Bent Oak Church

Shakespeare described man's second stage as the lover. He was describing a romantic view of life that is driven by a need for adventure, quests, and experience. Samson was driven by this romantic need for adventure. Restless and determined to find himself, he constantly wandered off to Philistia. Through his story, we come to realize how easily we abandon what God is doing looking for what we want. Real adventures are received not achieved. 

In this week's message, we take a look at the first of our five instincts, sarcasm. Cain's struggle to receive God's lesson exposed his sarcasm as immaturity. We also look at practices by which we can check our own sarcasm and grow into something better.

As we continue our conversation looking at instincts and character we discuss the uniqueness of Christian character and how the men and women of scripture help us grow into it. 

Men are not doing okay. Across a wide range of markers, men are failing, disengaging, and giving up. The whole conversation has become another cultural controversy. The consequences? Men have given up on getting better. In this first sermon of the series, we take a look at the challenges men face and why the pursuit of Christian character matters more than ever. 

We continue our advent Immanuel series with a message and testimony from Kevin Weaver on how God is present and faithful throughout life.

Our Christmas readings usually include the angelic message to Mary and Joseph, the coming of the wise men, the worship of the shepherds, but the story of Jesus's flight to Egypt rarely fits well. In this week's sermon, we take a closer look at how Matthew uses the story to explain Jesus's identity and the promise of God's faithfulness to us as well.

We continue our advent Immanuel series with a message and testimony from Will Outzen on how God is present and faithful, even when we think we have things figured out. 

We continue our advent Immanuel series with a message and testimony from David and Kristin Marshall on how God shows himself faithful when things are difficult.

We begin our advent Immanuel series with a message and testimony from Barry Kinzer on how God shows himself faithful when things don't make sense. 

We finish up our series on Bent Oak Church by looking at how we relate to the outside world. How does the church fit in culture? How should we understand our responsibilities to our neighbors? How does the gospel compel us to bear witness as ambassadors for Christ?