OnMission Ministries: a New Branch at Oklahoma Christian

OnMission Ministries is a new Christian service club at Oklahoma Christian University serving in homeless and nursing home ministry. OnMission has branches at multiple college campuses. 

Senior Katie Payne  is the founder and president of the new branch at Oklahoma Christian. On the mission of the OnMission branch at Oklahoma Christian, Payne said:

“So we serve two primary functions. One, since the overall ministry needs a lot of funding for Bibles and for food for people struggling with homelessness, we’ll do a lot of fundraising events to raise money for those supplies. We’re also going to be really active in the nursing home ministry. We are currently compiling a list of nursing homes to go to and spread the Gospel and just talk with the people there about how we can best serve them.”

Payne was instrumental in starting the OnMission branch at Oklahoma Christian. Payne has connections with the founder of the broader OnMission Ministries and found a unique way to bring the organization to Oklahoma Christian.

“[OnMission] Ministry was initially started by my friend, Olivia,… she started this ministry when she was at SMU, she transferred to OBU, she also started a branch there. She was talking about really wanting to expand the ministry, so I thought bringing it to OC would be really cool,” Payne said. “I had this semi-anonymous instagram account, called OC spiritual encouragement… I used that account, since I had a good amount of followers, to advertise for [OnMission] and who would be interested in starting it with me. I got a pretty good response, so I was able to put together a team of officers and a sponsor.” said Payne.

All students are welcome and encouraged to participate in this club, as student involvement is crucial in this ministry as it is volunteer and service based.

“Our meetings are every other Sunday evening at 9:30 in the Duncan room.” Payne said, “We have an instagram account, oc.onmission. The easiest way [to get involved] is to just fill out the form in the bio. There are also a few posters floating around campus with a QR code that will take you straight to the form.” Payne said, “We would absolutely love to have new members, even if they don’t have a ton of time to commit. The time commitment is very customizable, you’ll sign up for service projects on an event-by-event basis. So if you have really busy periods here and there and can’t really do a lot, that’s also fine.” Payne said, “We’re planning on having an introductory ‘get-to-know-you’ [with] lawn games and devo later this month. And then we’re also planning on doing a pickleball tournament and bake sale for fundraising.” 

Oklahoma Christian’s branch of OnMission is in the process of organizing service opportunities for its members to connect.

Payne said, “We’re in the process of getting our nursing home list finalized to start doing outreach checks with them. I’d love to [go to nursing homes] twice a month, if at all possible, but that depends on how much time the club has available.”

Freshman Jonah Wilcox  is the vice president of Oklahoma Christian’s OnMission branch. Wilcox is involved in outreach for the club, including attending an event representing Oklahoma Christian with the larger OnMission Ministries to speak to a few of Oklahoma’s state senators over winter break.

Wilcox said, “We have two really cool partnerships that have come about in the last couple of days. Oklahoma’s president of the Gideon Bible foundation [wants] to partner with us. We are also slated to go speak to a few of Oklahoma’s senators over winter break.”

Junior John Meadows  is the secretary for the club. Meadows is a communications major and was responsible for acquiring a club sponsor for OnMission.

“Katie came to me and asked me ‘How do I become a club? What should I do?’… I said we need to have a club sponsor,” Meadows said. “Our sponsor is Dr. Lowry. I’ve had many classes with him and I thought that he would love what we are doing, so I went and talked to him and he said ‘Of course, we need to do more of that.’ He was on board immediately with us,” Meadows said.

Oklahoma Christian’s OnMission club is taking new members to get involved in their ministries. All skill levels are encouraged to join, the next meeting will be Sunday, October 26 at 9:30pm in the Duncan room.