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AUSTIN—Oak Meadow Baptist Church in Austin is a multicultural congregation that emphasizes missions each Sunday with the goal of accomplishing the Great Commission in Austin and throughout the world.
“We have a missions moment every Sunday where we highlight some sort of mission activity, a missionary or a city where new churches are being planted, whether international or domestic,” pastor Mario Moreno told the TEXAN. “We try to keep missions in front of the people.”
Oak Meadow began as a merger in 2001 when South First Baptist Church in Austin, a congregation which had declined since its start in 1965, had a six-acre property and facilities that weren’t being fully utilized. They approached Genesis Baptist Church, which had started in 1997 to reach English-speaking Hispanics and was in need of a permanent space.
The two churches of different ages and cultures came together to reach Austin under the new name of Oak Meadow Baptist Church. In 2009, the church purchased a former Chrysler dealership on I-35 with three buildings and plenty of parking, positioning them for growth.
As the church members canvassed their new neighborhood, they found that “nearly every other house had Spanish-speaking residents,” according to the church’s website. They tapped Moreno, who had been pastor of Iglesia Bautista Fuente de Vida in Brenham, to launch a Spanish service.
In 2013, when Oak Meadow’s pastor, Gilbert Chavez, took a position with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, the church called Moreno as their senior pastor. Now Oak Meadow has an English service and a Spanish service each week, and combined they average 150 people.
The church also ranks as a strong Cooperative Program supporter in the SBTC.
“We have very much used the opportunity to teach and preach that we can do the Great Commission no matter what language you speak and serve the Lord with our gifts, talents and abilities and especially our resources,” Moreno said.
“We can reach out to any of these nationalities that we have in our congregation. If the world has come to us, then we should be able to minister to them here at our doorstep and across the world no matter where it is. Through the Cooperative Program, that makes it possible.”
Moreno, who with his wife Anita is raising seven sons, had planted Fuente de Vida in Brenham. After 12 years at that predominantly Hispanic church, he was able to leave it as a self-sustaining congregation “very much involved in missions and giving.” He also has been a strong supporter of the SBTC, tracing his involvement to its beginning.
“We’ve been with the convention ever since because we believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. We stand with that, and nothing would change us from that,” Moreno said.
Oak Meadow is “happy to participate and work with our brothers and sisters across the state who have the same convictions,” he said. “It’s very important for all of us to be of one mind and one purpose.”
One of the challenges Oak Meadow faces as it reaches a heavily Latino area of Austin is to unite cultures within the church, Moreno said. “It’s a challenge, but it’s doable,” he said, emphasizing that the congregation is one church with two languages.
“Instead of having just a bilingual service with everybody in there, we have two services, so the ones that have their native heart language get ministered to in that language, and others also in the English language,” Moreno said.
The church is cognizant of the need to reach children with the language they speak, and they are careful to facilitate their spiritual growth, he said, adding that they also encourage people of different generations and languages to mingle and get to know one another.
The missions moments in every service are a way of telling the congregation, “Now you can participate,” Moreno said. They’ve done mission trips in Texas and in Colorado, and they’re planning a trip to Philadelphia, where they have a missionary contact pioneering some Hispanic work.
“Missions is not just something that we want to talk about. We want to be hands-on and actually do it,” Moreno said.
And in Austin, time and again Moreno has seen young people come in search of the American dream, thinking they’ll find a career and money.
“But here is where they come to know Christ, and it makes all the difference in their life,” he said. “Now their family has a new direction, and all the things Jesus means to them are totally different from what they were thinking. That makes ministry all worth it, and we continue to work toward that.”
