Welcome to the918.org
Welcome to the918.org, where our mission is to be radically helpful to the people who call the Tulsa area home. With tens of thousands of options online, why should the918.org be one of the sites you care about and visit? Because we will talk about the places you care about, we will discuss the issues you deal with, and we will answer the questions that burn inside of you. The918.org is a community undertaking. Our writers are not paid professionals; they are people who go to the Tulsa Zoo, eat downtown at Yokozuna, play baseball games at Lafortune Park, and drive the roller-coaster highway known as the Creek Turnpike.
The918.org is an endeavor of downtown Tulsa’s First United Methodist Church. Some of you will now be inclined to stop reading this post, but I hope you’ll hear me out. The goal of the918.org is not to “convert” you or get you to come to church.
Our goal is to be helpful to the people of Tulsa.
Do we believe that following Jesus will be helpful to you? Absolutely—but we know that some of you don’t trust the church anymore. You’ve been hurt by an institution that’s called to love and heal. If that describes you, here’s our proposition: don’t read anything about faith on our website. Just read the articles about places to eat, practical parenting, and Tulsa events.
What should you expect on the918.org? We focus on three areas: Tulsa, Life, and Faith.
Tulsa: We love our city and we love our neighbors. We want to share stories about fantastic community events, places, and people. You’ll hear about great things happening in Tulsa like Tulsa Tough and about important parts of our history like the Tulsa Race Riots. We want to help you find the best places to play with your children and the best places to go on a date with your spouse. If something good happens in Tulsa, we want to celebrate and share it.
Life: We know that life is difficult. Parenting can wear you down. Your marriage probably isn’t as easy as you thought it would be. The numbers on your scale keep going up and the time you spend doing what you love keeps going down. We need help from one another. Sometimes one idea from one person is all it takes to make one small change—which can make a tremendous difference. Not every article we post about marriage, parenting, health, or work-life balance will change your life, but we hope that some of them will.
Faith: The918.org doesn’t just stand for our area code; it’s also representative of our desire to help people find the answer to the most meaningful question of life, which was posed by Jesus in Luke 9:18: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” We want people to answer that question with the way our faith teaches us to respond that, “Jesus is Lord.” We know that people have obstacles to overcome concerning Jesus. We will tackle real-life issues and look at them from a faith perspective. We want to encourage you and give you hope in your daily life.
Our plan is to publish three articles a week. As a new venture, we need your feedback on our articles and themes. Which ones did you love? What do you want to hear more about? If you read an article that you like, please share it on Facebook, on Twitter, or by email. Our hope is that our articles don’t just inform you but inspire you to act as well. Most articles will include a next step, and we hope you will take it. So here’s the next step for this article: join our email list. We’ll send out an email at the end of each week with a list of our new articles plus some of the best stuff we’ve read on other sites this week. Thanks for reading and come back again soon.
Awesome!