Oakhurst Baptist Church

The first Sunday of Advent. The World Is about to Turn – Keep Awake!

We often think we have the right answer, follow the right path, and know exactly where we’re going. Even when we don’t really know, we convince ourselves that we do. Listen as Pastor Melanie Vaughn-West looks at a conversation between Jesus and a religious leader, one very sure, the other in tune with the spirit.

If we cry out of the depths, we must have first journeyed in. What do we need to know before we embark? What do we need to take with us? Listen as Pastor Lauren Colwell takes a look at Jesus’ sojourn in the desert and ponders some questions before we journey into Lent together.

We walk around every day and make choices about who we see, who we engage, and who we ignore. With each choice, we decide how to construct the world around us, we decide who is in and who is out. Listen as Oakhurst member Billy Hall challenges us to see more and consider what we can create if we choose to do so.

As a community, we often wrestle with many things. And as a community we do so together. The writer of Genesis tells the story of Jacob wrestling all night with a being, demanding a blessing. Listen as Pastor Melanie Vaughn-West reflects on our call to wrestle for our own blessing, and our responsibility toward one another in the struggle.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed doing all the things, all the time. Listen as Oakhurst member and minister Tere Tyner Canzoneri reflects on how allowing God to truly do new things among us might mean letting go of some of the former things we hold near and dear.

God promises to fill us with God’s spirit, to uphold us, to take us by the hand and keep us. Listen as Pastor Melanie Vaughn-West reminds us that, ultimately, we are called to serve not out of our own strength, but out of God’s.

Listen as Oakhurst member Cindy M Brown talks about kings with strings, kings with no strings, and the kind of “Kin-dom” God envisions for us.

It doesn’t take an A+ parent to tell you that a stable and a feeding trough are no place for a newborn baby, and yet that is where Jesus, “God with Us,” began his life. A second glance reveals that maybe those were the perfect places after all for the defender of the marginalized. Listen as Minister of Music Karen Bryant Shipp takes a closer look.

Wake-up calls come and go, and they are accompanied by a multitude of emotions…excitement, fear, hope, despair, loneliness, grief, amazement, and so many more. They can encourage us forward or leave us stuck. The turning point, the great reversal, comes in saying “yes.” Listen as Pastor Lauren Colwell talks about Joseph’s “yes” and his potential “no.” What will call your name when the sun rises again? And what will you say?