35: Council & Staff

IN THIS CHAPTER

The OCF Council governs the ministry of OCF, and they hire the Executive Director of OCF. The staff of OCF supports the members of OCF by encouraging Christian obedience and integrity, equipping Christ’s body in accession and education locations, connecting members to one another, developing resources for the field, sending laborers to the field, caring for ministry monies, maintaining and developing OCF’s facilities, communicating the ministry of OCF outside the organization, and praying for the OCF body.

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THE COUNCIL 

The corporation of Officers’ Christian Fellowship is led by a Council (which functions as a Board of Directors, but which is representative of the larger OCF membership) of spiritually qualified military peers, and it is run by an Executive Director who is enabled by a team of field and support staff. While much of the staff has extensive experience from within the military, all the OCF Council come from within the military. The membership of the OCF Council is determined by both the OCF Constitution (6-22 regular members) and by OCF’s Bylaws. Council membership has historically been representative of the military service components, ranks, sexes, ethnicity, and active/reserve components. 

THE STAFF

The OCF Council hires the Executive Director, and the Executive Director is responsible for hiring the rest of the staff—both field and support staff. We prioritize Field Staff positions at the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard Academy ministries, at education or gateway locations (where officers typically have longer dwell times at specific career points), and to operate OCF Conference Centers Examples of gateway ministry locations are Maxwell, Leavenworth, and Pensacola. These gateways are assignments where leaders from all services spend months, if not years, in a learning environment.

The purpose of having OCF staff in the field is to cast vision, to equip growing leaders, and to send leaders out as effective facilitators and trainers of future laborers of the gospel. We want to train leaders who will in turn train others in member-led military ministry (2 Timothy 2:2). OCF support staff enable all parts of the OCF ministry as they answer inquiries, collect prayer requests, manage databases, support financial accountability, find ways to touch the lives of military members in the field, and run conference center ministry.

Since the military community is made up of many ranks, ages, service components, sexes, and ethnicities, the activities and leadership of OCF should broadly reflect the beauty of this diverse body. Leaders need to reach out widely, to invite men, women, and children who are in the community where they are assigned. In a deployed environment the ministry will be different than at home station and in garrison. At home, the fellowship opportunities can expand to include dependents, government civilians, contractors, and retirees. For leaders who host OCF fellowships in a university setting or in communities away from military installations, the local fellowship might be made up of few uniformed members and more people who are part of a non-military community.