The Ontario Christian Fellowship was birthed in 1969 with most founding members having come from the Apostolic Christian Church on Middle Bellville Road. The church first met in the Bedford School in Ontario while the current building was under construction. Originally named the Apostolic Christian Church of Ontario, the name Ontario Christian Fellowship was officially added in 1994 to clarify our identiy and promote community outreach.
From the beginning, we embraced certain values that are still a part of OCF...things like a firm commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, emphasis on prayer and God's Word, the importance of healthy relationships and service to one another, ministry by the whole church and not just by paid professionals, and a strong desire for spiritual reality. In addition, this local fellowship was started to provide a means of promoting foreign mission work in obedience to Christ's command, often referred to as "The Great Commission" in Matthew 28:19-20...
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Many members of OCF have served on the foreign mission field, and we continue to support missionaries around the world as they minister the Good News of Jesus Christ to nations abroad.
The Story of the Apostolic Christian Church
The Apostolic Christian Church denomination has its roots in the "Anabaptist" movement which grew from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The changes begun by Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli were seen as only the beginning by many "radical reformers" who desired to return to a New Testament pattern of a "believer's church." The Anabaptists, rejected infant baptism as a sacrament, which takes for granted that one becomes a Christian by being born into a supposedly Christian society. They were convinced that true believers are those who choose, by means of a personal decision for Christ, through faith, to receive Him as Lord and Savior, thus effecting a new, spiritual re-birth which joins them to the visible community of believers. Anabaptists believed in water baptism, but only for those who had made a conscious decision to follow Christ. "Believers baptism" by immersion is seen as an outward sign of an inward change.
Samuel Froehlich (1803-1857), the founder of the Apostolic Christian Church, was an ordained minister in the Swiss Protestant State Church until he was branded a "sectarian" and dismissed for preaching Anabaptist doctrine. Through his involvement with other Anabaptist groups, notably the Swiss Brethren and Mennonites, Froehlich was encouraged to begin a new church for believers. By the time of his death, less than twenty years later, the evangelistic-minded Froehlich had established 110 churches throughout Switzerland and Germany. These churches were eventually registered under the official name in Europe as "Evangelical Baptist."
After the death of Froehlich, the church continued to grow, moving into areas of Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia where the church was called "Nazarene." Suffering economic hardship and persecution for their "pacifist" and "non-combatant" stance, many of the European believers began to immigrate to the United States in the late 1800's. As the believers arrived in America, most settled in rural, farming communities throughout the Midwest. It was here in America that the church formally took the name "Apostolic Chrisitian." Their European names, "Evangelical Baptist" and "Nazarene," were already registered by others with the U.S. government. With their desire to cling fast to the teaching of the New Testament, and to pattern their church life after that of the early apostolic church, they thought what better name than "Apostolic Christian" to define this small, evangelical, "believers-church" denomination.
Today, in North America there are approximately 150 Apostolic Christian churches with 15,000 members scattered across the United States and Canada. There are two official Apostolic Christian denominations: "The Apostolic Christian Church of America" and "The Apostolic Christian Church (Nazarene)." The latter is the denomination with which our church chooses to associate. Our denomination has an aggressive missions program, started in the last 30 years, with major mission works in Brazil, New Guinea, Argentina, and Africa. The numbers of churches and members in these countries has far outpaced our growth in North America.
The Story of our Sr. Pastor, Kim Maurer
I was raised in a Christian home, along with three younger brothers, in Phoenix, Arizona. Although my parents taught me about God, and I attended church dutifully, it wasn’t until I was 17 years of age that the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ touched me. It was at an evangelistic service that I realized that I was a sinner, separated from God, and destined to eternal separation unless I received His free gift of grace. And so I did. I walked forward during an "alter call" and confessed my sinful condition to God. I sincerely believed in what Christ had done for me on the cross. I prayed to receive Jesus as my Savior and Lord, and yielded control of my life to Him. As I stood there with tears of gratitude streaming down my face, I experienced an overwhelming peace knowing that I now had a home in heaven, the assurance of eternal life.
I have grown in my relationship with Christ since that day. The reality of His presence in my life, through the working of His Holy Spirit, is more real today than it was then. I’ve experienced His faithfulness, grace, and mercy through the difficulties and struggles that come from living in a sinful, fallen world. God has blessed me in so many ways. He gave me a wonderful help-mate, and soul-mate, when I married Ruth Galat in July of 1980. He has blessed us with four beautiful daughters (and two son-in-laws) who all love the Lord. As a young man I was privileged to work on the foreign mission field in Brazil. After several years of working as an electrical contractor in Arizona, God called me to full-time ministry when He opened the door for our family to move to Ohio in 1992. I was ordained at Ontario Christian Fellowship as pastor in September 1992 and, subsequently, was privileged to attend Ashland Seminary where I received my Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies. God is good!
The Story of our Assoc. Pastor, Tim Schlatter
Tim was born in 1957 in Richland, Washington. His father worked at the Hanford reactor as a nuclear chemist, but was also active in starting a local church and broadcasting on Christian radio. In 1961 Tim’s parents moved to Papua New Guinea to begin a thirty-year church planting and Bible translation project for one of the country’s 800 people groups, the Angal Heneng. After graduating from an international high school in PNG, Tim returned to the US to study at Oregon State University.
Interest in the natural world in general, and experiences of diving around the Great Barrier Reef in particular, led Tim to initially pursue a career in oceanography. But having grown as a child into a faith relationship with Jesus he had other even deeper interests – a love for God’s Word and a love for people. During his senior year of college Tim believed God was calling him away from research science to ministry. He also believed he should not go into full-time ministry until God led him to a life partner.
Tim graduated from OSU with degrees in Zoology and Botany and taught science for the next seven years. He completed graduate courses of study at Lewis and Clark College, University of Oregon, Western Seminary, and Ashland Theological Seminary.
In 1984 he married Karen Kuhn. They had been drawn together, in part, out of a mutual desire to serve in foreign missions. For three years they studied principles of linguistic analysis, literacy program development, and Bible translation for previously unwritten languages. In 1987 they moved to Papua New Guinea where they settled among the Tabo people. Over the next 19 years the Tabo Church was born, leaders were trained, a literacy program was established, and the New Testament plus other Scripture portions were translated and published.
Tim and Karen have three daughters – Abby (1986), Jessica (1988), and Lauren (1991). Their family moved to Mansfield the beginning of 2007 when Tim began serving on staff with OCF.