OUMC's Church Council voted last night (Dec. 1) to approve the Growth and Outreach strategic plan which calls for a greater focus on and commitment to the Great Commission.

Motivated by the Church Healthiness Team's concerns that Oakhurst has not experienced significant growth in decades and the church could shrink in size of membership of about one-half of what it is today within 20 years based on the current age demographic makeup of the congregation which is highly imbalanced because there are too few younger members, our senior pastor, the Rev. Tim Ehrlich; our student pastor and Celebration Worship leader, Mary Haley; and Peter Talbott as head of the Church Healthiness team commissioned the plan's development last summer.

Key directives of the plan are:

1. Utilizing the foundation of the early church in Acts implement a strategic initiative, OUMC's Growth and Outreach Crusade, to reach more people for Christ and to care more for members of the Oakhurst family.
2. The major focus of the Growth and Outreach Crusade will be the formation of efforts to create and maintain five distinct communities within the Oakhurst congregation. Those communities are Traditionalists (Christians who prefer to worship and experience God in what have become traditional mainline Protestant ways), Celebrationists (Christians who prefer to worship and experience God in contemporary ways), Millennials (people who are in the 20s and early 30s), 35-59 year-olds and Snowbirds/Retireds.
3. Develop and utilize modern communications methods including Internet-based solutions to support outreach endeavors and to facilitate the incubation, evergreen formation and ongoing reinvention of the five communities.
   

In addition to the Church Council's approval, the Church Healthiness Team endorsed the plan's direction in October. The Council has empowered the Healthiness Team to devise implementation procedures beginning immediately.

Churchwide meetings and communications about our Growth and Outreach Crusade are being planned where details will be discussed and questions answered. In the meantime, please pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance as we are about to enter an extremely exciting time for our church.

You can read the plan at www.pradsal.com. Look for the navigation buttons on the left side of the website's home page and click on OUMC.