The DFW Church of Christ is committed to being a New Testament church, which follows the Bible as the word of God and seeks to bring glory to God through every member living life as disciples of Jesus Christ. Our personal commitment is to "Love As He Loved" (John 13.34-35) so the world will know that we are disciples. We are focused as a church on being spiritually healthy in everyway so we can grow as a church and ...

The book, The Crux of the Matter, by three Abilene Christian University professors deals with the current crisis of identity within the mainline Churches of Christ. Jack Reese, Doug Foster, and Jeff Childers offer a biblical hermeneutic for interpreting the scriptures in an effort to learn from the history of the church. Their proposal places the cross of Christ as the core of the gospel. The crux of the matter is the cross according to the authors. Understanding the core allows for the determination of what is a weightier matter of scripture and what is peripheral or a less weighty issue. The crisis of identity has occurred within ...

We started dating in 1993. We were juniors at Southern Methodist University and living out our dreams as college soccer athletes. Upon graduating from SMU, Jeff entered the high tech industry with a new upcoming semiconductor company that had just recently gone public. Kellie on the other hand, decided to pursue her dream of going to law school and becoming an attorney. We married in July of 1995 and purchased our first home in Coppell, Texas. Our future seemed very clear until one day in January of 1996.

Jeff went to the doctor for a routine physical. Everything appeared fine, except at the end of the examination they found out Jeff had an enlarged spleen. Not sure of the reason why, the doctor prepared us for the possible causes major and minor. We prayed for the next 24 hours to our newly found Lord for guidance and security. It was only 3 months prior to this day that we had become Christians. We were and still are so grateful that God sent Christians into our life when he did. We had a new strength in our life and we knew we could pray to God to work a miracle. The next day we received a call from the doctor who diagnosed Jeff with Chronic Mylegenous Leukemia. No words can possibly describe our feelings at that moment.

The doctor told us that if Jeff had a bone marrow transplant within the first year of diagnosis that he would have a higher success rate, but at the same time the transplant procedure (still in its experimental stages) could lead to death as a result of complications. As Christians this was not a hard decision. Jeff was not afraid of death only the loss of being with his wife and family. Jeff had heaven to look forward to and this gave him great peace. After several days of extensive chemotherapy and full body radiation, Jeff had his transplant on June 13, 1996. The transplant was a success; God had worked his miracle.

Moving forward eight years, without question the most significant change in our family occurred December of 2002 when we adopted a baby orphan girl from Russia. Our involvement in HOPE is what led us to Russia back in May of 2000 where we witnessed first hand the great need to help the over 2 million orphans in Russia. When we heard that there was a sixty to seventy percent failure rate with girl and boy orphans respectively (Girls-10% commit suicide, 30% become prostitutes and 20% become drug addicts) we decided shortly afterwards to adopt. Brooke Katerina Stokes was born on April 20th, 2001 in a small town in Western Siberia named Tobolsk. We made two trips to Russia during this adventurous process and she officially became our daughter on December 9, 2002. We have been utterly surprised and relieved on how quickly baby Brooke has bonded with her new Mommy and Daddy. It truly has been amazing to see how she has gone from a child that did not know how to kiss to a loving toddler freely passing out hugs and kisses.

Looking back now after nearly nine years of marriage we are so thankful for all the many blessings in our lives. Most of all we are thankful to have a Church and friends like all of you. Our nation and economy has faced many trials over the past years, but as we look to the future all we have to do is look in our daughter's eyes and all of yours and know that no person, no sickness or no problem can take away what God has given us. Family, friends and God is what makes life rich, so from the Stokes to all of you, God be the Glory!

Today, we as a church family are honoring 34 married couples who have successfully completed our first Dynamic Marriage classes. We are recognizing their faith and diligence in working through this 8-week, life-changing series of interactive classes. We have seen exciting changes in their marriages and are grateful to God for providing this ministry in our church family. We are hopeful that many more will be able to participate in the fall classes, especially our friends from the community. This ministry has a great potential to bless many marriages and
families!

The materials and format are provided by Family Dynamics, a non-denominational Christian organization founded in
1994 specifically to help churches take proactive steps to prevent marriages from reaching a state of distress and to revive those that are already in distress. Couples work through materials and exercises each week in preparation for a dynamic class format in which they learn from and inspire each other. More information about the courses can be found at: www.familydynamics.net.

For those who would like to become class facilitators, there will be a training program in North Richland Hills on Friday, July 23 through Sunday, July 25. Members of our church are offered a discounted rate of $399 per couple because we already have several couples attending. Attending the training seminar is impacting for your marriage and qualifies you to lead a class with up to 12 couples. Contact Bev Ozanne if you would like to learn more. (972-263-1564 or sozmd@juno.com.)

Fantastic Families

The Family Dynamics organization also offers an interactive class, Fantastic Families, to strengthen families and improve the dynamics and communication in the home. The home exercises are designed to include children of all ages. The parents and children who are 13 years and older attend the interactive class with other families. The cost is $99 dollars per family for the books, workbooks, and CD's needed for the class. Steve and Bev Ozanne will be organizing the first class to begin in early June. The class will meet on Tuesday evenings for 8 weeks this summer
and is open to any families across the church or to friends in the community. The location will be determined later and will be as convenient as possible to those who participate. Please contact Bev to sign up.

Thank you, DFW Church!

We are very encouraged and grateful for your response to our Special Missions contribution. As of Thursday, May 20, 2004 we have deposited $376,239 and our total pledges and current checks for deposit total $455,122 which is 90% of our goal. As the rest of the members are able to give we anticipate reaching our goal this next week. Please, let us continue to pray, sacrifice and work together to meet our goal.

Bill and Steve