{"id":38103,"date":"2025-11-14T22:00:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T05:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=38103"},"modified":"2025-11-04T18:09:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T01:09:57","slug":"251115-unites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/251115-unites\/","title":{"rendered":"What Unites Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: right;\">by Max Lucado<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-38105 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/251115_1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/251115_1.png 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/251115_1-300x150.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The church names we banter about? They don\u2019t exist in heaven. Because it\u2019s not the denomination that saves you. And I wonder, if there are no denominations in heaven, why do we have denominations on earth?<\/p>\n<p>I know this is a crazy thought, but what would happen if all the churches agreed, on a given day, to change their names to simply \u201cchurch?\u201d And then when people chose which church to attend, they wouldn\u2019t do so by the sign outside, they\u2019d do so by the hearts of the people inside. And then when people were asked what church they attended, their answer wouldn\u2019t be a label but just a location. And then we Christians wouldn\u2019t be known for what divides us; instead we\u2019d be known for what unites us\u2014our common Father.<\/p>\n<p>Crazy idea? Perhaps. But I think God would like it. It was his to begin with!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-37832 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1-line_1-300x34.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"34\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1-line_1-300x34.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1-line_1.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>God Made Our Brains. He Can Retrain Our Brains.<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37576 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/time.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" \/>Stuck in your head? Hounded by regrets? Weighed down by worry? Change is possible! The thoughts that have characterized your past need not characterize the rest of your life.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<em><strong>Tame Your Thoughts<\/strong><\/em>, Max explores three key thought-management tools and then applies them to the most common thought problems: worry, guilt, anxiety, and other types of mental quicksand that threaten to trap us. God loves us too much to let us lead a life marked by poor thinking. He has not left us alone in this battle of the mind.<\/p>\n<p>shared with permission<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The church names we banter about? They don\u2019t exist in heaven. Because it\u2019s not the denomination that saves you. And I wonder, if there are no denominations in heaven, why do we have denominations on earth?<\/p>\n<p>I know this is a crazy thought, but what would happen if all the churches agreed, on a given day, to change their names to simply \u201cchurch?\u201d And then when people chose which church to attend, they wouldn\u2019t do so by the sign outside, they\u2019d do so by the hearts of the people inside. And then when people were asked what church they attended, their answer wouldn\u2019t be a label but just a location. And then we Christians wouldn\u2019t be known for what divides us; instead we\u2019d be known for what unites us\u2014our common Father.<\/p>\n<p>Crazy idea? Perhaps. But I think God would like it. It was his to begin with!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38106,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38103\/revisions\/38106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}