Welcome
WELCOME TO OXFORD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OPC welcomes you to join us! We are a people who enjoy being on a spiritual journey together, and living our faith through loving service in our community. Whatever your background or previous experience, we want you to find acceptance and encouragement here as you bring your questions, your talents to share and your willingness to explore your faith. We worship God with a variety of traditional and contemporary expressions. We believe that the church should be both grounded in the wisdom of the past and relevant to all ages. There is something here for everyone, and all are welcome!
Presbyterians have worshipped together in Oxford since 1818. Presbyterians were instrumental in the founding of Miami University. A number of the early university presidents and faculty members were Presbyterian ministers. In 1966, two streams of the Presbyterian Church united to form the present Oxford Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (www.pcusa.org). OPC shares the historic Presbyterian commitments to worship, education for children, youth and adults, especially the study of the Bible, a representative form of governing, local and global mission outreach, and ecumenical and interfaith partnership.
We are an active, warm and diverse congregation of about 450 members located on the corner of Church and Main Streets in the center of Oxford. One block to the East on Church Street we have a second facility, the Seminary Building, for fellowship, community activities and a youth center.
We are a member church of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Below is the most recent statement of faith adopted by the PCUSA in 1991. It is a confession of faith too seek from many centuries which are Part II of the PCUSA constitution. For more information about our denomination, PCUSA, we encourage you to visit the web site: Presbyterian 101.
The Statement
In life and death we belong to God.
Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit,
we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel,
whom alone we worship and serve.
We trust in Jesus Christ,
Fully human, fully God.
Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:
preaching good news to the poor
and release to the captives,
teaching by word and deed
and blessing the children,
healing the sick
and binding up the brokenhearted,
eating with outcasts,
forgiving sinners,
and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.
Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition,
Jesus was crucified,
suffering the depths of human pain
and giving his life for the sins of the world.
God raised Jesus from the dead,
vindicating his sinless life,
breaking the power of sin and evil,
delivering us from death to life eternal.
We trust in God,
whom Jesus called Abba, Father.
In sovereign love God created the world good
and makes everyone equally in God's image
male and female, of every race and people,
to live as one community.
But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator.
Ignoring God's commandments,
we violate the image of God in others and ourselves,
accept lies as truth,
exploit neighbor and nature,
and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.
We deserve God's condemnation.
Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.
In everlasting love,
the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people
to bless all families of the earth.
Hearing their cry,
God delivered the children of Israel
from the house of bondage.
Loving us still,
God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant.
Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child,
like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home,
God is faithful still.
We trust in God the Holy Spirit,
everywhere the giver and renewer of life.
The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith,
sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor,
and binds us together with all believers
in the one body of Christ, the church.
The same Spirit
who inspired the prophets and apostles
rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture,
engages us through the Word proclaimed,
claims us in the waters of baptism,
feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation,
and calls women and men to all ministries of the church.
In a broken and fearful world
the Spirit gives us courage
to pray without ceasing,
to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
to unmask idolatries in church and culture,
to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit,
we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks
and to live holy and joyful lives,
even as we watch for God's new heaven and new earth,
raying, Come, Lord Jesus!
With believers in every time and place,
we rejoice that nothing in life or in death
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Copyright © 1991 by the Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Used with permission.
