If you would like to support and help us build, we would be grateful for your prayers and for any level of financial support that you may be able to offer. If you would like to donate, please click on the GIVE button or mail your contribution to:
The Oasis United Church of Christ
PO Box 104361
Jefferson City, MO 65110-4361
We are building a progressive, open and affirming United Church of Christ congregation in Jefferson City, MO. As we have worked and talked, it has become apparent that there is a strong and urgent need for a church community that is more progressive, that is open and affirming of all people regardless of all the things that divide us.
The Oasis UCC is built on a commitment to four non-negotiables as outlined in John Pavlovitz’s book, A Bigger Table:
• radical hospitality where everyone is equally celebrated and effusively welcomed without reservation—because they have the same inherent worth.
• living with total authenticity in a community where people can be fully non-edited version of themselves and know that they will be fully included in the life and work of the community.
• real diversity where difference in worldview, religion, age, gender identity and experience are all not only expected, but seen as necessary and beautiful.
• agenda-free relationships where we strive to meet someone without the expectation of changing, fixing, or saving them. We simply listen to their story and count it as equally valid and meaningful as our own.
Our hope is that The Oasis UCC will be a place for the thinking heart – a place where people don’t need to leave their mind OR their heart at the door. In our common life as church we will offer devotional, heart-centered worship that fills your spiritual cup. The arts (music, dance, drama and visual arts) are centerpieces of transformative worship, and so engagement with the arts that is excellent, and devotional will be a priority in the worship life of this church. We will also seek to live out and embody our faith where people will be challenged and encouraged to live out their faith in the communities of their daily lives. And we will have an unashamedly progressive Christian theology where our calling as a spiritual community will be to receive and embody Christ’s unconditional love in the world.
Oasis UCC’s goal is to work to become the church that God has called us to be. We believe that all communities of faith need to have the opportunity to discern ways in which to live into their understanding of the call to be Christ’s church.
The Christian Church today truly needs excited, passionate, and called leadership to be renewed. It is our vision and prayer that The Oasis United Church of Christ can embody this. We have had many conversations already with people who are very excited about joining this vision and project. We hold many exciting potential opportunities in our hearts once The Oasis begins to grow and expand.
We are looking for individual supporters and church and organizational partners in this venture. Most new church starts take at least five years to become financially sustainable without outside assistance. Our hope and prayer is that mission-minded individuals and UCC congregations in Missouri and beyond would be interested in partnering with us to build The Oasis United Church of Christ here in Jefferson City, MO.