Introducing the Tom Eliff Center for Missions

Have you ever wondered how to inspire and equip the next generation of missionaries? Join us on the inaugural episode of the From Every Nation podcast, where esteemed guest Brother Tom Eliff unveils the mission and vision of the Tom Eliff Center for Missions at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU). Our goal is to ignite a passion for the Great Commission in all of our listeners and in the students here at OBU. 
 
 Get ready to be introduced to the whole Elliff Center team. Learn how a generous donation led to the inception of the Tom Eliff Center for Missions, and how this initiative continues OBU's legacy of sending students to mission fields around the globe. Also learn about the mission, vision, and strategy that makes the Elliff Center so unique in equipping students to be the next generation of missionaries. 

Finally, Discover how OBU's commitment to a world-class Christian education equips students to step into their mission fields ready to make a global impact. For more details about the center and the Eliff Center Scholarship, be sure to visit the link and consider exploring all that OBU has to offer.

Elliff Center: https://www.okbu.edu/elliff-center/index.html
Visit OBU: https://www.okbu.edu/admissions/visit-campus/index.html

Transcript

Kyle 0:05

Welcome and thanks for listening to the From Every Nation podcast, the official podcast of the Tom Ellef Center for Missions at Oklahoma Baptist University. I'm Kyle and I'll be your host as we learn to live as those sent out to spread the gospel. Welcome everybody. We're so glad you all are here. This is our first episode of the From Every Nation podcast. We're so glad you've joined us today and we're really excited for this episode and the episodes to come and just what the Lord is planning on doing, through this podcast, in your life and in the lives of many others doing through this podcast in your life and in the lives of many others. So this podcast is part of the Tom Ellef Center for Missions at Oklahoma Baptist University and if you aren't familiar with us, in just a few minutes we're going to tell you all about who we are, what we do, how you can get involved, and we're really excited for what the Lord is doing through the Tom Ellef Center for Missions, and so we are excited to have you join us as we're jumping into all this.

About the podcast

Kyle 1:08

My name is Kyle Opskar and I'm the assistant director here at the Tom Ellis Center for Missions, and I've got my whole team with me today we're excited to just come together to tell you a little bit about ourselves, but a little about how, the roles that each one of us play here at the Ellis Center. And so, before we dive into introductions and what we do, I want to let you know just a little bit about our podcast and how we named it and why we named it From Every Nation. We named this podcast From Every Nation because it is our desire as a Tom Eliff Center for Missions to see the next generation of missionaries go into all the nations on earth with the gospel and for their disciples to do likewise, to the degree that we see future generations of missionaries going out from every nation to every nation with the gospel, so that one day the Great Commission will be fulfilled and the words of Revelation 7-9 will ring true. So we tell our students all the time that we're looking not only at them, but we're looking at their disciples and their disciples' disciples praying that they would be obedient to the Great Commission, and so you'll hear us talk about that pretty frequently on this podcast, that it's our desire to see the next generation of missionaries going into the world with the gospel and fulfilling the Great Commission. So, with all that being said, I want to go ahead and let you all get introduced to the team, and I'll start with myself and let you know a little bit about me.

Meet your host, Kyle Opskar

Meet Brother Tom Elliff

Kyle 2:38

So I was born and raised in Wichita, kansas, and came to OBU as a freshman in 2012. And, to my own disbelief, I never left. So I never would have thought 12 years from now, I'd still be in Shawnee, oklahoma, still here, but it's been a great place for us. The Lord has just been really good to us here at OBU, and so I've been married to my wife, taylor, for it'll be six years here in a couple months and we've got a one-year-old baby girl. She just started walking. We're avid sports fans. We have a passion for the nations, we have a passion for hanging out with college students, and we're excited to reach college students and high school students alike through this podcast and through our work here at the Elf Center. So I'm going to pass it along to Brother Tom here and let him introduce him, and so we'll let you introduce yourselves to the whole team here.

Tom 3:35

Thanks, kyle. I really appreciate the privilege of being on this podcast and I especially appreciate the privilege of being able to share in the ministry of the Eliff Center. They actually put my name on it because in the end, you've got to blame somebody when something goes wrong. I think I finally figured that out. I am thrilled to be a part of this. I have lived over two-thirds of my life here in Oklahoma and I love Oklahoma. We spent a little bit of time in Africa with the International Mission Board and then later on had the privilege of serving in some administrative roles with IMB. I really think the vision that this center has of sending people into the heart of other people groups around the world, discipling them and then seeing them send others is the real. That's the real deal. That is simply saying what Jesus said he wanted to see happen, and I'm so grateful for that. I really, I really thank the Lord for giving me this privilege.

Tom 4:46

My wife, diana and I have been married only seven years. Our first spouses mine, died of cancer at the age of 49, hers at the age of 47 of Lou Gehrig's disease. Her husband's name was Wayne Barber, a great Bible teacher, and he traveled and spoke in mission groups around the world, as did I have the privilege of doing that, and I am so grateful for that. You know, kyle, I will have to tell you that God is working through our own family in terms of reaching others around the world. Right now, among our family of six kids and 33 grandchildren, we have children who are serving on four continents around the world. In fact, a couple of years ago, on Easter, we celebrated the Lord's Table on Zoom and we did it on four continents and had a wonderful, wonderful experience as a family talking about what God is doing in their lives.

Tom 5:51

So, with children and grandchildren around the world, many of them graduates of Oklahoma Baptist University, it's only fitting that we have a center. We'll explain later on how it came to be, but I'm so grateful to God that he's given us an opportunity to help students at OVU do more than simply brush up against the Great Commission. We want the Great Commission to get a grip on them, and that truly is our heart. So the thinking becomes so enmeshed in what it means to reach the nations of the world that it would be unthinkable of them to graduate, and whether they go into a secular business or go to the field or pastor a church. Whatever they do, it would be unthinkable for them to do what they do without thinking how this is going to affect the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Meet Dr. Ellbert SMith

Kyle 6:48

Yeah, that's great, and we're going to dive into that pretty quickly here. But before we do that, Elbert, you want to introduce yourself really quick.

Elbert 6:57

Kyle, it's a joy to be on the podcast this afternoon. My name is Elbert Smith and I serve as the director of the Tom Mellef Center for Missions. My wife and I my wife Kay and I are both from Oklahoma. She's from Oklahoma City, I'm from Claremore, oklahoma, in northeastern Oklahoma. We met at OBU so it's special for us to be back on campus. We have three children One of our daughters is on the mission field with one of our son-in-laws and two grandchildren, and then another daughter continues to live in Virginia where her husband's a firefighter, and four of our grandchildren and then our son. So we're grateful for the family the Lord's given us.

Elbert 7:38

Over the years. We left OBU in the pastorate and continued in that for a couple of years before we were called, clearly, to go to the nations and we ended up spending 30 years with the International Mission Board and are grateful for those years around the world. But also for some of those years we were able to spend time investing in new missionaries, and so actually we see the Lord bringing full circle. I'm investing in new missionaries, and so actually we see the Lord bringing full circle. We're back at OBU and where we met, and also we're continuing to invest in the next generation of those who go to the nations.

Kyle 8:14

That's great, and we're so thankful for you and Kay being on campus, and our students are so thankful for you all. They absolutely adore the two of you. I don't know if you two realize that, but I hear it all the time. They can't get enough of the two of you. And so, last but not least, mike, tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of what you do, what you like to do.

Meet Dr. Mike Hand

Mike 8:34

All right, thank you, kyle. I'm Mike Hand and I serve on this team as special assistant to the president at OBU for Great Commission Initiatives. Listen, that title is so long, you have to put it on the front and the back of a card to read it all. So I'm grateful to be a part of what God is doing through the Tom Eliff Center for Missions. My wife and I have been married. This coming September it will be 56 years. September will be 56 years and I have three children, and one of those children that we have are serving with the IMB in a part of the world that is very volatile at the moment, but we are grateful for God's protection for them. I have a daughter and son-in-law and four grandkids here in Oklahoma City. We had a very interesting weekend this last weekend our oldest granddaughter got engaged.

Elbert 9:35

So we're excited about that.

Mike 9:36

So we've got a wedding on the horizon. Fortunately or gratefully, I'm not paying for it, but we've been here in Oklahoma City area since 1980, much like Brother Tom, more than two-thirds of my life have been spent here in Oklahoma City. Interestingly, we've been here 43 years and Tom and I have had the privilege of working together 36 of those 43 years. So I don't know, One of these days I guess we'll try to figure out when we're going to get tired of each other, I guess. But it's an exciting time to see what God is doing.

Mike 10:15

My responsibility and I know I'll have an opportunity to say more about this later, but my responsibility is out and around the state and really around the country and working with pastors and state conventions and associations and just expressing to them who we are, what we do, how we do it. And of course, our desire is to be a help to the pastor when their students come to them and say Pastor, I'm just so excited because at camp or at a revival or a disciple now, or whatever the circumstances, God got a hold of my heart and I believe God's called me to the mission field. What do I do? Well, we want to be there to assist that pastor and counseling that student, giving them help to give that pastor, guidance to some things that we offer at OBU, to do exactly that to help get that student that has made that decision for missions to get them on the mission field.

TECM Mission, Vision, and Strategy

Kyle 11:14

Yeah, that's great, and we're very thankful for what you do and how you do it, and so we're going to spend the rest of our time kind of talking about vision, mission and strategy for who we are and what we do here at the Ellis Center. So our vision is to see a movement of multiplying disciples following Christ into his harvest, but that wasn't always the vision. The vision started with a single idea. Somewhere, you know, six months before the start of February 2022 or so, there was an idea that sparked who we are and what we do. And so, brother Tom, do you mind just kind of sharing that story briefly about how we came to be?

Tom 12:14

You know, every movement has a beginning. The interesting thing about a movement is it has energy within it, and that's why we talk about our vision being of movement, and that is, it has its own energy from above, from the Lord, and grows and grows, and we are seeing that happen. But it all began, as you said, about six months before our very first semester. First semester, a very generous-hearted couple came to us and said you know, how in the world can we be a part of seeing the world changed and people being trained for missions? And this couple has amazing opportunities around the world themselves. How can we do that?

Tom 13:04

We began talking about the lostness of the world and they in turn made an incredibly generous gift and they said we really would like for this to go toward a center that would create the very kind of environment that would encourage students to well to surrender their lives to the Lord, Some people I don't know how accurate these figures are, but I think they are considerably accurate but they would tell you that probably over the last 20, 30 years, there is no school within the church schools, the state convention, schools of the Southern Baptist Convention that have sent more students to the mission field than Oklahoma Baptist University. That's pretty incredible. That is an amazing thing. So how do you walk onto a campus like that and make any kind of difference whatsoever? Well, we saw that it could happen and this couple believed that it could happen and they said well, okay, here's the gift Go and coming out of an intense time of prayer. Everything, of course, rests on leadership. I knew there were two people that I would love to see on the team and on the same day I picked up the telephone and called these two people and the Lord, in a way that only the Lord can do, spoke to their hearts. And I'm going to say, not in months and months, but in weeks.

Tom 14:45

We were together, we had the center. We didn't know what we were going to do with it, but we had it and the campus, of course, embraced us. The president made it possible for us to have space to do this and, of course, when Elbert and Kay came to the campus, it was like breathing life into the center, because they not only give themselves in the teaching setting but in the life setting, one-on-one mentoring, which is the. You know, that's the secret sauce for the center, and so that's how it all began. That's what we're all about.

Tom 15:22

As I said, we want students to be in an atmosphere where the Great Commission can grip them and you know, this has provided that in every one of our disciplines on the campus. Now we're seeing people with interests, some being called others, who are right in the heart of our training with interest, some being called others, who are right in the heart of our training, and it couldn't be anything more than just exciting for me to see what God is doing. So my job is to stand back and to be proud and to pray, and so I do that. I stand back, I'm very, very proud and I pray intensely for this sinner.

Mike 16:02

Well, I think there's another P that goes with that and it probably goes with the word push. Yeah, you can be a little pushy sometimes and we're grateful for pushy, because God has gifted you with a great vision and where we don't always, Elbert and I don't always have that vision or that capacity for vision, god has certainly given you the vision and certainly given you the right to push and throw out new ideas and new directions for us to go, and we're grateful for that Well, I've never been called pushy Mike, but in this instance, if that's what it takes to get the job done with you, hard-hearted- guys, I'll do it.

Mike 16:45

I say that with all love and respect.

Kyle 16:50

So, in fulfilling this vision of seeing a movement of multiplying disciples, who is it that we are trying to reach?

Tom 16:59

Well, of course, ultimately, kyle, ultimately we're talking about a vision of the world, a multitude from every language, people, tribe and nation knowing and worshiping the Lord, jesus Christ. But we are dealing specifically with a campus of students and potential students all across the state of Oklahoma. And I say potential students because you yourself are involved in reaching into the heart of students who are in high school right now and bringing training to local churches so that when they get to the campus that they're fired up and they're ready to go. So when you say you know what's the vision, well, the vision out there is the world, but our specific responsibility is to recruit students, to get them involved and show them that vision of the world.

The mission of the Elliff Center

Kyle 17:53

That's great, so that's our vision. Our mission, then, is to advance aggressive cooperation with Christ and His church, and so we want to partner extremely well with pastors, youth pastors, the churches in the state of Oklahoma and, mike, this is your realm Everybody I talk to just raves about how connected you are with pastors in the state of Oklahoma. So talk to us about our mission as the Tom Ellis Center for Missions.

Mike 18:28

You know, I had a pastor not long ago that said to me that he was very interested early on in the vision that we had for the Ellis Center and for getting students on the field. So he said I was really interested in the vision, but he said I was encouraged. He said I was encouraged by the progress, but he said now I am so excited to see this to become a reality. And so our objective is to be out and around the say, as I said earlier, to be out and around the state, and not only in Oklahoma but outside of Oklahoma.

Mike 19:25

In 26 months there have been over 300 touches, touches, and a touch is a Tom Ellef Center for Missions touch, or I'm trying to say presence, tom Ellef Center for Missions, presence at state conventions, associations, churches, in a room with several pastors or across a lunch table with just one pastor.

Mike 19:52

But over 300 touches, with each one of those being a touch and of course each one of those touch have multiple touches upon the touch. So it's been amazing to see what we've been able to accomplish in meeting with pastors and helping them to see who we are, what we do, how we do it and to provide for them to be there in the wings to be a resource to them as their student comes to them and says Pastor, I'm so excited because God's called me to the mission field. What do I do? And so we're there to help that pastor as he counsels that student. And we hope that the information that we give and what we provide for the student by way of equipping through the Tom Melliff Center for Missions will be something that many of those students that he has that makes that decision that they'll take advantage of.

Kyle 20:45

You know, for those of you listening, there is not a person in the world that I don't think Mike would buy lunch for or a cup of coffee. For, if you're willing to sit and listen to him tell you about who we are and what we do, so if you're ever at the shopping mall or the movie, theater.

Tom 21:02

I do that four or five times a week. I call him saying I'm interested, Buy me lunch. He'll do that.

Resources for High School and College Students

Kyle 21:07

He'll do it every time. So if you ever run into somebody, his name is Mike Hand. You say are you in the Tom Ellis Center for Missions? He'll say yes, and the next thing is I'm interested, so make sure you get to know Mike. He's awesome and he and I work together pretty frequently on various projects that we're working on with the church, and so my role here at the Tom Ellis Center for Missions is I'm working to develop some curriculum that we can partner with pastors and youth pastors on to begin to train their high school students, called to missions still in high school, to begin to think and live missionally until they graduate, with the idea that we would love to walk with you until you graduate and then live with you and walk with you while you're at OBU and let you come to fellowships with us for four years and to forums with us, and we'll tell you about that, and so we're.

Kyle 22:03

We're looking at developing a curriculum in a couple of different ways. I'm one working on this podcast that we're all listening to, and we're going to use this to begin to get touch points with students about key missions, principles, topics, ideas, but we're also going to spend a significant amount of time interviewing missionaries who have done this before, so that we can learn firsthand what the Lord is doing around the world, what the Lord has taught them, so that we can learn from them and then just glean a little bit of their experience and learn as much as we can firsthand in these interviews. So be looking for more episodes and we're open to ideas. So if you all are leaving comments or posts, we'd love your questions, we'd love your ideas of what you want to hear about.

Tom 22:57

Well, kyle, I think you also ought to mention that several times each semester, we have mission forums, and in these mission forums, pastors, students and they don't have to be pastors of students at OBU, they can be pastors from any place in Oklahoma or surrounding states. Come to the campus, we treat them like royalty and we bring in experts from around the world to speak on mission subjects that are pertinent to the local church, and so there in the room, you have students, you have retired mission personnel with all of that great wisdom, you have people who have traveled around the world and spoken, and you have pastors from local churches, and something about that setting provides a synergy, provides an energy that allows all the people who are there to sense what God is doing around the world, and they discover how they can be a part of it. So, kyle, I don't want you to overlook that, because that is a key part of what we do.

Strategy: Equipping Students for Global Missions

Kyle 24:05

It's a key strategy. Some might even say so, Elbert, why don't you talk to us a little bit about our strategy and what we do on campus at OBU?

Elbert 24:14

Kyle, when we think about going from the church through OBU to the nations, you and Mike are connecting to the churches. Brother Tom has an amazing handle on the nations from the ways that the Lord has used him over the years and continues to do so. I'm looking primarily at the time when students are on campus, one of the things that I love. When Brother Tom called us, we were in London with the International Mission Board and he called and asked if we would pray about this. The Lord had clearly told us that such some kind of call like that was coming and when he called, the Holy Spirit confirmed clearly we were supposed to come. One of the things that Brother Tom said was the 15 years that we spent directing the orientation of the new missionaries. He said I want that same, the highlights of that orientation that new missionaries received. He wanted that for the students.

Tom 25:10

And Elbert, without question you have personally discipled more missionaries to go to the field than any person I know of in history, literally thousands upon thousands, through the training center of the International Learning Center and International Mission Board, and I am so grateful for that.

Elbert 25:30

What experience, well, Brother Tom, that challenge that you gave was thoroughly exciting for Kay and me because in our own lives, when we went through orientation as new missionaries many decades ago, the connection with other people who had the same passion, who were walking with the Lord, having the same call, created a sense of community that is just tangible for many, many missionaries around the world and that's what we're wanting to create on the campus and believe the Lord is doing that. For those who are mission majors, they're in the global marketplace engagement. They're taking cross-cultural ministry degrees. They're in the room with other people who are thinking about the nations. But, for instance, my wife was a nurse when she was at Oklahoma Baptist University but there was a thing called missions fellowship and it was a time once a week, even though she was a nursing major, she was around other students focused on the nations, kyle.

Elbert 26:35

I just have a deep conviction that the lord of the harvest does everything well. The lord of the harvest is calling exactly appropriately. But I also know that jesus said that there's an enemy who hinders the harvest. And one of the ways that Jesus says that the enemy hinders the harvest is he distracts. He says that the things of this world keep people from bearing harvest like they should. And so we're wanting to surround those students that the churches send to Oklahoma Baptist University with others who are called to the nations, that they're meeting once a week with other people who share their passion and call. We call it the community of the called. And so in that community, the idea that they're looking forward to a job that doesn't pay as much as the top corporations of the United States pay as much as the top corporations of the United States Everybody in the room is doing the same the fact that they're willing to look forward to a future when they are going to be miles and time zones away from their family, Everyone in the room's thinking the same thing. So, instead of the church sending their called students to a place where they get distracted by the things of this world, we're wanting to put a touch point while they're at OBU, where they're surrounded by others in the community of the called who share either the call to the nations or else the passion for the nations.

Elbert 28:07

And then in that meeting, in missions, fellowship, we spend time where we're unpacking a biblical missiology, where we're doing the same things, that it touches the same topics that are in missiology classes that are in missions classes, but we're doing it from a reproducible biblical method so that from any background, those students will go understanding the key points of missiology, understanding how to thrive as a missionary.

Elbert 28:38

But they're doing it from a reproducible method. That's different from the academics, and so they're getting the core of what it means to succeed on the field in a reproducible manner. And we're highly, highly emphasizing as a matter of fact, it's one of the requirements to stay in the group is that they're reading through the New Testament twice a year. Each semester we're reading through the New Testament together and we're using that to talk about how to disciple people from the New Testament, how to do evangelism with the New Testament, how to teach doctrine from the New Testament, how to prepare leaders from the New Testament, and so they're getting only hearing from Scripture. But they're hearing from those who have three steps down the path, who for decades have served. They're hearing from those who have gone before them.

Tom 29:40

And, elbert, I sure don't want you to overlook two other components that you personally got involved in. One of those is a determined effort to help these students serve overseas during their tenure while they're at OBU. Those are life-changing experiences and I'm always excited to see them when they go, how excited they are, and then when they come back they hear what God has done through them. Then to flood that campus with representatives from the top mission organizations in the world IMB, jungle Aviation, radio Service, other kinds of missions organizations Now just to flood the campus with people like that. So our students, when they get to the end of their they don't say now, what do I do? Where do I go? They've already gone there, they've already been there. It's just a matter of walking out the door or across the platform at OBU and walking right into the arms of a mission organization, and that makes a world of difference.

Mike 30:39

Well, and Tom, with our strategy. Too many times pastors don't know what to do when that sophomore, junior, senior in high school makes that decision for missions and they come to the pastor and say Pastor, what do I do? God's called me into the mission field and of course the first thing he thinks of is, well, you've got to finish high school. Well then, you've got to get your undergrad. Well then, you've got to continue on from there. You've got to get your. And before long the pastor feels hindered in really being able to give counsel and advice to the student because he doesn't know what to tell him. So we've been able to provide a strategy for that pastor to deal with that high school student, to get them pointed to OBU, to go through our Tom Eliff Center for Missions and just within just a matter of months, be able to be on the field after graduation.

Tom 31:31

You know, mike, one of the most thrilling experiences that I've had with the center is in our is that in our very first forum at Toward, the Close asked the students who were there to go out to a tent that we'd put up on the campus for a time of fellowship and to meet with some other missionaries, especially the ones that were speaking, but in that room were about 40 or 50 retired missionaries. Those students stood up to walk out so they'd get a little head start on the ice cream and their applause began to break out and the students stopped to see who's being applauded and who's doing the applauding and they looked around and those International Mission Board retirees were on their feet, clapping thunderously as these students walked out of the room. I'll never forget that moment and I'll tell you who else will never forget it. Those students will never forget that and they hung around that tent and talked to those old folks about missions. It was life changing, a wonderful experience.

Kyle 32:42

So a key part of our strategy when we think about reaching students is we want to reach students from all vocational walks of life. So, elbert, why don't you talk to us a little bit about the benefits of being at OBU and being in the Eliff Center?

Elbert 33:04

Kyle, you touched on something that I think reflects exactly what God's doing in our day. When, when Kay and I were at the international mission board learning center, when we were spending time with new missionaries, many of them came from diverse backgrounds, and who God is calling to the nations includes people with degrees in missions, like myself, but it also includes a lot of people who have an engineering degree or people who have a degree in teaching English as a second language, or people who have an education degree, people who have a nursing degree, and those are the people that actually can find a fantastic preparation at Oklahoma Baptist University. What we're adding to that the value added of the Tom Melliff Center for Missions is they can get an excellent preparation for their field while they continue to be focused on the nations, and so we're very excited about that point, exactly because we think it lines up with what God is doing. Yeah.

Kyle 34:05

Yeah, that's great. What an amazing opportunity to get a world-class education and get equipped for the nations at Oklahoma Baptist University. So I hope you all learned a little bit about who we are, what we do, why we do it, and I want you all to know. We would truly love to help you all understand more. If you're interested and so there's a link in our description you can find our website, you can find all of our contact information. So we'd love to talk to you all more. And you know what? I don't know how we made it this far without talking about scholarship. So there's an amazing opportunity too. When you come to OBU and you enroll, you get accepted and you come find us and you say, hey, I'm called to the mission field. So, Elbert, talk to us about our scholarship.

Elbert 34:58

In our community of the called we have those students who are still trying to figure out Lord I think you might be saying this and so that group they're welcome. They're welcome, we call them those who are passionate for the nations. But most of our group, before they got to OBU, in that local church, in some state event of Oklahoma Baptists, they sensed God was saying this is what I want for you. And so they do have a background of have sensed God's call in the past. And so for those who I remember we're saying from the churches, and so we say those who have shared that call with their pastor, and give us the name of that pastor that we can write and he affirms their call to the nations, then they have a $500 per semester scholarship, regardless of their major.

Elbert 35:53

As long as they're coming to our missions, fellowships, reading through the New Testament with us and attending our forums, then they're receiving that scholarship. And it's really just about the perfect amount of financial aid, because it's not so much to get you to say, well, I want to act like it happened when it didn't. No, no, no, no, no. It's not very much, but it's more than you'll make flipping burgers, and so we think it's just the right amount for a two hour a week commitment, so that you're part of those who are in the community of the called Well, there you have it.

Kyle 36:29

So if you all are ever on campus, you're in, you're part of those who are in the community of the called. Well, there you have it. So if you all are ever on campus, you're in Shawnee, make sure you come, check out campus, reach out to our admissions folks, get a tour and make sure you come by our offices. We would truly love to meet you all, buy you a cup of coffee and continue the conversation. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening to this episode. The Tom Ellef Center for Missions exists to equip the next generation of missionaries at Oklahoma Baptist University. Regardless of your major, you can come to OBU, get a world-class Christian education and get equipped to take the gospel to the nations. Our prayer is to send students from the local church through OBU to the world with the gospel. For more information about us or the Ellef Center Scholarship, follow the link in our description and come visit us at OBU.