The Oklahoma Disciples Foundation has grant funds available for Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Oklahoma churches and non-profit CCIO (DOC) affiliated groups for mission and ministry. A downloadable application, scoring sample and guidelines are available HERE. Applications are due by February 15, 2019. Please call the Oklahoma Disciples Foundation at 405.525.6530 if you have any questions.
Following a seven-month long search that yielded an impressive and diverse pool of applicants, the Board of Trustees of Phillips Theological Seminary has named the Rev. Dr. Nancy Pittman as the school’s next president. Pittman has served as interim president of the Seminary since July 1, 2018 and will immediately assume the presidency.
“Dr. Pittman is the clear choice because of her strong leadership skills and vision for the future of theological education,” said Claire Meredith, chair of the seminary’s board of trustees and the presidential search committee.
Read the full article published on the Phillips Theological Seminary website HERE
(photo provided by Phillips Theological Seminary)
“Abide in Me,” Okahoma’s 2019 Leadership Training School, is coming soon on February 23, 2019! This event will offer education, worship, fellowship, and renewal for those in ministry in Oklahoma congregations. LTS will be held at First Christian Church in Edmond, 9 a.m.-4:15 p.m.
Our preacher for the day is Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). There will be three opportunities for workshops, with participants choosing one workshops around topics of justice, Disciples roots, and inclusivity.
Presenters included are from local, regional, and general church ministry organizations, providing a full and vibrant day of learning options. The cost for the event is $35 per person.
Childcare will be provided free for those in 5th grade and below; please indicate your childcare needs when you preregister. Youth in grades 6-12 are encouraged to participate in the event. We hope you will join other Oklahoma Disciples at LTS 2019!
More details including registration will be coming soon!
The Oklahoma City Community Foundation is helping provide warm meals to homebound elderly citizens this winter by awarding $53,400 in grants to 51 churches and organizations participating in Mobile Meals of Oklahoma County, including seven Christian churches. In addition, $5,000 each was awarded to Edmond Mobile Meals and Meals on Wheels of Norman.
The Oklahoma City Community Foundation has supported central Oklahoma’s Mobile Meals programs since 2008, awarding more than $350,000 over the past decade. According to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, the need for continued nutrition assistance is vital as Oklahoma’s senior citizen population continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. The organization’s most recent State Plan on Aging reported 19 percent of our state’s population is now over age 60.
“Today, one in five Americans is over the age of 60 with the population expected to nearly double by 2060,” said Cristi Twenter, executive director of Edmond Mobile Meals. “Roughly 17 percent of Oklahoma’s senior population struggles with hunger. Nine percent of those seniors in our state are living in poverty, and 26 percent of Oklahoma seniors live alone. Grant programs to assist Mobile Meals programs are crucial in helping to keep pace with the growing demand for services. We believe no senior in our community should have to make a choice between paying for food, medication and other necessities, which is why we never base service on a client’s ability to pay for meals.”
The Christian churches reported their volunteers provide nutritious meals, wellness checks and meaningful contact to more than 160 homebound senior citizens living in central Oklahoma who are unable to prepare their own meals.
“For nearly 50 years, the Oklahoma City Community Foundation has listened to both the needs of our community and to the wishes of our donors, leading us to focus on the health and wellness of senior citizens in the community,” said Nancy B. Anthony, Oklahoma City Community Foundation. “Our local Mobile Meals programs are crucial to seniors in this community, and we’re privileged to have the opportunity to support their work.”
Grants were awarded to the following Christian churches that provide meals through Mobile Meals of Oklahoma County:
About the Oklahoma City Community Foundation
Founded in 1969, the Oklahoma City Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity that works with donors to create charitable funds that will benefit our community both now and in the future. To learn more about the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, visit www.occf.org.
On December 6th, the Region and the Northeast Area celebrated the ministries of Lori Richcreek, Administrative Assistant, and Rev. Leslie Dotson, Associate Regional Minister.
Below are photos and some of the words that were shared that day.
Lori, In February of 2013, Rev. Leslie Dotson invited Lori to serve as the Northeast Area Administrative Assistant. On behalf of the Region, it has been an honor to have you, Lori, serving the Regional Church and the Northeast Area for almost six years. We have experienced your gifts of serving with joy and prayer, and we know you, in turn, have received many blessings in this ministry we do together. We have appreciated your leadership with the Northeast Area Council and the Newsletter and most especially the leadership you have given the women’s ministry. And, on behalf of the Regional staff, we thank you for your hospitality and your grace and your deep and abiding spirituality and all that you have offered to us. We thank you for engaging in God’s “body-building” work.
Leslie, you have served the Regional Church as an Associate Regional Minister for ten years. We are grateful for your years of service as a servant leader for pastors and for congregations all over the Region, but particularly with those in the Northeast and Southeast Areas. Who are grateful for your pastoral presence, your preaching, your teaching, your coaching, your guidance, your prayers, your compassion for all of God’s people, which naturally reflects your passion for social justice. Over the years, you have represented and advocated for diversity. You have provided leadership for the women, for pastors in the Commissioned Minister’s Training Program, Leadership Training School, Regional Assemblies. For Pro-Reconciliation Anti-Racism, for Healthy Boundaries. Most important is your deep and abiding care and prayer that you are so disciplined about and your quiet and unassuming writing each and every person you pray for to let them know how much God cares. We are grateful for the peace and grace of God that goes with you in every situation around the Region! We honor and celebrate your ministry and will surely miss all that you have shared as a minister to the Regional Church.
On behalf of the Regional staff, thank you for that divine peace and grace that lives within you, as well your love, your deep and abiding spirit that has been reflected in your leadership in Oklahoma.
Thank you to all of you here today to honor and celebrate Lori and Leslie’s ministries. We especially give thanks to our Regional Moderator, Tom Stanley, and the NEA Moderator, Kevin Howe, for making all the arrangements for this reception today, and thank you to Phillips for offering their hospitality of hosting this blessed occasion.
The blessing today is an adaptation from Maya Angelou’s poem, “Amazing Peace,” Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer, New York: Random House, Inc., 2006.
Our [prayer] for you
Is that you continue
To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness
To allow humor to lighten the burden
Of your tender hearts
In a society dark with cruelty
To let the people [see and] hear the grandeur
Of God in your [presence and prayers]
To let your eloquence
Elevate the people to heights
They had only imagined
To remind the people that
Each is as good as the other
And that no one is beneath
Nor above you
To remember your own young years
And look with favor upon the lost
And the least and the lonely
To put the mantel of your protection
Around the bodies of
The young and defenseless
To take the hand of the despised
And diseased and walk proudly with them
In the high street
Some might see you and
Be encouraged to do likewise . . .
. . . To let gratitude be the pillow
Upon which you kneel to
Say your nightly prayer
And let faith be the bridge
You build to overcome evil
And welcome good
To ignore no vision
Which comes to enlarge your range
And increase your spirit
To dare to love deeply
And risk everything
For the good thing . . .
And by doing so
You and your ministry
Will be able to continue
Eternally
May God’s blessing continue to be upon you, Lori,
and Leslie
and all of us
as we go from this place
to share the love and peace and grace of God.
So be it. Amen.
At the October 20, 2018 the Regional Church Board approved the Commission on Immigration & Refugees, a much needed ministry in Oklahoma. If you would like to serve on this Commission or know someone in your congregation who would be interested, please contact the Regional office at 405-528-3577.
This Commission on Immigration & Refugees will be learning about the needs in Oklahoma and will seek the wisdom of Rev. Sharon Stanley-Rae who serves as Director of Refugee & Immigration Ministries (RIM) for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
RIM works to mobilize Disciples congregations around the country to offer hospitality to immigrants, provide refugee resettlement assistance to refugees, strengthen relationships of solidarity and advocacy with refugees and immigrants, and seek justice for farm workers. RIM’s office is located inside National City Christian Church, and works closely with 50+ national and interfaith partners through the Interfaith Immigration Coalition.
Here is a link to a video created by the SALT Project titled, “Jesus Was A Refugee, a Free Advent Film.”
Click HERE to read an article from The American Home Missionary, titled “I am the Immigrant” first published in the 1913 Yearbook Churches of Christ.
What is your favorite Advent hymn or song?
What is your earliest Christmas memory and why is it important for you?
Near the end of the film, “The Santa Clause,” a little boy, Charlie, is arguing with his father, mother, and step-father about his father, Scott Calvin, being Santa Clause. Scott is confused about who he is and how he became Santa.
Charlie tosses his dad a snow globe that was given to him by Bernard, the head elf, the night Scott became Santa and shouts, “Remember.”
The Regional Youth Council invites you to “remember” this Advent and Christmas season. Yes, we know memory is painful and joyful. Maybe that is why some of us embrace the pace of life that rushes one through December. Parties, gifts, travel, or life circumstances consume the time we have to experience Advent’s lessons: waiting or anticipation are but two.
So, slow your pace.
Spend some time in silence. Listen . . .
Think through what you saw, heard, tasted, felt, smelled.
You are a child of God.
Remember. . .
Go and see what God has made known to you.
Click here to download the Advent devotional written by members of the Regional Youth Council. The devotional includes reflections on traditional Advent and Christmas biblical texts from guest writer, Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison.
Click HERE to watch a video message from General Minister and President Terri Hord Owens, as Terri reflects on her first 16 months visiting around the Church. Terri also shares a message of hope and confidence for the church with an Advent greeting and invitation to General Assembly 2019.