Welcome to Oak Springs Community Church!
Thanks for visiting our website! Oak Springs Community Church is a group of believers dedicated to loving God and the people in our lives, for His glory. Our mission is to get the good news of Jesus Christ into the lives of the people we live with, work with, play with, and interact with. These relational connections we have are the ‘live wires’ God uses to transform lives! We hope that your visit here will be inspiring.
We meet together on Sunday mornings for worship and study of God’s Word. We welcome you to venture out to Grand Isle Senior Apartment Homes in Murrieta each Sunday at 10 AM to experience God in worship and to study God’s Word with us as we equip one another with the truth.
To say, “our doors are always open” would be a little misleading, for our “doors” belong to the Grand Isles. But it is an understanding of Oak Springs’ that we are ‘open doors’ to the love of God and His grace by the sheer fact of His open arms to us. We’ve been embraced by our Heavenly Father and we are just one of many of His open doors to the world He loves and gave His only begotten Son to rescue. So, we welcome you with open arms!
Good Monday morning...
… and returning from a week of vacation merits an expression of gratitude. I am incredibly grateful for the time Lisa and I spent in San Francisco, just hanging out together and walking, riding e-bikes and taking public transportation to and from a variety of tourist spots. I also must say that the meal at Mamma’s restaurant on Telegraph Hill is a lingering delight as we split an omelet and their famous Monte Cristo sandwich for lunch on our last day in the city. I am also grateful for my colleague, Chaplain Fred, who picked up the slack in my absence from Hospice of the Valleys, and for Jackie, our Board of Leadership secretary, who made sure the prayer requests got sent out last week.
Today, I am grateful for the 41st anniversary of Lisa and my wedding. “Looks like we made it” was a Barry Manilow lyric that entered my mind as I consider the day. Lisa has always liked Barry Manilow, and I knew that God approved because we serendipitously attended a Barry Manilow concert in Honolulu on our honeymoon. Thankfully, we have been able to attend only one or two more of his concerts over the years. Funny memory that I have from our first apartment in Fullerton, CA. We were in a unit that shared a hall between our front doors, which meant we shared a common wall and an outdoor balcony (we were on the 2nd floor). When a visitor of our neighbors asked what his neighbors thought about the pot plant on his balcony, his reply was, “Oh, I don’t worry about them, their Barry Manilow fans!”
In marriage, you don’t need to correct people’s perceptions when you are lumped together in a category that you personally would prefer not to be lumped in. So, yes, we are Barry Manilow fans because the “she” who is the Barry Manilow fan, is now the “we” who are the uninterested or “cool” neighbors who won’t report the pot plant on our neighbor’s balcony. At the time, I believe it was legal for a California resident to have a pot plant growing on their property. My point is the “we” aspect of marriage is more important that the “me” aspect, and so we get lumped together in others’ perception of us.
I love being lumped together with Lisa. I hope that our being lumped together as believers in Jesus will be the greater perception that people have of us as we continue our journey together. The kindness and dedication of Jesus to us, His people, is our motivation to reflect kindness to our neighbors and love for Him, in our marriage. May you find His kindness and love as a motivation for your life today.
For His glory,
Pastor Mike