KIDS MINISTRY + STUDENTS
- Check-In Team
- Youth
- Infant
- Pre-School
- Elementary
serve
Our Call to Mission
May we go from here as those sent by God
To love our neighbors as ourselves,
To seek the peace and prosperity of our city,
To bear witness to the coming Kingdom of God,
And to joyfully serve all of creation.
In the love of the Father, the name of the Son,
And the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In Central Oregon
CURRENT INITIATIVES
Through prayer and involvement with local partners, we seek to join God in His mission of the reconciliation of all things right here, in Bend.
COMMUNITY GARDEN
Stop by and visit the beautiful Community Garden at 541 NE DeKalb. This garden was designed and built by Antioch and the Salvation Army in the Spring of 2023 as a celebration of the land God has given us at 6+Clay. Produce from the garden goes to the Salvation Army food bank, and to the neighbors around our two churches. Contact Crystal Garner to sign up for a work day. To learn more, click here.
GUNS TO GARDENS
In August of 2023, Antioch hosted its first Gun Decommissioning event where we safely decommissioned 72 unwanted guns from the community. We then transformed the metal and wood parts from the guns into garden tools. Over the years, we’ve continued to hold community-wide events as well as private decommissioning appointments, and have decommissioned over 150 firearms. If you have a gun you’d like to have decommissioned, schedule an appointment here. To learn more about the Guns to Gardens movement, click here.
WELCOME CORPS
In response to the global crisis of displaced people, Antioch partnered with The Welcome Corps to sponsor a refugee family relocating to Bend. We see evidence in the Biblical narrative of God working through the migration of refugees, and we are greatly enjoying showing hospitality to these newcomers to Central Oregon. While we continue to support and encourage them as they assimilate to life in Bend, we also follow their lead in supporting other refugee families in our community. To get involved, contact Amy Wood.
In Central Oregon
MINISTRY PARTNERS
Through prayer and involvement with local partners, we seek to join God in His mission of the reconciliation of all things right here, in Bend.
SHEPHERD’S HOUSE MINISTRIES
A Christ-centered, grace-focused rescue mission, Shepherd’s House Ministries operates residential homes, emergency shelters, a mobile services van, and a shower truck. With locations throughout Central Oregon, Shepherd’s House continues to lead our community in the practice of showing radical hospitality to our houseless neighbors and those in recovery. There are many opportunities to volunteer with this amazing organization, from donating needed items, to serving in one of the houses, shelters, or mobile vans, to mentoring individuals in the program. To learn more, click here.
EVERY CHILD
The state-wide non-profit organization, Every Child, gathers individuals and businesses in partnership with Oregon’s Department of Human Services to aid vulnerable children and families. Every Child works to provide initiatives and structure needed for our community to take action and love, care, and support those involved in all aspects of foster care. Antioch works with Every Child by purchasing tangible goods and providing support to Foster Families. To learn more about how to get involved with Every Child and caring for those impacted by foster care, click here.
XPOSE HOPE
Xpose Hope is an organization dedicated to showing God’s love to members of the adult entertainment industry. Their mission is to show support to individuals without judgement through gifts, resources, and time. They exist to show Jesus’ love to all people, including the staff and employees of adult entertainment clubs. Monthly, a group of local volunteers gathers to pray and then spend some time inside Stars, showing dignity. respect, and compassion to all they meet. To learn more, or to get involved with XPose Hope, click here.
IN OUR BACKYARD
In Our Backyard (IOB) is a local organization working on a national level to fight human trafficking through increased awareness and education. Volunteers are needed to help staff events, do office work, and assist IOB in their efforts to educate the general population about the realities of human trafficking and modern day slavery. To get involved or to learn more, click here.
LATINO COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION
The Latino Community Association (LCA) works within the cities of Central Oregon, offering a variety of services for the local Latino community. Volunteering with the LCA might involve helping at an English language learners class, or helping tutor someone working to earn their GED, or maybe walking someone through the process of becoming a US citizen. To learn more about the many volunteer opportunities, click here.
SALVATION ARMY
We share a parking lot with the local Salvation Army and have been happily building relationships with the staff of this dynamic organization. Our youth group frequently spends an hour or two helping with a variety of service projects. If you would like to make donations of clothing or food, or if you would like to volunteer in some capacity, please let us know by contacting Amy Wood.
SAFE PARKING
Antioch partners with the city-wide Safe Parking Project. We’ve set aside a few parking spots in our lot to provide safe and clean space for some of our houseless neighbors to land while they wait for more permanent housing. To read more about this program, click here. And to help us show hospitality to our new neighbors, contact Amy Wood.
YOUNGLIFE
Young Life offers chapters at each of our local high schools. The YoungLife team follow Young Life’s mission by sharing hope and the love of Jesus with our local student population. Young Life seeks to help kids learn how to live life as God designed it to be lived by building relationships and offering safe and engaging activities for students. To learn more, contact Kyle Cardinal.
BEND-LAPINE SCHOOLS
Antioch seeks to build relationships with students and staff at the schools in our neighborhood through service days, help with tutoring, volunteering in various programs, and by working with FAN (Family Action Network). By working closely with school administrators and local FAN advocates, we have the opportunity to meet specific, tangible needs as they arise. Watch for donation drives throughout the year to contribute to our local schools.
IN THE AREA OF RACIAL RECONCILIATION
As part of Antioch’s practice of justice, we partner with a few organizations based in more diverse communities in the US. As racial tensions rise in our country, Antioch supports and seeks to learn from these partners on the frontlines.
Arrabon
Arrabon works with churches around the country to offer a biblical and pastoral framework for reconciliation. By providing seminars, workshops, and educational resources, they partner with church communities to faithfully engage a diverse and divided world. During 2020, a group of people from Antioch gathered on Zoom for a series of classes taught by David Bailey and Elena Aronson. These sessions helped pave the way for tough conversations and compassionate understanding as we continue to navigate the tense history of race in the US. To learn more about Arrabon, click here.
Holla
Friend of Antioch and former pastor, Eric Knox, started the non-profit HOLLA Mentors in 2013. HOLLA is a grassroots culturally responsive mentorship movement that connects with families, administrators, teachers, and nonprofits to recognize the power and potential of Black and Brown youth. They provide opportunities for representation, enrichment and exposure through athletics, arts, aviation, outdoors and college preparation. In addition, HOLLA provides professional development and consulting around family engagement for schools. Relationships with our mentors are equally important, we spend time in on-going leadership development and community with mentors throughout the year. To learn more about HOLLA, click here.
The Center for restorative Justice
The Center for Restorative Justice, is a place-based organization that educates and equips communities to address the history of racial injustice and disrupt its ongoing impact by making the past present. Offering faith-based pilgrimages to the US South, and California, they use embodied storytelling grounded in spiritual practices to help believers better understand the history of race in America. Every few years, Antioch partners with The Center and brings a group on one of their pilgrimages. To learn more, click here.
Benevolence & Emergency Support
A portion of our Compassion & Justice fund is dedicated to meeting benevolence needs within our Antioch Church family and also in the greater community of Central Oregon. Requests for benevolence can be submitted by filling out this form.
In response to the pandemic in 2020, Antioch set funds aside to help our community when an emergency arises. This fund allows us to respond with compassion and generosity, offering tangible care to neighbors navigating crisis or instability.
In The World
Through prayer and partnerships with leaders around the world, we seek to mutually encourage and support one another to foster God’s redemption on a global scale.
A Rocha
Antioch participates in creation care by partnering with A Rocha. A Rocha is a global organization of Christians engaging local communities around the world in nature conservation. Through ecological monitoring and research, restoration of habitat, environmental education and community outreach, A Rocha provides a forum for understanding the relevance of the Christian faith to environmental issues. We are currently building a relationship with A Rocha’s site in Costa Rica. If you are interested in visiting our partners in Costa Rica with a group from Antioch, contact Amy Wood.
The Global Immersion Project
The Global Immersion Project (TGIP) was co-founded by Antioch’s Jer Swigart. TGIP began by asking the question, “What would the world look like if the Church took seriously our call to be peacemakers?” In pursuit of the answer, they immersed themselves into conflicts around the globe. What they discovered is that peacemaking is not just a good idea, it’s the mission of God and the vocation of God’s people. Through seminars, co-horts, daily prayers, and a variety of resources, TGIP continues to serve as an engaging space for Antioch to wrestle with our call to live as peace-makers in our divided world. To learn more about TGIP, click here.
The Bible Project
The Bible Project, headquartered in Portland Oregon, provides an invaluable resource to believers around the world. They are an education technology company that produces media to help people encounter the Bible like never before. Everything they make is available for free because of the generous support of churches like us as well as individual donors all over the world. Through podcasts, videos, artwork, and other resources, the team at the Bible Project work to help people see the Bible as a unified story that points to Jesus. Learn more about the Bible Project here.
A Letter From Pastor Pete
Launched Ministries
Over the years, Antioch has had the joy of developing and launching several ministries that now exist as independent organizations. We continue to celebrate the work of each of these ministries and embrace them as ongoing partners in the gospel.
The Justice Conference
Launched out of Antioch in 2010 to unite followers of Jesus around the centrality of justice to the gospel, The Justice Conference hosted gatherings in major cities around the world. What began as a local vision grew into a global movement, equipping thousands to engage issues of justice with faith, humility, and courage. Today, The Justice Conference continues in Hong Kong as an annual gathering, carrying forward its commitment to faithful engagement with justice.
Kilns College
Launched out of Antioch in 2008 with a desire to change the world and to equip others to do the same, Kilns College was an online graduate school that offered affordable, one-year Masters degrees in Social Justice, Innovation & Leadership, and Theology, Arts & Culture. We celebrated in 2018, when Donna and Leroy Barber re-birthed Kilns College as the Voices School for Liberation and Transformation.
Ken Wytsma
Ken faithfully served as our founding pastor from 2006-2018. Ken is the author of Pursuing Justice, The Grand Paradox, Create vs. Copy, The Myth of Equality and Redeeming How We Talk.