Lead Pastor

Church and Community Profile
Organized March 9, 1864, First Baptist Church of Oak Ridge, Missouri, has ministered to our greater community and beyond for 162 years. Our church property adjoins the property of our Oak Ridge R-6 Public School District which is the heart of our rural community that surrounds the Village of Oak Ridge that itself has a current population of 243. We offer weekly a Sunday Morning Prayer Gathering at 8:15, a full age-range of Sunday School Classes, a Sunday Morning Worship Service, a Sunday Evening Prayer Gathering at 5:00, a Wednesday Evening Bible and Topical Study for children, teens, and adults.

Currently, our Sunday Morning Worship is led by lay volunteers, and our preferred style of music is a blend of traditional hymns and of modern praise songs. For the first six months of 2026, our average attendance in Sunday morning worship was 48. Our congregation is a mixture of senior adults, younger families, and single adults, and its blend of working professionals includes a broad range of levels of education and of income in accurate reflection of our greater community.

Free of debt, our current monthly offering is approximately $11,000, which at this time adequately covers our current monthly expenses. Our church campus includes a modern parsonage of three bedrooms and two full bathrooms that sets directly behind our church building and is immediately adjacent to our Oak Ridge Public Pre-School. Our full-time pastor and our part-time custodian are currently the two paid members of our church staff.

As of the 2026-27 school year, we will continue a twenty-year tradition of inviting all Oak Ridge secondary students to a free breakfast and to a Gospel lesson each Thursday morning before school, with the Gospel lesson presented by a variety of speakers from our church, from our greater community, and from our school district staff. During the 2025-26 school year, we were pleased to have served an average of 80 students and staff each week. In greater service to our broader community, we have recently established a free closet of new and gently-used clothing and established a distribution partnership with the Southeast Missouri Foodbank as ministry to those families and individuals who are most in need of clothing, food, or both.

Over the multiple generations of our church, the support of missions has remained a priority, and we currently have two missions partners: locally, the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at Southeast Missouri State University in nearby Cape Girardeau; nationally, a new church plant, Calvary Commons, in Knoxville, Tennessee; and we are seeking God’s leadership in establishing an international missions partner in our immediate future.
As a church, we are active in the Cape Girardeau Baptist Association, and we teach and minister in full cooperation with the Missouri Baptist Convention as well as with the Southern Baptist Convention

Church Mission and Values
Our mission states, “Having been established in 1864, we endeavor to continue in the Biblical tradition of the charter members of this church in following truthfully and faithfully our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Our values state, “We exist to demonstrate and to proclaim the sacrificial love of God.” In doing so, we:
Pray Humbly (2 Chronicles 7:14, Lamentations 3:41, Luke 18:9-14, Philippians 4:6-7, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:6-7);
Teach Transformationally (Matthew 28:16-20, Romans 12:1-2, Colossians 3:16, 2 Timothy 3:16)
Worship Joyfully (Psalm 30:5; 66; 100; 149; and 150; Philippians 4:4, Hebrews 13:5);
Listen Compassionately (Proverbs 18:13, John 4:1-45, James 1:19-21);
Share Boldly (Isaiah 6:8, Mark 16:15, Luke 14:12-24, Acts1:8, Romans 1:16, Romans 10:13-17);
Serve Selflessly (Matthew 20:16, Mark 10:45, John 13:1-20, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Galatians 5:13, Philippians 2:3-4).

Application Process
All interested candidates are invited to submit a formal letter of candidate interest, a current resume of academic study and of professional service, three letters of professional recommendation, and three digital links to sermons from within the last six months.

All candidate applications will be reviewed and maintained in strict confidence until that time both candidate and church agree to announce publicly our mutual interest. Please be informed, our position will remain open until filled.

All candidate materials and related questions may be immediately submitted to:
Mike Cowan, PhD, pastor search team chairperson
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: View phone number on click.appcast.io

Webpage:
Facebook:
YouTube:

To apply for this job email your details to View email address on click.appcast.io