Mission OKC sees summer ministry outreach for at-risk kids thrive at new greenspace

It’s not unusual to find families looking for summer activities for their children. From sports leagues to swimming lessons, parents will often pay for activities of all kinds to keep their children busy in the summer.

What is unusual is to find a group willing, at no cost to parents, to host dozens of children, day after day, for fun activities and to share the love of Jesus with them.

Yet that is exactly what Mission OKC—a church plant connected to Oklahoma Baptists that was launched in the heart of Oklahoma City in 2011—has been doing this summer and for many years.

Church Planting Pastor Chad Clement and his wife Anna started Mission OKC out of their apartment complex when they moved to Oklahoma City. The couple, who have 10 children, several of whom are adopted, involve their own children in the ministry efforts, along with volunteers and mission teams from other area churches.

Within the first few months of starting, Mission OKC was reaching more than 60 children on a regular basis. Today, Mission OKC ministers year-round, with Sunday night services for kids, Bible clubs; they even take a group to Falls Creek every year.

In the first four years alone, they saw more than 250 decisions for Christ through camps, Bible clubs and year-round outreaches.

Fast forward to the summer of 2026, and Mission OKC has had a tremendously busy summer program reaching children in areas of the city, with a focus on children from low-income apartments and housing. Each weekday, their summer program is bustling with children, who are eagerly connecting with the Mission OKC teams who are sharing the Gospel, all while feeding them lunch and offering activities.

The grounds on which all of the ministry is taking place is an equally compelling part of the story. For years, Mission OKC rented a warehouse space to prepare and deliver more than 1,100 meals a day to children in need all over the Oklahoma City area. They also used that space to teach “life skills like cooking, auto shop, welding, wood working and sewing.”

But a new opportunity opened up for the Clements in 2023; one that may have been hard for the average person to see the potential in at first.

“In 2023 we moved out of our traditional church building and full-time into our warehouse, adding additional units to accommodate the 60-100 children we bus in for our three weekly services,” said Chad. “We quickly outgrew the space and needed to choose between building a new building or expanding our current location that the kids seemed to love.

“Surrounding the warehouse on about an acre of land, we were surrounded by mounds of concrete, dirt and trash piled up as much as 12 feet high. With permission from the owner to use the space if we cleaned it up, we began running five-ton loads of trash in a trailer to the city dump.”

Landfill before.

It took months, but “Project Greenspace,” as it was called, was now complete.

Greenspace after.

“This greenspace offers a fenced backyard area behind our building. We will have a full-size basketball court, a community garden, fishing in the stocked pond, playground equipment and space for kids to run and play. We are so thankful for all the community support for this project,” said Chad.

The Clements said they feel so blessed to see the green space in use, as they continue to minister to children, who are brought in on buses each day.

When the Lord gave the Clements a vision for reaching areas of Oklahoma City in need and children who need to know the Lord and know His love, God also provided the way for it to happen.

This summer, the children attending Mission OKC’s camps are not only having fun each day. They are receiving the love of Jesus from a church family. That’s the best kind of summer of all.

Editor’s Note: Information for this article was gathered from Mission OKC’s website, missionokc.com. According to their ministry website, “It is the vision of Mission OKC to serve as a mission’s hub for churches across the region to come to our city to share the Gospel with the lost. Currently Mission OKC is impacting North OKC … There are people living in pockets of poverty all across OKC that need the Gospel and it is our desire to continue building foundations to pave the way for that to happen.”