College Park Baptist Church
Church Profile
October 28, 2007
"Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together . . . but let us encourage one another." (Hebrews 10:24, 25)
Based on feedback received from the congregation during the Church and Pastor Profile Sessions (CHAPPS), the Pastor Search Committee has developed the following profile of College Park Baptist Church. The Committee will share this profile, along with church statistics, with select candidates for Pastor.
Our Fellowship - College Park Baptist is a friendly, warm, caring and loving church with a clear identity: we are moderate, missional Baptists who partner with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Our beliefs and values regarding the interpretation of the Bible, the roles of women and laity, and the centrality of Jesus Christ are well-established. We are an intergenerational fellowship, with members of all ages worshipping and ministering together. The laity is strong. We participate actively in planning the Church's work and ministries. Planted in the heart of the College Park neighborhood, College Park Baptist is the largest church in central Florida affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Therefore, we are a community church with a regional presence.
Our Sense of Mission - Our Mission Statement reflects our growing understanding of what it means to be Missional Christians: we seek to be who Christ would have us be, go where Christ would have us go, do what Christ would have us do, and love as Christ would have us love. This sense of mission has led us to reach out to our community through a variety of ministries such as Upward Basketball, Parent's Night Out, English Language classes, and the School of Music. This sense of mission has also led us to reach out to our world. We support Cooperative Baptist Fellowship missionaries around the world. We are engaged in a ten-year partnership with missionaries and Believers in Kenya, during which members of our congregation have traveled to Kenya to build a bridge over a riverbed and build a Child Development Centre in a needy village.
Our Vision for the Future - As a community church, we want to be more involved in ministering to the College Park community and to the greater Orlando region. We want to be more missional in our outreach by focusing on God’s mission of reconciliation and redemption and to discover and encourage each member’s participation in this mission. As a friendly, warm church, we joyfully welcome visitors and new members. Yet we recognize the need to do more to reach out to new, prospective members. We sense a need to develop innovative programs that will minister to college students, young adults, and singles of all ages. While willing to consider contemporary worship as a means to reaching young adults and their families, we are reluctant to create a separate worship experience. We cherish our blended worship service in which all generations are together engaged in the worship of God. We want to strengthen and extend our intergenerational relationships among the congregation.
