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 most of you know by now that my good friend and brother in Christ, Pastor Bill, has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) which is an aggressive blood cancer requiring immediate treatment. Fortunately, he is undergoing that treatment now, and, from his own words, “they are taking really good care of me.”
Some of you will remember that another good friend and brother in Christ, Mike, one of the elders of our church, some twenty years ago was diagnosed with a stage 4 lymphoma. He underwent the aggressive treatment of destroying his immune system to reintroduce stem cells to “reboot” his system. It was not a pleasant journey, but it was successful! Mike continues to serve his church (Oak Springs Community Church) with wisdom and faithfulness.
My hope for Pastor Bill is for a successful treatment, obviously, but also that the twenty years of research and development of better treatments for these aggressive cancers will serve to his advantage. It is when it is this close and personal that threats to the advancement of our medical sciences can really tick me off! God is not threatened by good science, rather He patiently supports the work of science in the kingdom of this world, knowing that one day, upon Christ’s return, there will be no more need for the advancements. His Kingdom is cancer-free, conspiracy theory-free, and free of every other imperfection we live with in this world.
Here’s another factor in my heightened sense of urgency for Pastor Bill’s treatment… forty years ago, on April 30, 1986, my dad was diagnosed with AML. His oncologist said to a 48-year-old Bud Patton, “Mr. Patton, this disease can take your life in three weeks.” In 1986 my dad was considered too old for a bone marrow transplant, a relatively new procedure at that time. Instead, they began an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. On May 20, 1986, three weeks after his diagnosis, my dad died.
Death is always an issue when considering cancer and its treatment, however, we are so much better off now, with the advancement of treatment through science based research and development, that I am very hopeful for a full recovery for Bill, and that his service here on earth will continue after this blip in time for treatment and recovery. His kindness and musicality, humor and massive intelligence are too important for this world to lose.
Bud, Mike and Bill are all brothers in Christ! Their eternal lives are secured because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross. Mike and Bill have more work to do here, so please pray with me that Bill’s treatment will be super successful!
For His glory,
Pastor Mike