Covenant News

New Oklahoma Church Schedules 'Preview' Service

NORMAN, OK (August 31, 2001) - A Covenant church in the Midsouth Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church will offer a preview worship service September 9 in anticipation of beginning weekly worship services no later than January.

Clark Mitchell, who was an associate pastor at Metro Church/Life Covenant Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, has been organizing a core group of some 100 individuals for nearly a month. Some come from both campuses of Life Covenant (which merged with Metro Church in January) and others have heard about the new church through Life Covenant connections.

Contemporary worship will be a key component of the new church, currently called Norman Covenant Church. Mitchell hopes to target its ministry to those age 35 and under during the early stages. "It won't look like church," Mitchell said. "Our goal will be to make church attractive to both unchurched and churched people." Norman is a town of 96,000 (not including Oklahoma University), and over half of that population is age 32 and younger, according to the pastor. "We will be the first church in town going for that niche and we'll be heavy into young adult ministry, college ministry and youth ministry," he said.

Special weekend emphasis Sundays are an option for gathering people, according to Mitchell. Some advisors from the university's fraternity and sorority systems have offered to help integrate students. And Mitchell may benefit from an influx of University of Oklahoma football players who have expressed an interest in worshiping at the new church. Oklahoma won the NCAA Division I football championship in January.

"What really motivated me (to start a church in Norman) is the fact that there are something like 35,000 unchurched people here," Mitchell said. "We're seeing lives changed and transformed already. It's almost like some of the people that we're encountering are people who are being led to the Lord and they don't know why. It's unbelievable and humbling."

For more information about the church, call Mitchell at 405-217-8700.

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