On Thursday 21 March, we hosted our first Encounter Evening, in partnership with the School of the Spirit.
With worship led by John Gridley, and ministry from a team from Bethel's School of Supernatural Ministry, it was a powerful evening. People came from far and wide, from our family of churches and many other churches in the city, to encounter Jesus and be refreshed in His presence.
My adventure with Oxford Community Church has had some distinct ‘chapters’ of different activity over the years, one of which has been my employment as a full-time administrator since 2010, supporting the people and ministry of the church in very practical ways. This particular chapter is now coming to an end, and so I wanted to share with you all a brief summary of what has led to this decision.
We've just started a new series looking at Jesus' teaching and invitation to follow his narrow way. “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
Ethne launched at the beginning of 2023, as a next step for OCC in its vision of realising “cultural and ethnic integration within Oxford Community Church and beyond”. (For more, visit www.occ.org.uk/intercultural).
Everything healthy is part of something bigger! That's a deep longstanding conviction for our family of churches – it's why we are in fact a family of churches – and it helps us understand the point of conferences. Mark and I had this conversation recently with our apprentices, and we thought it was worth sharing more widely.
Before we talk about conferences specifically, 'everything healthy is part of something bigger' is about more than conferences:
This coming Sunday, we will be joined by Rich and Anna Ellwood. Having grown up in Oxfordshire, Rich and his Belgian wife, Anna, have spent 13 years leading a church in Brussels. They have now relocated with their family to the UK. Rich works for Christians Against Poverty, and as of September 2023, now leads Salt & Light Advance.
As part of OCC's service on Sunday 1 October 2023, Senior Pastor Steve Jones notes that Black History Month is a helpful annual reminder to learn more as a church, and comments on OCC becoming more intercultural, including relationships with other minority-led churches in Oxford.
In recent years, I’ve found myself personally caught up in the conversation about race, ethnicity and justice. I’ve appreciated rich conversations with people of other heritages in OCC (including in the Ethne team, and its predecessor group - you know who you are - thank you!), external learning opportunities and, of course, reading books. I do love a good book, and I now have a shelf in my office devoted to books on intercultural church, biographies of British people of colour, and history books considering race and ethnicity. Call me a geek if you will, but it’s part of how I learn.
We fast together as a whole church on particular days. If this is new to you, you might find it helpful to watch the video below where Elizabeth talks about what fasting is, why we do it, and how to fast.
In 1985, Steve Thomas was the founding Senior Pastor when Oxford Community Church was planted. Since then, God has led Steve and his wife Lorraine into what we call 'apostolic ministry' in our wider international family of churches, including senior leadership of our Salt & Light International family of churches on four continents.