Back when I started this blog, I looked around for other Oakland blogs, and besides the amazing A Better Oakland, one of the first ones I found was monteskewed. Monte is (amongst other things) pastor of a small church in the Dimond district, Fruitvale Presbyterian. There a lot of blogs out there, but very few that have interesting content and are well-written. The fact Monte's blog is about Oakland and Christianity was a big bonus.
When I decided to leave Resurrection Lutheran in Dublin, a big part of the reason was that K and I wanted to be able to worship together. I'd been at RLC for 9 years or so, and doing media for most of that. It had grown to the point where many Sundays felt like work (I was doing the media on a volunteer basis) not worship, and was ready to move on. After I left RLC, I added Fruitvale Presbyterian (FVPC) to our list of churches to check out. When I found out Monte had accepted a call to a church in France, K and I bumped it up in the list.
FVPC is a small church, but mighty in their acts. Monte gave a great sermon on love. Love is central to Christianity (or should be); Jesus answers the question of 'what is the greatest commandment?' with "love God, love your neighbor". It's the filter I view a lot of things through, particularly when a person claims such-and-such an act is 'Christian'. If it doesn't pass the "love God, love your neighbor" test, it's pretty suspect in my eyes. FVPC does their best to live out "love your neighbor" by being active in the community around them. I don't know yet if it's the right church for K and I, but it's definitely worth checking out if you live in the area.
1951 – Art G. Moniz
23 hours ago
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