What is Alpha?
 

Outwardly, they appear to be committed to Jesus.  They wear a gold cross around their neck – which is fine...
 

Why is Satan’s kingdom still so powerful now, in our lifetime?  The answer in part, or course, is that the coming of God’s kingdom is not an instant happening...
 

We hear in the gospels about Jesus gathering his apostles, how they just up and left their jobs (leaving their nets in their boats at the spur of the moment), leaving their families, taking nothing with them. They just took off and followed Him. What would that look like in today’s world? ...

“From the darkness of our own mind, we reach out toward that which we think might be God.  Sometimes, at that moment...
 

“What’s wrong?” Peter asked. “I just realized, right now, how much you mean to me,” said Cindy.  “No,” Peter replied, “you just realized how much YOU mean to ME.”  Did you get that, because it is really important.  Translated, Cindy said, “I just realized how much I love you.” No, Peter said, “You just realized how much I love YOU.”

There are few, very few, experiences more profound in life than realizing...

Here we are in the fourth and final Sunday of Advent.  So far, we talked about Jesus, and that he is the one who does the igniting; we cannot ignite ourselves.   This brings us to the third and final word of our motto, “me.”  Today, when I say “you,” or “us,” or “we,” could you think of ME!

Back when we were thinking of a motto that would drive us into the future, for me it simply had to be about a personal relationship.  WHY?? ...

Here we are on the third Sunday of Advent, and the word for this Sunday is “ignite.”  Last week, I was asking the students in school what ignite meant and one answered, “to start something.”  Her answer made me pause and think: what are we trying to ignite here at OMOS, what are we trying to start? 

A Message from Father Mark:

We have our motto, our theme, “Jesus, Ignite me!”  That’s exciting!!  From now on with everything we do at OMOS, we must first ask ourselves the question, will it help Jesus, ignite me?   Beginning this Sunday, I would like us to concentrate on our motto one word at a time.  This week, let’s together take a look at the word “Jesus.”   

 Once again, let’s go back to when I was 24 years old sitting on the floor of my friend’s living room, and allow me to try to describe a little of what the experience was like.  (By the way, the friend’s name is Galen Bickel.  Periodically, we still get together and talk.)   As I said last week, it was an experience of Jesus (not God) but specifically Jesus.  It was He!  It was a feeling of joy and of being loved.  There was a feeling that my life had meaning. At that moment, He was personal to me.  Jesus is a person, and He only relates personally. Not that our faith is ever individualistic, it never is.  Our faith is communal but very deeply personal at the same time.  (I’ll explain that more deeply later.)    No one in the room was aware that anything was happening to me; I shared it with them weeks later.