Our Story
About Us
Oak Hills has been a part of the Folsom community for almost 40 years. We’ve watched Folsom grow from a small, sleepy town to one of the brightest quality-of-life communities in the state. In all that time, we’ve sought to faithfully serve our area, not only through our services and ministries, but also individually through the lives of those in the Oak Hills family. And we firmly believe that some of the finest people on the planet call Oak Hills their home.
When you visit us, we hope you’ll experience something different. A friendly, genuine warmth. A healthy humility and mutuality. An emphasis on family. A curious mix of cultural, ethnic, political, and economic diversity. Expressions of the arts. A quirky sense of humor. And above all, a passion for spiritual transformation, which is the lifeblood of our church.
Oak Hills is an active participant in the fellowship of Folsom churches and is a member of the North American Baptist (NAB) Conference.
Our Vision & Mission
For many years, God has been stirring a vision at Oak Hills of a community of Christ followers who are experiencing the transforming power of the Spirit of God and sharing that power with the world around us. To this end, our mission is to help people experience the reality of the Kingdom of God in their lives. We believe that this was the core message of Jesus. Jesus wanted us to know that the actual experience of His gracious rule is available to anyone who follows Him.
We’re passionate about seeing people be transformed by the power of God. Everything we do at Oak Hills is seen against the backdrop of this singular vision. If you find this to be the cry of your own heart, you may find the community of Oak Hills to be just the thing your heart is longing for. We invite you to join us.
We’ve identified four major practices at Oak Hills: Formation, Worship, Mission, and Community. We invite you to click the link for an interactive look into each of these practices, or read below.
Our Practices
Formation
Who we are becoming in Christ is inseparable from living the Gospel. Ministries, practices, relationships, and experiences all train us to gradually become more like Him. This training has both individual facets—like solitude and prayer—and communal facets—like worship, study, serving, and eating. It takes time and effort and is inherently inefficient, yet when done in cooperation with the Spirit, formation promises rich depth and joy as we come to know God, ourselves, and our role in bringing God’s Kingdom into every element of life.
The following are landmarks which characterize who we are regarding formation.
ACCEPT OUR IDENTITY AS THE BELOVED
God’s relentless love is the foundation of formation in Christ. We confess our sins and admit our sinfulness. We step into the ongoing inner-life work of naming our wounds, facing our false selves, surrendering control, and trusting Jesus.
CHILD-LIKE CURIOSITY
Authentic growth in Christ-likeness stretches us beyond the comfortable and controllable. Openness, intrigue, willingness, and wonder enable us to embrace God’s beautiful disruptions and disorienting invitations.
INTERACT WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
We cultivate an ever-deepening relationship with the Holy Spirit, partnering with him in what He is doing in and through us. We listen to discern his guidance. We act when he so leads.
TRANSFORMING PRACTICES
We create space for the Holy Spirit through individual and communal spiritual practices. These include baptism, communion, solitude, prayer, worship, fasting, and rest.
CHARACTER CHANGE
As we follow Jesus, our character gradually changes. We grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our humility increases, our need for power decreases, and we learn to forgive.
SHAPED BY SCRIPTURE
The Bible speaks truth and transforms our view of God, self, and the world. We humbly meditate on Scripture, inviting God to realign our thoughts, feelings, and perspectives to His will and way.
KINGDOM COMMUNITY
The relationships within the Trinity are the model for a Kingdom community. Formation happens in relationships of mutual submission and love. We need connection with others who seek first God’s kingdom.
Worship
We worship God because of who He is and what He has done. We do this on our own, through the lives we lead, and together as a community of Christ-followers. Our worship—manifested in our Sunday gatherings, other prayer and worship events, and individually in our personal lives—expresses our love to God in new and fresh ways while valuing the sacred practices of the historical Church.
The following are landmarks which characterize who we are regarding worship.
GOD’S REAL PRESENCE
God’s holy and beautiful presence permeates our gatherings when they are in his name and for his purposes.
OUR INTENTIONAL PRESENCE
We come to worship ready and motivated, receptive in posture and engaged physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We are active participants with one another in the Spirit-led dialogue.
SACRED COMMUNITY
Something holy and unique happens when we gather in Jesus’ name. We proclaim His supremacy over the world. We offer His welcome to one another. We minister to each other as priests and pastors. We pray for one another and carry one another’s burdens. The Spirit works in tangible and transformative ways.
RETELLING GOD’S STORY
We tell God’s kingdom story, reframing our stories in the light of His grand narrative. We invite Scripture to realign us to Jesus’ counter-cultural reality and remind us of what is true, right, and good.
CREATIVE LITURGY
We express our worship with creativity, diversity, and excellence, while valuing ancient practices and prayers of the historical Church.
PRACTICING THE SACRAMENTS
We practice the sacraments of Communion and Baptism. Through these, we retell God’s story and encounter His presence.
DIVERSITY OF EMOTION
God is good even when life is volatile. We are called to authentic worship in seasons of joy, celebration, lament, confession, and repentance. Our gatherings reflect the diversity of life’s emotions.
HEALING AND RESTORATION
Healing is a sign of the Kingdom of God. Jesus restores people physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. There is mystery in how healing happens, but we gather in the hope that God is able.
Mission
We create opportunities for those who are growing in Christ-likeness to give themselves away for the sake of others. Like Jesus, we are called to give our lives away regardless of how people respond. This includes caring for the disenfranchised; welcoming people into our lives, homes, and church; and ministering to their various needs.
The following are landmarks which characterize who we are regarding mission.
JOINING GOD ON MISSION
God is always at work restoring all things and establishing His Kingdom. If we are awake to what He is doing, mission can happen right where we are.
PROCLAIMING JESUS
Our culture does not know Jesus but needs Him. We courageously proclaim Him through our example, story, and words.
ENGAGING CULTURE WITH TRUTH
We proclaim the truth of the Jesus way into cultural values and ideologies with conviction, gentleness, creativity, and love.
BUILDING SHALOM
The world is not the way God intended it to be. As His people, we work and pray to bring forth His Good. We work and pray for the flourishing of all through hospitality, reconciliation, and justice.
DOING JUSTICE
The world’s system often victimizes the poor and marginalized. We work and pray for justice at every level of society. We do our part to make things right and uphold the cause of the oppressed and forgotten.
SUPPORTIVE PARTNERSHIPS
God’s mission is bigger than Oak Hills, so we mutually support other communities, ministries, and organizations through prayer, finances, and service.
A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
We care about God’s world. We enter global brokenness through prayer and other efforts to incarnate Jesus’ love, compassion, and hope. We remember our brothers and sisters around the world.
Community
We desire to fully participate in the life of the Church, believing She is the Bride of Christ and a crucial part of God’s plan for the world. We seek vulnerable relationships with other Christ-followers and take the risky step to enter into deeper levels of community with others who desire maturity in Christ.
The following are landmarks which characterize who we are regarding community.
UNIFIED DIFFERENTS
We pursue relationships with those with different experiences, backgrounds, opinions, and life circumstances. Our differences create space for Jesus to unite us in Him. A unified community of un-likes proclaims good news to a fracturing world.
KNOWING AND BEING KNOWN
We grow in vulnerability and acceptance in our relationships. We share our stories and receive the stories of others with grace and truth.
HEALING PRESENCE
We love, care, rejoice, and suffer with one another. We walk together on the long road toward healing and Christlikeness. We extend the communion table by pursuing reconciliation in broken relationships.
EXPERIENCING INTER-DEPENDENCE
We need each other to grow as Jesus’ people and church. We practice humility and vulnerability as we learn to serve and be served, help, and receive help.
TRUTH-TELLING
We graciously and gently speak the truth in love. We step toward difficult conversations, trusting God’s reconciling Presence. We speak life-giving encouragement into one another.
EMBRACING THE BROADER CHURCH
Oak Hills is one part of the larger body of Christ. We engage and collaborate with the broader Christian community to pursue unity with other brothers and sisters in our city and around the world.
Our Beliefs
Our beliefs are based on the clear teachings of scripture and our intention is to keep Christ and his message as the focal point of our unity and theology. Where the Bible is not clear we won’t be dogmatic, but adhere to the historical Christian dictum: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe God created and sustains all things and is at work in the world to redeem all of creation.
We believe that God is holy and abounding in love and all that is good, beautiful and true have their origin in him.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, fully human and fully divine, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He lived, taught, died on the cross for our sins and bodily rose again for our redemption and ascended into heaven.
We believe in the gift of the Holy Spirit at conversion: indwelling, guiding, convicting and strengthening us to live and bear fruit in the Kingdom of God.
We believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and is our authority in faith and action as well as revealing the story of God and his on-going redemption of humanity.
We believe that all people have fallen and sinned and become estranged from God. The result of our sin is the pain, suffering, and alienation that have entered all of creation.
We believe that it is through faith in Christ alone that we are rescued, both now and for eternity.
We believe in the present reality and power of the Kingdom of God and that we have been invited to enter its safety and sufficiency as we join with God in his work in the world.
We believe in the dignity and worth of all people, created in the very image of God, and of God’s deep desire for each man, woman and child to be reconciled and in relationship with him.
We believe in the universal church as the fellowship of believers and as the body of Christ sent to the world to reveal the Kingdom of God. This is lived out through the local church, which eagerly invites others to join them in following Jesus.
We practice the sacraments of Baptism and Communion that were established by Jesus, believing that they are more than symbolic and that in some mysterious way Christ is real and present with us when we celebrate them.
We believe all who put their faith in Jesus are called to be his disciples and to experience spiritual transformation into the character of Jesus Christ. Our intentional effort is required to pursue this change in cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit.
We believe that sin and suffering will not have the last word but anticipate Jesus’ return to set the world right and irrevocably establish his eternal kingdom of love and justice.
Membership
At Oak Hills, learning to live more fully in the Kingdom of God is what it’s all about. And that’s why membership at Oak Hills isn’t about joining a church; it’s about intentional steps toward spiritual growth. For many, the membership process is a practical step individuals can take to turn their desire for spiritual growth and transformation into reality.
We’ve developed a unique approach at Oak Hills where membership is linked to discipleship. Membership is not an all-inclusive process of spiritual formation; it’s a place to begin. Going through the membership process will introduce you to a few of the “how-to’s” to spiritual growth. Our desire is that after completing the membership process, a person has a better idea of how to live in the reality of the Kingdom of God.
Members of Oak Hills Church are essentially women and men committed to cooperating with the Holy Spirit to become more fully formed in Him. Pursuing membership is an individual choice. Whether or not you are interested in becoming a member, we encourage you to participate in the life of our church and continue to learn how to live in the reality of God’s Kingdom. Our Discover Oak Hills and Spiritual Formation classes provide people the opportunity to move a step or two in that direction.
Baptism
Baptism is a celebration of what God has done in the life of a Christ-follower. Matthew 28:19-20 teaches us that followers of Christ are to be baptized and that it is one of the first steps in this life-long journey of discipleship.
At Oak Hills, we recognize that people come from many different church backgrounds, some of which practice infant baptism. While we want to attempt to honor that experience, we also want to attempt to tie our baptism services as closely as possible to the biblical tradition.
In the bible, men and women were baptized following their belief in Jesus. Following the biblical example, soon after a person has decided to receive Christ into their life, they are encouraged to be baptized.
Our Team
Meet our team of hard-working, fun-loving staffers! At Oak Hills, we take our faith and our ministry seriously—but not ourselves—so there is rarely a dull moment on campus.
We believe our staff culture should model a new kind of community to our congregation. In pursuit of this, we have five important values that we seek to practice in our staff relationships: Hope, Honesty, Hospitality, Humility, and Humor.
Tracie Chance
Neena Conrad
Colleen Gray
Ashley Hansen
David Holcomb
Emily Hooey
Alyssa Krygier
Mike Lueken
Manuel Luz
Gary Moseley
Amber Pedroni
Pat Rizell
Stephanie Valadez
Jordan Wells
Zach Woodard
Our Elders
Our Board of Elders serve as the administrative body of Oak Hills and are entrusted with the spiritual and physical care and oversight of the church body, as well as the support and encouragement of the Senior Pastor.
Elaine Brattin
Emily Fife
Ben Harrison
Dana Hinojosa
Chris Bertelli
Ed Manansala
