This Sunday we pause our study of John to celebrate a special moment in the life of OBC.As 1 Peter 5, 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1 indicate, elders/overseers/pastors (three terms for the same office) play a crucial role in the life of the church. This is why multiple books in the Bible give elder qualifications—so that local churches can properly recognize and install biblical elders.In our case, OBC ...  Read More

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished,said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”— John 19:28 —Nothing was done by Christ which was not foretold;nothing was ever foretold by the Prophets concerning Christ, which was not done.— Alexander Watson — Tomorrow I will preach a Good Friday message focusing on the single word: dipsō (“I thirst”). For the last four years, our church has cons...  Read More

Dear Church Family,Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and this marks the beginning of the events of Holy Week which will lead us to Resurrection Sunday. This season should be marked by our praise to God for His great mercy to us, for such a great salvation accomplished through our Lord Jesus Christ.As Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has ...  Read More

Repentance is about turning to Christ. Being turned to Christ is the true joy of repentance. In this way, repentance is a wonderful grace, and there is “joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Lk 15:10).  Read More

As a family of believers centered on the gospel, we are committed to supporting families and faith. And next Sunday (February 27) we invite parents with young children to a class on the importance of raising children in the context of the local church. What can a parent expect from the church? How does the church encourage and equip parents and children to grow in faith?These are some of the quest...  Read More

Dear OBC Family,We are glad to share that we will be reuniting our church family into one worship service this Sunday, February 13. We will gather for Sunday School at 9:00am, and we will hold one worship service at 10:00am.Instead of our church family being separated into two groups from week to week, we rejoice at the opportunity to reunite our family into one service. As the church is the assem...  Read More

What will you do when you cannot preach? Oh, I am not talking about planning for an upcoming Sunday when I, as your pastor, will be absent, or when multiple teaching elders are unavailable. I am talking about when it becomes apparent 10 hours or 10 minutes before Sunday morning that the man called to preach simply cannot do it.In such a situation, we have a few options. We could call on someone to...  Read More

In the Spring of 2020, we began a new sermon series on the Gospel of John. Little did we know that things would get really weird in March of that year, when the onslaught of Covid-19 led us to stop gathering for eight weeks. During that time and after, we looked at Psalm 90–106 and Joel. Thereafter, we studied Daniel, 1 Peter, and Proverbs 1–9, to name a few. Yet, it has always been the hope to re...  Read More

Moses was dead to begin with.— Joshua 1:1 —Marley was dead to begin with.— Charles Dickens — When Charles Dickens wrote the opening line to A Christmas Carol, he touched off one of the most wonderful Christmas stories ever told. Marley, the miserly associate of Ebenezer Scrooge, was dead and now all eyes turned to his living partner. Though the story begins in the darkness of Scrooge’s heart, by t...  Read More

For the sake of your joy, we invite you to join with your brothers and sisters and feast on the Word of God together. God invites us to delight endlessly in his Word of Life (Ps 119:16), to meditate on his Word day and night (Ps 1:2), and to build our lives upon it (Matt 7:24-27). How will you saturate your heart with Scripture? As you pick a Bible reading plan, we encourage you to find a time and...  Read More

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring;he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.— Genesis 3:15 —In one sentence, can you give the message of the Bible? A few years ago, Dane Ortlund asked this question and received answers from a host of pastors and scholars, but one answer stood out from the rest and has taken on a life of its own...  Read More

The Most Exciting Book You’ve (N)ever Read.That’s how I framed the book of Leviticus when I invited members of our church to study it last January. And this week, by God’s grace, we finished going through the book. Admittedly, our study could have done more. But for 20 weeks (Spring and Fall), those who were at first skeptical of Leviticus kept coming back to the see the good news proclaimed in Mo...  Read More