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 early in my walk with Christ, literally within a couple of weeks after my deep plea for His guidance (“God, if you can do anything with my life, please do it, because I am blowing it!”), I shared my renewed faith with a fellow student at Miami University in Ohio. He was an artist, and he accepted an invitation to receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. It wasn’t long after that I shared with him a poem that I had read called “Footprints in the Sand.” You probably know the poem:
Once I had a dream. I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of my life had passed, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. I noticed that many times along the path there was only one set of footprints. I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in my life.
This really bothered me, so I asked the Lord about it. “Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you’d walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life there is only one set of footprints in the sand. I don’t understand why, when I needed you most, you would leave me?”
The Lord replied, “My precious, precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trials and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.” (by Mary Stevenson, 1936).
The young art student took a copy of the poem and along with a desire that I had expressed that one day this poem would be on a poster (remember, we were college students in the early 1980’s when dorm rooms were prime real estate for posters). A short time later, he had produced a 42”X24” canvas of a seascape with alternating sets of footprints in the sand, and the poem written in the upper right corner. Apparently, my reaction to its perfection was so unique and impressive to this young artist that he gave it to me. I’ve had it for over 43 years now!
Two things stand out to me in this experience:
One, that the Lord is true to His promises. He used me to inspire a young artist to accept Christ in his heart. That was the first of many that, I pray, He has inspired through my humble dependence on Him doing something with my life.
Two, that His subtle presence in the most difficult times in our lives goes unnoticed until we look back. I love that about Jesus! He is always with us, never overshadowing our life experiences, just always present and always good.
For His glory,
Pastor Mike