Tom Elliff Center for Missions enhances the vision of OBU to equip the next generation of future shapers to live all of life, all for Jesus. The Center equips students for their calling as career missionaries.
The Center empowers OBU students by providing scholarship dollars to those who have sensed God’s call to career missions, either internationally or in the United States, and have shared that call to missions with their church family. While priority for scholarships is given to those studying missions in the Hobbs School of Theology, we know that God calls people from a variety of fields, so students in any other major preparing to go into vocational missions are also encouraged to apply.
Participation in the Center will provide mentoring, comradery, and equipping/training focused on career service. This will take place through participation in weekly T.E.C. Mission Fellowships with others in the program. During these weekly Mission Fellowships, participants will focus on daily disciplines needed for successful field service, will be exposed to practical elements of the missionary task, and experience the encouragement of walking with others. Scholarship recipients will also participate in T.E.C. Mission Forums which will introduce OBU students to key mission leaders on the field, applied elements of missiology, and current events in missions. Preparation for the Mission Fellowships will require approximately one hour per week.
The Tom Elliff Center connects local churches to OBU students and supports their efforts to go into the world to advance the gospel. The unique feature of the partnership between local church involvement, OBU and the mission field is that local churches will have the opportunity to invest in the mission experiences of students from their home churches. Local partner churches support their students at OBU as they are equipped to go on mission to the world by participating in sending their student on mission trips each of the years of their college study. Considering the crucial relationship to the local church, participants will provide recommendations from two individuals in the church, the pastor and someone who has walked with the student through the time of their call to missions.