Missions

Check Out Service Opportunities in the Area!

As a missional church, we see our church as a missionary influence within our community. That means we're committed to being God's missionary presence throughout our city, recognizing that God is already at work.

Each year, we review in prayer how we think God is leading us to serve in our city. Our priorities right now include serving treachers and faculty within the public schools, partnering with ministries serving on the west side of our city, and working with single moms.

While not in direct partnership with Grace Community Church, we are proud to support local organizations.

As a missional church, we are committed to doing what missionaries have consistently done for the past 2,000 years: We aim to be the servant presence of Jesus (Mark 10:45) in the place where we find ourselves: Bartlesville, OK (Jer. 29:4-7). And we seek to be involved with our community on the principle of common ground without compromise (1 Cor. 9:19-23).

Our desire to be Jesus' servant presence has prompted us to pick specific locations within the city as targets for humble service. We started in 2006 with service to the public schools, and we've branched out from there. Moreover, individual members of our church are also active in serving the city, and they frequently alert the congregation to special needs. We intentionally try to stay flexible so that we can mobilize our army of servers to meet those needs.

However, that's not the whole story of missions at our church.

When we started GCC in 1995, we formulated a highly targeted strategy for international ministry: Our desire was to pick a specific location in a part of the world where God seems to be unusually active. Once that place is chosen, we determine to partner with nationals in that country and invest heavily, so that we can be instrumental in transforming that region.

When we enter a new region, we always go with the question, "What precisely does God seem to be doing in that particular area? Who does God seem to be using? And how can we assist them in accomplishing their ministry vision? Is there an opportunity that no one has seen?"

We are especially interested in partnering with majority-world nationals in those locations, empowering them to do the front-lines work. They're generally best at doing this, because they've been immersed in the culture since childhood.

In the past fifteen years, we have worked in two primary locations Central Russia and the Spanish speaking Caribbean.

Russia

Beginning in 1997 we partnered with East-West Ministries to send evangelism teams into Samara, Russia. In the process we helped establish two churches, one in Zupchininovka and the other in Novosemaykeno. We also established a marriage ministry and provides training for new and prospective pastors.

During those years we sent four types of teams: construction teams, door-to-door evangelism teams, sports evangelism teams, and pastoral training teams.

God prospered the work of our ministry partners, and we were able to dedicate two new church facilities in June of 2003. Most importantly, both churches enjoy thriving ministries in their respective areas.

Central Caribbean

In the spring of 2003, after nearly twelve months of prayer, God led us to formulate a plan to assisting needy pastors in the Spanish speaking Caribbean. Our initial desire was to help plant one or two churches just like we did in Russia.

But through an unusual set of circumstances, we met leaders with a vision to launch a church planting movement. By partnering with them, we've assisted in the planting of over fifty churches on the island.

Additionally, we've helped start a pastor training school. We've established a Celebrate Recovery chapter which has been extremely effective in helping people recover from addictions. And we've empowered Precept Ministries to train almost a 1,000 pastors in the basics of inductive study.

The growth of our work in the Spanish speaking Caribbean moved us to start our own mission board, Grace Missions International, in 2006.

Costa Rica

Because travel arrangements are often difficult in the Central Caribbean, we chose a third target area in 2010: Costa Rica. We currently have three GCC missionaries serving on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and we are exploring new ventures that will allow more members of GCC to experience the joy of short-term missions.

In the years to come, we hope to form family mission trips, construction trips, trips that minister to orphans and victims of human trafficking, and medical mission trips.

Interested in more?

For more information, see our international missions policy below.

Grace Community Church has adopted a highly targeted missions strategy that zeroes in on the following four objectives.

• Target Location: We prayerfully pick a target location, generally a place where God seems to be moving in unusual ways, and we invest heavily for six to twelve years. That target location is first discerned in prayer, and then we take exploratory trips to confirm God's guidance.
  • Our past target area was Central Russia. We planted two churches there. We assisted in the construction of two buildings. And we took an active role in training pastors.
  • Our current target area is the Spanish speaking Caribbean. We have established a church planter training center, a Celebrate Recovery Ministry, a Precept Ministries movement, and we've assisted in planting close to 50 churches.
  • We are currently in the exploratory phase with works in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
  • Our major partner in the Spanish Speaking Caribbean is Grace Missions International, a mission board that started out of our church, but is now a wholly separate entity.
• Target Support: When we establish a work, we partner almost exclusively with majority-world indigenous nationals rather than supporting full-time western missionaries.
  • We take time to develop very close servant-minded relationships with these indigenous nationals. We minister to their families. We strive to get to know them, their backgrounds, their hopes and dreams. We want them to feel known by us as we partner with them.
  • We are friends first and ministry partners second. We partner with no strings attached, except that they manifest skillful and accountable stewardship of the services we render.
• Leadership Structure: We use equipped members of Grace Community Church to provide leadership to our contacts in these areas.
  • That leadership consists of setting up and sometimes supporting ministry systems so that our in-country partners can be successful in what God is calling them to do.
  • Our short term teams can best be described as evangelism teams that engage in other work as God leads during the trip.
• Ministry Development: When ancillary ministries make sense to our church planting desires, we design special projects: medical teams, construction teams, etc.
  • In the past, we've helped establish marriage ministries in Russia and the Central Caribbean, even as our major focus was church planting.
  • If we feel called to a specific location and the need is other than church planting, we want to invest our time on ministries that will multiply and grow.
  • Operating principle: While our missions' passion is church planting, we are always open to work with our ministry partners in things they feel are the true need.

Summary Vision: GCC seeks to establish long-term partnerships with majority-world nationals with intent to serve them and equip them to fulfill God's vision for their ministry. While our first love is church planting, we will form partnerships in other ministry areas that show promise of multiplication. We will fulfill our responsibilities to our partners through regular short-term mission trips.

What about other requests for support? We occasionally provide one-time support to Grace Community Church members who feel called to other parts of the world. The profile of those we support is as follows.

• For short term trips...
  • They are GCC members who are active in our ministry but may be taking short-term trips with other mission boards.
  • We typically pray over them before the trip and hear from them when they return.
• For long term service...
  • They are GCC members who are active in our ministry.
  • We prayerfully consider proposals for one-time gifts.
  • Occasionally we "re-up" with them for a second year.