Sermons from Oak Church

11/11/2018 Mark 12:35-44 Chris Breslin   “The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase […]

11/04/2018 Luke 13:10-17 Matthew Rehnborg   “When the prophet dares to expose to the light the congregation who is living in darkness, the initial reaction is to wince in pain. Our eyes have adjusted to the dark. Our world has been designed by shadows, not truth…The preacher causes pain, but slowly, very slowly, we adjust to the light […] If […]

10/28/2018 Isaiah 60:15-22 & Revelation 21:1-5 Chris Breslin   “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” -T.S. Eliot (from Little Gidding in the Four Quartets)   “The sin-ruined creation of Genesis is restored in the sacrifice-renewed creation of Revelation.” –Eugene Peterson […]

10/21/2018 Genesis 22:1-18 Chris Breslin   “ThroughAbraham and his family, God will bless the whole world. Shimmering like a mirage in the deserts through which Abraham wandered was the vision of a new world, a rescued world, a world blessed by the Creator once more, a world of justice, where God and his people would live in harmony, where human […]

10/14/2018 Genesis 22:1-18 Chris Breslin   “The church is a countercultural community of discipleship, and this community is the primary addressee of God’s imperatives.” -Richard Hays “Yahweh was setting up Abraham to undergo ‘a massive paradigm shift from a god who requires sacrifice to a God who makes sacrifice.” -Gregory Boyd “[Christian] sacrifice does not consist in a giving of […]

10/07/2018 Genesis 2:25-3:7 Chris Breslin   “Genesis 3 paints the scenario that is the hinge point of history. Humanity grasps at its own peace at the expense of the peace of all. The relationships that were declared tov me-od (very good)in the beginning all are decimated. Here lies the wreckage of that fateful moment of original sin, the moment when […]

We introduced and blessed three new members of our Steering Group: Bettejean Cramer, Carolina Kammel, and Sarah Neff. We also introduced and blessed our 2018-19 academic year Pastoral Intern from Duke Divinity School, Matthew Rehnborg.

09/30/2018 Genesis 2:4-25 Kendall Vanderslice   Kendall Vanderslice is a graduate of Wheaton College and Boston University (MLA Gastronomy). She is a student at Duke Divinity School and author of an upcoming book on dinner churches: We Will Feast: Rethinking Dinner, Worship, and the Community of God(Eerdmans, 2019).   “The fruit of that tree was food whose eating was condemned to [&#8230...

09/23/2018 Acts 16:13-34 Chris Breslin   “It’s easy for us to see what our church or neighborhood or city could be, to see all the things it’s not and dream of other places. But what if our sense of what could be is not an invitation to leave and find that elsewhere? What if it’s an invitation to shape our […]

09/16/2018 Acts 2:42-47 Chris Breslin   “After I gazed for a long time at Rublev’s Trinity these words spoke to me with new power. ‘Praying at all times’ has come to mean ‘dwelling in the house of God all the days of our lives.’ ‘Surviving all that is going to happen’ now tells me that I no longer need to […]

Our conversation took place at Oak Church on September 9, 2018. Tammy White Rodman (Pilgrimage Coordinator for DurhamCares) was the moderator. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (MDiv, Duke Divinity School) is a writer, speaker, and activist. He and his wife, Leah, founded the Rutba House, a house of hospitality where the formerly homeless are welcomed into a community that eats, prays, and shares […...

09/09/2018 Jeremiah 29:4-9 Reynolds Chapman   Reynolds Chapman is Executive Director of DurhamCares, whose mission is to mobilize Durham residents to love their neighbors. He is a minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church, planting and co-pastoring Shiloh Covenant Churchin Durham’s Braggtown neighborhood. Reynolds is actively involved in the Christian Community Development Association. He l...

09/02/2018 Luke 10:25-37 Chris Breslin   The missionary must be the salt which dissolves in the meat, disappears and dies in it. -Leslie Newbigin “I am an Israeli Jew on my way from Jerusalem to Jericho, and am attacked, beaten, stripped, robbed and left half dead in a ditch. Two people who should have stopped, instead pass by: a Jewish […]

08/26/2018 Prayer & Work & Presence Psalm 46 Chris Breslin   “Every step an arrival.” -Eugene Peterson   “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” -Mary Oliver   “The Psalms not only insist that we are called to live at the intersection of God’s space and our space, of heaven and earth, to be (in […]

08/19/2018 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Meg Hoffman   Oak Kids Website Godly Play Foundation   Songs for Today’s Worship Gathering: Turn! Turn! Turn! by Seeger Great is Thy Faithfulness by Chisholm/Runyan All Creatures of Our God and King by St. Francis 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) by Redman/Myrin Steadfast by McCracken/Jordan/Silverberg/Nouwen Rest by Maher/Cockrell Doxology

08/12/2018 Revelation 22:16-21 Chris Breslin   “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.” -Lesslie Newbiggin   “Foot washing is perhaps the most futuristic practice of the church, though not many people really believe that. Most Christians think they are being cutting edge and futuristic when they have busy graphic presentations running on […]

08/05/2018 Colossians 3:1-17 Chris Breslin   “…the Holy Spirit takes the ‘givenness’ of what has happened in Christ, and brings it alive in ever fresh ways in ever new contexts. Moreover, God can take our most catastrophic mistakes and re-create them, make them serve his drama. That’s the wonder of what Christians call salvation; it is not simply a matter […]

07/22/2018 Romans 8:1-11 Jeff & Susan McSwain Jeff & Susan are the founders of Reality Ministries, a community-based non-profit that offers a variety of opportunities for participants to work, play, learn and grow together. RM’s mission is to create opportunities for teens and adults with and without developmental disabilities to experience belonging, kinship and life-changing Realit...

07/15/2018 John 3:1-21 Chris Breslin   “I am a child of God, one in whom Christ dwells, and I am living in the unshakable kingdom of God.” –James Bryan Smith   “This, you see, is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but […]

07/08/2018 Joel 2:28-32 & Acts 2:1-21 Meg Hoffman   Powerpoint Slides (July 8)   Scripture: 1 Corinthians 14:1-19   Songs for Today’s Worship Gathering: This is Not the End by Arndt/Gungor Open Our Eyes by McCracken O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing by Wesley/Gläser Holy Spirit by Torwalts All Who Are Thirsty by Brown/Robertson Come, Holy Spirit, Come by […]

07/01/2018 Isaiah 11:1-10 & Jeremiah 37:1-14 Chris Breslin   “A prophet’s true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.” –Abraham Heschel   “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.&...

06/24/2018 Exodus 31:1-11 Sarah Neff   “We are holy creatures living among other holy creatures in a world that is holy.” –Wendell Berry   ”When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw ‘the tree with lights in it.”’ –Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek   “Because the […]

Our 06/24/18 Call to Worship: Bendito eres Tú, Señor Jesucristo. Cruzaste todas las fronteras entre la divinidad y la humanidad para hacer tu hogar con nosotros. Blessed are You, Lord Jesus Christ. You crossed every border between Divinity and humanity to make your home with us. Help us to welcome you in newcomers, migrants and refugees. Bendito eres Tú, Dios de todas las naciones. Bendices a nues...

06/10/2018 Psalm 51 Chris Breslin   Incurable and unbelieving in any truth but the truth of grieving, I saw a tree inside a tree rise kaleidoscopically as if the leaves had livelier ghosts. I pressed my face as close to the pane as I could get to watch that fitful, fluent spirit that seemed a single being undefined or countless […]

1 Samuel 16:1-13 & Isaiah 61:1-3 Chris Breslin “The strength or weakness of means is neither the spur nor the bridle to the determinate choices of God.” –Joseph Hall   Slides from Today (featuring Lebron James) Disunity in Christby Dr. Christena Cleveland 1 Samuel as ChristianScriptureby Stephen Chapman   Scripture: Isaiah 45:1-3 John 3:8 Psalm 51:7-10 James 5:13-16 1 Peter […]