Services

Updated Infectious Disease Plan for Oak Grove Church

Wednesday March 18, 2020

Dear Oak Grove Church,

In response to the COVID-19 danger to the community, our President and Governor have restricted public gatherings to 10 or fewer people. The immediate impact of this tightening restriction is that Oak Grove Church will need to suspend gathering for corporate worship on Sunday mornings. Since the Church is not a place or a service, but a people gathered into the Lord’s Household, devoted to Christ and to one another; Sunday morning corporate worship will still occur this Sunday, just in a scattered way until further notice.

We will video record our weekly worship and upload to our YouTube channel each week’s service prior to Sunday morning. Follow this link to our services:

Oak Grove Church of Evansville YouTube channel

Please share this link with others who need the guidance and peace that Christ provides.

Prayers will still be gathered and emailed twice a week to the prayer chain. Send all prayer requests to prayer@oakgrovechurch.com. We will send out a group prayer list twice a week and urgent requests will be sent out immediately. Worship through giving can still be done either by mailing your check to Oak Grove Church P.O. Box 112 Evansville, WI 53536 or by visiting oakgrovechurch.com and clicking ‘Online Giving’.

At this point only those gatherings that are 10 or fewer people will continue. Leaders of the smaller prayer groups or Bible studies may elect to postpone or make arrangements for studies to occur online through Zoom or some other venue. Construction on the new site will continue. The sanctuary on Church St. will be open for private prayer during this time. However we are asking that anyone who enters the Church facility sign the log book located at the kitchen entrance. This is so that we can track the spread of any potential virus should the need arise.

It seems with each 24-hour news cycle we see another drastic measure taken in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Some people say we’re facing an “unprecedented” situation. The situation certainly is unique for us, but we are not the first generation to face a highly contagious disease. In the 16th-century theologian Martin Luther had this to say during the bubonic plague, offering his thoughts in a letter titled “Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague” on how best to practically and spiritually overcome:

You ought to think this way: “Very well, by God’s decree, the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore, I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person, but will go freely.”

As I looked out at the congregation gathered this past Sunday, I saw a people grounded in Christ, at peace, confident, ready and willing to serve as needed, even perhaps to the point of death to glorify God and love our neighbor.

^ESV Galatians 6:9-10 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. ¹⁰ So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

In this particular situation, how can we do good to everyone? This takes much prayer, creativity, paying attention to others, and dependence on God not willful flesh! But consider a couple of practical ways to love your neighbor in the coming days and weeks:

1. Prepare to care well for your nearby neighbors, especially those that are elderly. Do your neighbors ‘just know’ they can call on you if needed, or have you actually told them? Have you shared phone #’s? Please check in on those who self-isolate due to compromised immune systems or age and help as you can.
2. As you and those you love get ‘cabin fever’, consider accessing the massive library of Children’s Videos, Bible Studies, Sermons on RightNow Media. Access to this library is provided to you by Oak Grove Church. You may share this access freely to your family and friends. Use this link: https://www.oakgrovechurch.com/rightnow-media/ In these turbulent times it is prudent to disrupt the news cycle regularly with orientation from God’s Word. RightNow Media can assist you and those you love in this endeavor.

In Christ,

Elders of Oak Grove Church

Isaiah 26:3 says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

Media

Teaching

Online Giving

Thank you for choosing to support the ministry here at Oak Grove Church

Contact