Photos can say a lot.  If you look close and start to ask the right questions you can begin to see so much in a photo that might just go by unnoticed. Take for instance this photo from May 2019 at our Church.

Probably looks like a typical church service at a typical church. Right? Well not according to what most people in the American culture think about church.  Culture thinks that each church is mainly a homogeneous, segregated, population of like minded people, and for the most part they would be right.  However, they couldn’t be farther from the truth when talking about Singing Oaks.  The list is a mile long on the things people disagree about, the place in life that each one person finds themselves, or the places people come from.  God is transforming this church into one that accepts people from all backgrounds, faith traditions, skin and hair colors, races, genders, various types of relationships, ages, and even political affiliations.  We have people from many different states and countries attending here including China, Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nigeria, Kenya, Canada, Thailand, the U.K., and even Oklahoma. We don’t all agree on….well anything except the Love of Jesus.  It makes our church a hot mess that we believe is Loving God AND Loving Others!

Let me tell you about this picture and what God is doing at our church.  

Starting on the left of the stage:  Sam Flippin, a young husband, father, and an educator of music;  Next to him his Ralph McCauley, husband, father, and an App designer who has created a video game to help teens grow in their faith and understanding of spiritual warfare;  Edy Tercero, a Guatemalan, husband, father,  gifted minister of worship in Spanish; Next is Jana-Kay McHam, wife, mom and Marriage Therapist; Madi Burnett, teen, studying to be a Worship Minister and in that picture celebrating graduation from High School;  Next is Brandon Bell, husband, father and gifted evangelist; next is Jabbarri Jones,  young adult from California who is a gifted actor/musician and Worship leader; Neta Johnson, single mom/grandma corporate professional, Kathy Fuentes, a young teenager with a huge smile and a sweet personality who is currently awaiting a kidney transplant,  and to the far right is Tiffany Moser, single mom, is one of our American Sign Language translators who translates our services for Elizabeth a young, deaf, Nigerian college student studying at UNT.

They are singing in harmony and helping lead our congregation in songs of praise to our God.   It is an amazing and joy-filled sight to see people from all different backgrounds coming together in unison to help our even more diverse congregation praise our father in heaven.   This community of faith is working towards fully realizing what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12: 12-14:

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized byone Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Even so, the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Welcome to the Body of Christ!