Standing in the Gap: Bringing Hope to Oklahoma City

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” John 1:14 (MSG).

In 2010, when Jared Stevenson was a young basketball player at McPherson College, he found himself asking deep questions: Who am I? What am I doing with my life? What’s it all for?

One day, he reached out to the only guy he knew who might have answers about God — his friend Zach, a pastor’s kid who was living in the same party scene he was.

Unbeknownst to Jared, the Lord was sovereignly working in both of their lives. The night before, Zach had been challenged by a TV evangelist’s call for viewers to “get right with God.” At the time, Jared didn’t know what that meant, and the two friends started reading the Bible together. Jared remembers being blown away by Matthew 6:33 — that the God of the universe was inviting him to seek His Kingdom and be in relationship with Him.

After noticing Jared reading the Bible, one of Jared’s coaches started a campus Bible study. In a town where most churches were either preaching universalism or a prosperity gospel, this study became a lifeline for students.

Eventually, Jared and Zach found their way to a gospel-preaching church. The very first Sunday they attended a service, the pastor, Jim, invited them to Pizza Hut for lunch and then continued to meet regularly with them. This was Jared’s first experience with Life-to-Life^® discipleship.

Fourteen years later, Jared now serves with Navigators I:58 and as a pastor at a church in Oklahoma City (OKC) leading the neighborhood ministry team.

Moving into the Neighborhood

If you look at a map of OKC, you’ll notice that four intersecting highways create a perfect square. Of the people currently incarcerated in OKC prisons, a disproportionate amount — nearly two-thirds — come from within that square. It’s an area riddled with gang violence and economic depletion, side effects of the gentrification that followed busing integration efforts of the 1970s.

Jared and many of those he ministers alongside intentionally moved into this area — and they’re planning to stay.

“If you want to see generational impact, you have to decide for yourself that you’re going to live here 15 to 20 years,” Jared says. “This is year 15 for me.”

For Jared, when you stick with people in this way, they become your family: it’s no longer us vs. them, but we as family.

“Your needs become my needs; your things become my things,” Jared explains. “That changes the way you do ministry.” 

With dispensaries standing where food markets once thrived, streets overrun by substance use, and youth desperate for community, Jared has faced challenges as a pastor and disciplemaker.

For example, this past year Jared unexpectedly encountered a young woman who was a victim of gun violence. After being shot, she lost control of the car and ran right through the wall of the church office. She passed in Jared’s arms as he prayed over her. The individuals involved in the violence were 15 and 17 years old.

That day, Jared revisited questions he has asked himself many times: How was Jesus a man of sorrows and yet full of joy? How can I personally press on in ministry with joy and hope while witnessing so much sorrow?

The Lord continues to meet Jared in these difficult moments by encouraging him through Scripture. He has committed to praying Zechariah 13:2 and Matthew 9:38 over his city — for all false teaching to stop and more laborers to arise as the body of Christ works together to advance the gospel in their neighborhood, maintain a free health clinic, sustain a startup community school, host after-school programs, and build up the local church.

“Stepping into areas where there has been systematic oppression for decades … any kind of real church work is going to be ‘prophetic’ in its nature, meaning it’s going to speak to those things and address some of those issues,” Jared says. “It’s going to preach the gospel and do the work.”

Creatively Reaching Youth in OKC

A few years ago, Jared was reading Proverbs 29 and recognized similar themes in the youth surrounding him: they didn’t know God, they were “casting off restraint” (see v. 18), and they were discouraged.

Jared recalls one kid who would wander the streets, often showing up at Jared’s house to ask for work, trying to earn money. Eventually, the boy got in some serious trouble. “It broke me,” Jared remembers.

With this heavy on his heart, Jared started asking students what they needed. The answer was both simple and complicated: they needed a place to go — a place to belong, to have fun with other youth, to eat and play games.

At the time, Jared’s church didn’t have a permanent gathering space, but he started praying. As he researched after-school programs, he learned that most youth get in trouble between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. — right after school, before their parents get home.

What if someone stepped in the gap? “That’s what we did,” Jared says. Even before his church had a building of its own, God provided a space for the after-school program through another Kingdom-minded church in the community that graciously offered use of their building!

At the same time, Jared’s family and other ministry families were wrestling with the tensions of raising their own children in this neighborhood. While they were committed to raising up young disciplemakers — followers of Jesus who love like He did, and who understand that everyone is equally in need of the gospel — they didn’t have peace about entrusting their kids to the local school.

One day an older woman pulled one of the other church pastors aside during a neighborhood Bible study, grieved that her grandson couldn’t read. She asked, “What are you going to do about it?” The Holy Spirit brought Isaiah 58 to mind, and this is how St. Paul’s Community School was born.

Grace at Work

Jared carries the young guys from his neighborhood and after-school program on his heart — some of whom he’s known since they were 7 or 8 years old. He watches many of them struggle after they graduate, and that has taught him to be persistent in prayer  and confidently hope in the grace of God. “God’s grace is more merciful than I can even imagine, and He’s sovereignly working in their lives to draw them,” Jared shares.

That grace saved him when he was a junior at McPherson. It sustains him when he’s praying over the victim of a drive-by shooting or presiding over a family funeral. And grace is what he’s pointing his kids, his family, neighbors, congregants, and students toward — because we all need Jesus to be our Savior.

Grateful for God’s provision of the resources and relationships that are helping fuel so many different ministries in his neighborhood, Jared has seen firsthand the gift of seeing disciplemaking thrive in a local church context.

“What’s really great about our church is that there doesn’t seem to be any contentiousness with it,” Jared says. “And so, when we’re talking about Life-to-Life discipleship and training relationships, we’re talking about it in a way that helps us to see where that fits in with the larger map of discipleship.”

When disciplemakers press on in knowing Christ and all that His heart is for — making Him known, tangibly, in word and in deed, and helping others do the same — that’s when we see generations impacted by His grace.

Join us in praying over Jared’s ministry, that they continue to raise laborers to serve in local ministries, represent the heart of Jesus to those they serve, and see their city transformed.

Discipleship Tip:

Long-term presence can be one of the most powerful tools in disciplemaking. When you choose to stay, to show up consistently, and to carry people on your heart over years — not just moments — discipleship becomes family, not a project. Ask God where He’s inviting you to be faithfully present so others can experience His love through your steady, everyday life.

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Note: As the Redemption Community Development Corporation (RCDC) started by Jared’s church responds to increasing needs in the community, they are expanding their after-school program from one day a week to four days a week. If you’re interested in giving, please reach out to Jared or give to this project here. If you’re interested in partnering with Jared in ministry in Oklahoma City, you can make a gift here.