Covenanter Plays Key Role in Faith-Based Initiative

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (May 27, 2003) - A former minister with Evangelical Covenant Church connections is one of the leading figures in President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative that is assisting many church ministries with government funding.

Brad Yarbrough of Life Church, a Covenant congregation in Edmond, Oklahoma, has served as director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for the State of Oklahoma since July 2000. Yarbrough has participated in many meetings as the President shared his vision for the faith-based initiative. The Oklahoma agency also has served as a model for how government and churches can best serve the local community. As one of the country's frontrunners in organizing a faith-based initiative agency, Yarbrough has been a key voice of wisdom in assisting a number of others in their efforts, including the states of Ohio, Florida and Utah.

"I want to affirm the value of faith-based initiatives to the community . . . in collaborating with social agencies to help those who are facing life's biggest problems," Yarbrough said. "The fact is the church has been at the epicenter of meeting needs in the community since the beginning of the church. But the government has specific needs for specific people that might live in your backyard. The church just needs to know where and how to help those that the government is trying to assist."

It should come as no surprise that Yarbrough sees his job as a ministry, given his vocational background. Yarbrough served in church ministry for eight years in Oklahoma and his ministry experience, along with a keen business mind, has proven a successful combination in his new profession.

Winner of the Outstanding Business Student Award while attending Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma, Yarbrough was successful in starting three businesses following college. His life took an interesting turn in 1986, however, as he and wife, Carolyn, became associated with an evangelistic ministry that included such luminaries as author Bob Phillips and pastor David Wilkerson. During that period Yarbrough considered a call to ministry and in 1988 became pastor of Grace Community Fellowship in Oklahoma City, supplementing his income by starting a fast-change oil company.

Yarbrough's ministry skills were apparent to many, especially during times of crisis. Following the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people in downtown Oklahoma City, Yarbrough served as the clergy coordinator at the Family Assistance Center. He also directed relief efforts for Oklahoma Heart to Heart International after tornadoes ravaged the state in May 1999. He said that the crisis response by the community in both instances convinced him that the faith-based initiative in Oklahoma could work.

"The bombing was truly an enormous display of the state's and the nation's outpouring of love," Yarbrough observed. "The tragedy here uncovered the deep roots of faith this city has had since the roots of its founding. That quality makes this fertile ground for social service programs within the church. But sometimes, when a church has a heart to help, they need to have help to express their heart."

Five years ago, Yarbrough was one who needed help to express his heart. He had left the church he had served two years earlier and decided to sell his lucrative oil service business to a competitor, leaving him with no job and seemingly no place to minister to others.

Yarbrough described 1998 as a spiritually difficult period, saying, "I'm 45 years old with a wife and two kids (Amy and Brian) and I wondered, 'God, did I miss something?' But on the same day that I was inking documents to sell my business, my attorney Howard Hendricks (who was also a state senator) got the job as the state's director of the Department of Human Services and he said to me, 'So Brad, what are you going to do with your life?'"

Although Yarbrough wasn't sure what his long-term prospects were, God provided him with short-term employment through his longtime friend. Hendricks asked Yarbrough to attend a number of national conferences on government partnerships with faith-based groups. The conferences piqued Yarbrough's interest in government/church partnerships and when Jerry Regier, the state's health and human services secretary (on behalf of Governor Frank Keating), chose Yarbrough to start Oklahoma's Faith-Based Liaison Office, he accepted the challenge and hasn't looked back.

"Pastors at inner city churches were talking to government agencies about social services," said Yarbrough as he recalled some of the conferences he attended. "And these preachers were bringing messages with the same scripture references and passion that you'd find at a revival. That's where my interest was kindled.

"I feel like God is using me to enlarge his borders," he continued. "And I feel great about talking to pastors who have a heart that goes outside of the church and into the community. I love to encourage them, to affirm them, and then to invite them to touch other lives as they collaborate with the government."

During recent years, Yarbrough has discovered that while big churches often have the resources to help those around them, smaller congregations often are unable to start or continue viable ministries due to lack of resources. Yarbrough has tried to address the needs of smaller churches wishing to do community ministry by starting the Intermediary Organization with offices in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, providing technical assistance to churches that may not have the resources to handle the task alone.

Yarbrough has found other practical ways to help better the world around him. He and Carolyn minister locally through Hannah House, which provides a home and training at several locations for women in crisis. "Small, grassroots community churches and medium-size churches don't have the staff and capacities to identify and secure government money," Yarbrough said. "This idea just puts government - which has the political mandate to help the poor - with the church, which has the divine mandate to help the poor."

To learn more about what Yarbrough and his department are doing in Oklahoma, visit the State of Oklahoma Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives web site at www.faithlinks.state.ok.us.

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