This September, we are kicking off our 2024-2025 ministry year with the theme: Captivated—Cultivating an Intimate Relationship with God! What captivates us attracts and holds our attention. To be captivated by God is to be drawn into knowing God—not only with an intellectual understanding of his attributes, but with a coming alive to God through surrender to Jesus’ love, knowing in an experiential...  Read More

Dallas Willard wrote in his book, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship, “The greatest issue facing the world today … is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into eve...  Read More

Kids Connect On Thursday mornings at Starbucks in winter of 2022-23, a few Open Life moms connected over coffee and conversation about a broad range of topics from parenting and marriage to sabbath and prayer. It was one moment during a hectic week where they could relax with a cup of coffee and a few friends and be reminded of how it feels to be one’s self before resuming the demanding rhythm of ...  Read More

I still remember loading the van to head to the airport for my first international mission trip to Ukraine over 24 years ago. The anticipation and excitement mixed with apprehension and fear of the unknown were palpable among the entire team of 20 moms and dads, pastors and youth. Reading from my journal I remember the prayer that began with that trip and echoes still in my heart every time I step...  Read More

At Open Life we believe that every follower of Jesus should “go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” (Mark 16:15, NIV) In Acts 1:8, Jesus instructs his disciples, and consequently you and me, to testify as his witnesses to the good news that there is peace with God through him (Acts 10:36). We are to carry this testimony to our Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of ...  Read More

Shifting Staff Roles at Open Life We wanted to make you aware of a couple of role shifts we have made at Open Life. As staffing availability and needs continually flex with different seasons of life, Open Life has always been flexible and agile, and this is one of those moments.  With the needs of being a new parent, Jadon Haynes has expressed the need to reduce his hourly investment at Open Life ...  Read More