OCA's Road Noise

In today's episode, Jay and Will dive into OCA's core values, beginning with the second of our four daily actions: explore. Curiosity is an essential element of education. Absent the motivation to go somewhere new, make a worthwhile discovery, or even change our minds in God-honoring ways, we tend to stay static. We may hear information, but we're not necessarily learning. By contrast, when we're humble and righteously hungry in exploring Creation, we often catch richer glimpses of the Creator. And those richer glimpses are exactly what we want for our students. Eagles are explorers. We stay faithful and we stay curious. Learning is what we do.

Enjoy the road!

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls Kingdom people to be a "City on a Hill." In this episode, Jay and Will unpack what that radical calling means for a school like Oklahoma Christian Academy. How can we pursue brightness ahead of power? Invitation ahead of exclusivity? We can't just be light-keepers. We must be light-bringers. But how do we share our blessings beyond the edges of our campus?

All these questions and more in just 30 minutes. Enjoy the road!

In this episode, Jay and Will talk about deeper love. In our popular culture, "love" can feel like a weak word, a romantic word, a cheesy word. But at the core of our mission at Oklahoma Christian Academy is modeling and cultivating agape love (the love God shows and the love God is) as anything but weak. It is a powerful, important word. It's our ultimate calling. Agape is the lens that focuses all that we learn and all we aspire to embody. Enjoy the road!

In this episode, Jay and Will continue their discussion on OCA's mission, vision, and values, focusing particularly on the concept of "unique gifts and stories." We believe there's no one better to walk in your shoes than you. How do we build educational communities that see and celebrate that giftedness and individuality, even as we stay humble and interdependent with one another? That's a big question, that we try to tackle in 30-minutes or less. Enjoy the road!

After nearly two years, Will and Jay are back in the booth! This season begins with a seven episode series on Oklahoma Christian Academy's (OCA) mission, vision, and values--which are centered in Christ's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and The Greatest Commands (Matthew 22). These are eternal lessons that have immediate meaning for our students today, and this series aims to unpack some of the "why" behind these core markers in the Eagles' DNA.

In episode one, Will and Jay banter about "Kingdom Prep" and how we've come to see our school's purpose as bigger than any one post-secondary pathway. Enjoy the road!

Jay and Will continue their study on the Sermon on the Mount, asking what does Jesus mean when he says he came to "fulfill" the Law and the Prophets? And how exactly does one surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees--a group that specialized in being right? Humbling answers to both questions set the stage for everything Jesus says next. Enjoy the road!

Our 6th-12th grades are memorizing the Sermon on the Mount... why? In this bite-sized episode, Jay and Will talk about Christ's example of committing scripture to memory and why it's important that God's Word is more than a reference book we pull off the shelf ad hoc. Enjoy the road!

Jay and Will continue their conversation over the Sermon on the Mount, discussing the ancient context of Matthew 5:13-16. What does Jesus mean when he says we are the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world"? And how do we stay salty and bright? Enjoy the road!

It's recommendation time. On this episode Jay shares one of his top recent reads, Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer, and tries to convince Will to read it, too. What does it mean to be an apprentice of Jesus and to follow along in all his rhythms of life? And what exactly is a "rule of life"? Tune in and enjoy the road!

We're back, Eagles! This year Jay and Will take a deep dive into the Sermon on the Mount, and we're starting at the beginning: The Beatitudes or "the blessings." These nine blessings are some of the most repeated verses in scripture... but do we understand them? Join us as we reflect on some of Jesus' most difficult and counter-cultural ideas about what it means to live a good life.