ourselves? That is the question our author Joe Thorn asks of his readers and, in fact, serves as the theme around which he frames this book. Thorn writes, "the idea of preaching the gospel to ourselves is getting more press these days, but the actual work of preaching to ourselves seems to be slow in coming" (23). Of course, it has been trendy in reformed cir...

The elders met on Tuesday evening, April 21,for our monthly elders meeting. We began our evening with prayer for gospel faithfulness and endurance in the various ministries of OBC. We are continuing to pray for OBC ministry that God would see fit to raise up future leaders to serve as elders, deacons, ministry leaders, and home group leaders. Regarding our finances, income...

"Seeing Christ through Gospel Lenses" is my endeavor to capture the emphasis in Scripture, particularly the book of Colossians, on the present and future joy of every believer, to treasure the unsurpassable weightiness of Christ. When we contemplate what it means to "see" Christ, for many of us, we may relegate this sight of Christ to future glory when believers will see H...

"Through God's redemptive plan, memory transforms from a millstone to a milestone." That is how author Matt Rehrer begins and concludes his book, Redeeming Memory. Rehrer has provided an encouraging resource for believers as they process and interpret memories. He begins by observing that biblical memory is a neglected topic in current Christian literature. The operative ...

As human creatures made in God's image, we are indelibly marked with the desire to interpret, to understand the meaning of our lives, the cosmos we live in, and the Creator we serve. The fruit of this quest for meaning is the study of theology (theo = God plus logos = word), which literally means "word related to God." We are as humans, in our very essence, image of God, ...

The elders met on Tuesday evening October 21for our monthly elder's meeting. We began our evening with prayer for gospel faithfulness and endurance in the various ministries of OBC. We are continuing to pray for OBC's ministry leaders as well as that God would see fit to raise up future leaders to partner together for the furtherance of the gospel. Two of our elders, Dave ...