The Olive Branch Markham • Audio Podcast

Blair Malfara shares with us a word of encouragement about what Paul the Apostle can teach us about his time in isolation. A timely word.

This message is a part of our series, "How to be Happy with Your Money -- in a New Reality". There’s a myth that the ‘money and stuff’ god, Mammon, wants you believe: “You can’t afford to give and to be generous now. COVID-19! Someday, however, you will have enough – so just WAIT.” He wants to sabotage your significance, the impact you are making with your life. So how do we INVEST IN OTHERS - be...

This message is part of our series, "How to Be Happy with Your Money in a New Reality".  Money is hell to live with if you don’t put up clear boundaries and tell IT what you will spend money on, and what you won’t spend money on.  In this new reality, managing isn’t a cool thing to do... it’s a necessity!

Our Easter Sunday message from the series, "Fingerprints of God: Why We Need to Choose Hope".

Our Good Friday message from the series, "Fingerprints of God: We We Need to Choose Hope".

Our Palm Sunday message from the series, "Fingerprints of God: Why We Need to Choose Hope".

When COVID-19 is over, you will be different... but you get to CHOOSE what that looks like! 

A message on how to respond, rather than react, during times of emergency, crisis and mounting pressure. It is super encouraging - give it a listen now!

This is part 2 of message series, "How to be Happy with Your Money". Everyone interacts with money! You and I do, but even your kids do on the mobile apps they are playing on their phones where they are trying to develop their character and beat the dragon at the end of the game they might be playing! The interesting thing with money though is it’s only valuable when you and I assign it value. Mea...

Week 1 of our message series, "How to Be Happy with Your Money" Imagine you’re at your house one day, the doorbell rings and somebody comes up to your door and says, “I’d like to run your life. I’d like to run your family, I’d like to run your business, I’d like to run your nights, I’d like to stay in your bedroom with you when you sleep, I’d like to do everything for you, I’d like to be involved...

This is Part 8 of our message series, "The Big, Hairy, Ugly Roots of Unhappiness".  You know I was thinking about this, one of the funniest things I ever saw was someone holding one of these selfie sticks and giving money to someone who was homeless. And I thought, you know, Jesus would have a lot of fun with selfies. Because he talked about, the sad pathetic trail of selfie religion. Basical...

This is week 7 of our message series, "The Big, Hairy, Ugly Roots of Unhappiness". Jesus tells us that love should never run out of gas, lose energy, or drop out of the race—even when people use you, hurt you, slap you, take what you have, and insist on being your enemy.  First, retaliation—no matter how glamorous and satisfying it seems in a movie plot—is always a dead end street.  Ther...

This is part 6 of our series, "The Big, Hairy, Ugly Roots of Unhappiness". Most of us when we are shopping for something important, know what it’s like to shop for the best deal: getting the best price on a car, getting the best price on a house, getting the best deal on an iPhone… we know what that’s like. But do you ever get the feeling that someone is doing that in their friendship with you? Th...

This is the fifth message of our series, "The Big, Hairy, Ugly Roots of Unhappiness".  We all know that when something is going wrong in our lives, in relationships, in a job, you gotta do something about it. Sometimes you’ve got to quit a job, sometimes you have to get your children out of a school… and the issue that the Bible deals with sometimes is what do you do when you are in a marriag...

This is the fourth message in our series, "The Big, Hairy, Ugly Rootsof Unhappiness".  Love is one of the things that everyone is looking for in the world, I think. And it’s patient, it’s kind, it makes you feel like you have value, that you have worth, that there’s something worth living for. But there is a cheap imitation out there. If you ever bought something expensive and gotten cheated...

This is part 4 of our series, "The Big, Hairy Roots of Unhappiness". You see it everywhere. You see it in governments…leadership at the highest levels. You see it in marriages and schools and corporate culture. It’s anger. It’s this inner infection of outrage that curses, insults, rants and raves and makes workplaces, traffic, home, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook miserables place to be. Anger is...

This is the second message in our series, "The Big, Hairy, Ugly Roots of Unhappiness". If a rule, a guideline, a law doesn’t make sense to us…we can just ignore it, right? We often see ourselves as the final editor, the court-of-appeals, in most of the issues of life. Is this okay? Where is this taking us?

From our series, "The Big, Hairy, Ugly Roots of Unhappiness" - Part 1  Everyone wants to be happy, but at times we find ourselves unhappy. What we sometimes fail to do is to actually look at the roots of unhappiness. It often comes into our lives a cute little seedling, but what we plant in our lives grows… develops a root system and can grow into a problem that steals, kills and destroys wha...

We don't just collect STUFF... we collect memories. Useless memories! Trivia. Directions to places we will never go to. We have this collection of memories that if someone pushes the right button, we slide right into. Some are good. Some are not. In fact, we remember stuff we did that we'd really like to forget. We have memory triggers that instantly flood us with regret, shame and sadness. Purgin...

Part 6 of our series, "Hopes and Fears of All the Years". No matter what kind of year 2019 has been for you and me, everyone hopes that 2020 will be better! Clearer direction. Adequate income. No losses. Growing and satisfying friendships. And yet, without any prompting whatsoever, we have these low-grade anxieties about what the future holds. There are a lot of reasons; generations before who hav...

[Our Christmas Eve message ] Part 5 of our series, "Hopes and Fears of All the Years". No one there could ever guess what was happening. In fact, a lot of the small towns would’ve been better places to hail from–like Jerusalem, City of David–just 7 miles away. But this night–it would be Bethlehem, just like the prophet, Micah, had said 700 years earlier: out of Bethlehem would come a ruler. No one...

Part 4 of our series, "Hopes and Fears of All the Years". The fear of loss and death has been haunting humankind ever since sin came into the world. Death steals everything and we are at our worst when we are afraid–especially when we are afraid of loss and death. The alternative is that death is simply the pause between life and MORE life. The peace offered to us from a loving God, in the vulnera...

Part 3 of our series, "Hopes and Fears of All the Years".  Longing and hoping for love, or at least to be noticed, is one of the deepest driving forces in our world. Do I risk one of my greatest fears, rejection, for something I want more than anything else? What about when we found love and acceptance, and then experience rejection? The intense loneliness and pain that leaves behind. On that...

Part 2 of our series, "The Hopes and Fears of All the Years".  Most of us want to do more than merely survive. We want to make a difference with our lives. But we look at the price tag for making a difference it usually involves some kind of risk of difficulty, or even failure. So when God calls our name quietly to do something... will we have the courage to do it? Or, how will we find the co...

Part 1 of our series, "Hopes and Fears of All the Years".  Hope is a constant companion through life. We hope we make it through the teen years. We hope we'll make the cut when it comes to teams, jobs, and friends. We hope we'll stay healthy, that people will like us and want us around. That we'll live a normal life, have children, and get out of debt. But for most of us, at least one of them...