This Is Only The Beginning
OCPN Finishing Residency | First Class of Graduates
It’s official, Justin Serra, George Oliveira, and Eduardo Rivera – the first class of the finishing residency – have completed their time in the program and have graduated!
Justin Serra is planting New City Fellowship in Hunter’s Creek. George Oliveira is the new pastor of Lakeland Bible Presbyterian Church. Eduardo Rivera is in the process of interviewing for a position on staff at Mosaic to lead the Hispanic Ministry at Mosaic.
We celebrate all that God has done and is doing through each of these men as they have completed the 9 month OCPN Finishing Residency. We are grateful for the ways in which each one has been faithful in this process and allowed us the privilege of being a part of their story.
Break from Monthly Gatherings for the Summer
We had our last Pastors and Planters Luncheon in May. We are taking a break for the summer and will kick off again with our next Pastors and Planters Luncheon on August 17th, 2023. We look forward to seeing you then and would encourage you to invite another pastor to join you for the August gathering.
2023-2024 OCPN Foundational Residency
We are excited to kick off the inaugural class of the Foundational Residency in September. We have 5 prospective planters who will be joining us for the Foundational Residency.
The Foundational Residency is a 9-Month training program (September - May) designed to provide an overview of key issues related to church planting, strengthen core competencies that are required of healthy planters, and helps residents confirm their calling to plant. Residents will meet once a month for training and once a month with a coach.
2023-2024 OCPN Finishing Residency
We are also excited for the second group of church planters to jump into the next round of the Finishing Residency. We have 3 church planters who will be joining us for the Finishing Residency in September.
The Finishing Residency is a 9 Month program (September - May) designed for those who are 12 to 18 months from launching a new church and have a proven track record of leadership. We are looking forward to coming alongside this next group of planters to help foster personal spiritual growth and gospel formation in their life and ministry. And to provide these planters with the training and tools to start and lead a faithful, gospel-centered, biblical, healthy, missional, multiplying, contextual, and community transforming church here in Central Florida.
The Great Commission, The Great Commandment, and The Great Collaboration
We long to see God’s Kingdom come and His will be done here in our city as it is in Heaven. To this end, we are striving to see a movement of Gospel Renewal in our City. We want to see Gospel Saturation – to give every man, woman, and child in Central Florida repeated opportunities to hear, see, and respond to the good news of the Gospel. We want to see more local churches planted that are making disciples and serving the city and led by healthy leaders. For this vision to be accomplished, we must commit ourselves with an unrelenting passion to be churches and leaders who are about the great commission, the great commandment, and the great collaboration.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37–40
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. John 17:20-23
By God’s grace, as pastors and leaders, let us strive side by side for the faith of the gospel in our city and throughout Central Florida.