One local church is trying to bring power back to the word of
God by focusing more on living a Christ-like life and less on the
structure of tradition, according to its pastor.

Mike McAvoy, pastor at Open Arms Community Church on East Main
Street, talked with The Era about why his congregation wears blue
jeans, why he gives sermons about sexuality and why they are
throwing a Super Bowl party at the church.

The progressive nature of Open Arms, McAvoy said, comes from a
combination of factors, including “the Lord God as we understand
him through the Bible,” his own personality and the personalities
of the people who make up his congregation.

McAvoy, the self-described “pastor with the long hair,” started
ministering at the age of 22 in Franklin at the Triumphant Church.
He said he found himself in a position where he had the opportunity
to take over a church where the pastor had died and the
congregation had diminished to about five or six people.

“I went in, and they allowed me to use the church, and we built
it up into a growing congregation,” McAvoy said. Since then, he has
worked at other churches, as a youth pastor and also as a mentor to
troubled youth. The young people he worked with, he said, had
gotten themselves into some type of serious trouble with the law,
were on house arrest, probation and some were actually
incarcerated. During that time, McAvoy said, he came to the
realization that there are many people who have never been to a
church or never really heard about Jesus or God.

“And what they do hear is usually distorted and unclear from a
Christian perspective,” McAvoy said. He went on to say he felt that
the Christian church as a whole had “lost touch with society,” and
was “no longer spiritually or culturally relevant.”

“I went on a pilgrimage to re-evaluate how much of what is out
there is following Jesus, and how much is man made,” he said.
McAvoy’s current philosophies and practices at Open Arms are a
result of that journey, he said, and the message is clear – God is
love.

It was at about that time in his life that McAvoy came to
minister at Open Arms, and since then, he has developed “a love for
this community … not just the church, but the entire Bradford
community,” he said.

To better identify with the people in the community, the church
has taken measures to dig into real and modern life. In the past
couple of months, Open Arms has gone online with a Web site
featuring PodCast recorded sermons, and just last weekend,
completed a four-week series of sermons titled “Simply Sex.”

The Simply Sex series, he said, spurred a noticeable boost in
attendance at the church, as well as hits on Open Arms’ Web
site.

“The response from those who participated in the series was
extremely positive,” McAvoy said of the arguably controversial
sermons. He said most people are used to hearing anti-sex and
anti-sexuality messages from their churches, but in his view, “God
is not negative about sex. He has a lot to say about it and how to
experience it the best way; how to get the most out of it.”

The sermons were attended by people of all ages, and by both
couples and singles.

Also, a spin-off ministry, The Healing Rose, came about as a
result of the series, he said. The Healing Rose is a support-type
group that will work on abuse, specifically victims of sexual
abuse, he said.

Topics covered in the sermons included understanding the
differences between the sexes, rejecting sexual deception and
temptation (living in a “sex-saturated society”), true giving of
oneself to the spouse (being “servant-hearted vs. being selfish”),
obstacles to intimacy (“sex busters”) and appropriate vs.
inappropriate sexuality.

Requests for a second running of the series or an extension of
the first series are being entertained, he added.

In the meantime, however, this weekend marks the kick-off of the
church’s 40 Days of Purpose 40-day challenge, McAvoy said. Those
coming to the church for the first time this weekend will receive a
related gift. Another upcoming event is the Super Bowl party at the
church, where congregation members can watch the game on the big
screen and participate in a chicken wing sauce contest.

McAvoy has been pastor at Open Arms for two years. Open Arms has
been operating at its current location – one mile past Wal-Mart on
East Main Street -ðfor three years.