Many thanks to all who joined the elders in praying and seeking the Lord as we studied and discussed the book of Acts on our retreat in May. What follows is a summary of the direction we feel the Lord is leading us over the next five to ten years. One of the lessons from the book of Acts is that God often redirects His people as they move forward on mission (Acts 16:6-7), so we hold the time frames loosely while we hold fast to our commitment to bring the Gospel to every part of Tampa Bay and every people group on earth.
“It is not for you to know the times and seasons the Father has set by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:7-8
Proposed update to our mission statement: Our mission is…
to join God in His work of transforming people and communities through the Gospel of Jesus Christ
“I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”
Romans 1:16
“And the Word of God continued to increase and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.”
Acts 6:7
Discipleship Pathway – we reaffirmed the value of our baseball diamond church strategy and pathway, to pursue this updated mission. (1) We gather worshipers to love God (first base). (2) We connect believers to grow in Christ (second base). (3) We train followers to serve the church (third base). (4) And we send out workers to reach the world (home plate). Central to all of this is the Gospel of Jesus, which gives us our message and the power to proclaim it – all for the unending glory of God alone.
“And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
Acts 20:32
Core Values – we affirmed our five current values and added “Gospel-Centered.” We also concluded that we need to find ways to make these values more visible to the whole church family.
Our people and programs strive to be:
- Biblical – God’s Word is our authority and guide in all things
- Dependent – We believe that God is ultimate and infinite and that we are powerless apart from Christ, entirely dependent on His grace to sustain us, His Gospel to transform us, His Spirit to direct us and His power to work through us as we call on Him in prayer [we added this last phrase to make prayer explicit in our values]
- Gospel-Centered – Our confidence is not in programs or persuasive words but in preaching “Christ and Him crucified.” The message of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, reign and return connects us with the power of God to save the non-believer, sanctify the believer and thereby bring the life and love of God to whole communities and cities.
- Relational – Love for God overflows in love for people in word and deed
- Empowering – Every member of the body is needed to serve the church and reach the world
- Multiplying – We invest strategically in raising up disciples and leaders who will multiply groups, ministries, campuses and churches in Tampa and throughout the world.
Priorities for 2019
- Worship and Pray – God’s glory is always ultimate but we want to focus on worshipful prayer this summer to deepen our commitment to a church-wide culture of prayerful dependence and joy-filled praise. “They were constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14).
- Recover and Regroup – it has been a busy ministry season with a full school year of two worship services plus lots of extra events. Our hope is that one worship service this summer (and maybe longer) will provide an opportunity for healing, unifying and strengthening the church family as we slow the pace of ministry and emphasize family style worship and opportunities to connect relationally. “Those who believed were of one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32).
- Restructure and Rebuild – A search team is working to find a Children’s Ministry Coordinator while another has just formed to hire a Pastoral Resident. The latter is not just about staffing to build up our church and reach out in our community, but represents our desire to build a leadership development program that will raise up and multiply Gospel-leaders for the work of God in Tampa Bay and the world. We believe the Resident should focus on helping Oakwood grow by developing leaders, catalyzing outreach, improving our newcomer connections process and strengthening small groups. We are looking for a passionate Gospel leader and gifted Bible teacher with potential to serve at Oakwood for many years, potentially leading a new campus launch one day.
- Build Momentum – While our attendance and giving remain strong and consistent, with an encouraging influx of new people in recent months, we feel it is essential that we strengthen our disciple-making, improve our leadership development and prayerfully energize our evangelism and service outside the boundaries of the church property. We don’t want to be overly concerned with numbers but we do want to call on the Lord for a season of revival and spiritual harvest resulting in more conversion growth, increased worship attendance and growing financial strength. We are positioned to break the 200 barrier and, Lord willing, accelerate in our growth in 2020 and beyond.
- Experience God – We fully expect that as people seek God in worship and prayer they will experience His love in a fresh way (Eph. 3:15-21) and be encouraged and empowered to join Him in His work around us through evangelism, service, relational healing, fresh commitments, ministry callings, etc. To facilitate this we plan to lead the church family through the classic Experiencing God study starting in September. In addition we hope to open a Prayer Room where people can regularly seek God’s face, potentially building up to a 24-7 prayer schedule. Our desired outcome is a church encouraged, awakened, unified and mobilized with the Gospel.
“Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.”
Acts 8:4
Vision for the Future
- We are a Relational Church – a great strength of Oakwood is our family style feel, our warm relationships and gracious welcome to all who come. While we do want to grow we do not want to lose this atmosphere of love, healing, recovery and family. Rather, we want to build on and enhance this strength in the coming years.
- Small Groups – as a church of small groups we want our groups to empower apprentice / assistant leaders in order to raise up and send out new leaders to start new groups that will involve an increasing percentage of our people.
- Celebrate Recovery – Fall 2019 launch of an evening program that is not just for addicts but is for sinners to overcome our hurts, habits and hang-ups by believing and applying the Gospel in the context of intentional growth and accountability.
- Intentional discipleship – small groups are essential for building friendships that can facilitate the mentoring and accountability relationships necessary to foster spiritual growth
- Both vocational and lay Leadership Development – in addition to a formal internship and residency program to raise up pastors, church planters and missionaries we want to develop a system for empowering lay leaders, primarily built around our small groups and existing ministry teams.
- “Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul” (Acts 11:25).
- We are a Missional Church – the Great Commission is our charter and Acts 1:8 is our foundational promise. We have been sent to reach our city with the Gospel, training followers of Jesus who will bring that Good News to every part of Tampa Bay and every people group on earth.
- Organic Outreach – we want to move beyond outreach events to mobilize all of our people into a natural lifestyle of service, evangelism and invitation. To this end we are planning a summer social media campaign (“That’s my story!”), frequent testimonies shared in various ways, practical training, etc. Our hope is that the Pastoral Resident can help us become effective in this area and the next one.
- Missional Communities – We want to focus our outreach efforts in a few strategic locations: 1) near church; 2) USF; 3) 54 / Suncoast; 4) other areas / affinity groups
- International Partnerships – We hope to move from a vision trip in Sept to sending teams regularly into Cuba to share the gospel, plant churches, train leaders and serve in various ways. We expect this will bless the church in Cuba while energizing our people for the work in Tampa.
- “After they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them and sent them off” (Acts 13:3).
- We are a Multiplying Church – we believe Jesus’ strategy to reach the world was not programs but people. Like Jesus, we seek to invest in a few to reach many – multiplying disciples and leaders with a view to sending them wherever God directs. Our prayerful desire is to participate in a citywide awakening of the church through which the Lord mobilizes 100 or more new churches and ministries to bring the grace and truth of Jesus to every part of Tampa Bay.
- New Ministries – we want to recommission the Ben Franklins Forever campaign this fall as an annual initiative to catalyze creative outreach efforts by our people – distributing cash with a challenge to use it to reach and bless people in Jesus’ name (and report back about what God did).
- New Campuses – over the next few years we hope to launch another Oakwood Campus where we see the Lord at work. In ten years we hope to be one church in four or more locations if the Lord confirms multi-site to be the most effective way for us to extend Gospel ministry into strategic communities.
- New Churches – we believe the church is the hope of the world so we want to support a movement bringing new Gospel preaching churches to the Bay area while investing in similar church planting movements around the world.
Acts 13:49
“The word of the Lord spread through the whole region”