Exalting Christ, Equipping the Church, Engaging the Culture
First Baptist Church Coweta, often called FBC Coweta, sits along State Highway 72 in Coweta, a small town in Wagoner County east of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The church describes its ministry in three short words: Exalt, Equip, Engage. Members Exalt Christ by making worship and the glory of God the goal of everything they do. They Equip the church through text-driven sermons, Bible studies, and classes for all ages. They Engage the culture by hosting evangelistic events and taking mission trips. With Christ as their foundation, FBC Coweta offers many opportunities to grow through worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism, and welcomes anyone seeking a personal relationship with God.
From the Westside of Tulsa to the Pulpit: The Story of Dr. Vern Charette
The church's identity is shaped in large part by the testimony of its senior pastor, Dr. Vern Charette, known affectionately as "Brother Vern." Vern grew up on the west side of Tulsa, the son of an alcoholic father, and is part of the Chippewa, or Ojibwe, nation; his father was born into the Leach Lake band of the Ojibwe in Minnesota. By his teenage years Vern was a high school dropout, in trouble with the authorities, and living an immoral life. That changed at eighteen, when an African American preacher witnessed to him and invited him to church. In a little store-front church in Tulsa in the summer of 1990, broken by the power of the gospel, Vern gave his life to Jesus.
God confirmed Vern's call to preach at the age of nineteen, after a trip to an Indian Christian camp, where he also met his wife Jennifer, who is Cherokee. Vern, a GED graduate, later earned a bachelor's degree from Oklahoma Baptist University, an M.Div. from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, and both a Th.M. and a Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He has more than two decades of itinerant evangelism experience and taught text-driven preaching as a professor at Southwestern, and in adjunctive roles with the Haskins School for Oklahoma Baptists. Vern and Jen have a son named Christian, after John Bunyan's character in Pilgrim's Progress, and they recently celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary. Described as "scholarship on fire," Vern's pathos for exalting Christ, equipping the saints, and engaging the world is evident whether he is preaching or writing.
A Week at FBC Coweta: Sunday Mornings and the Wednesday Night Rhythm
FBC Coweta's weekly rhythm is built around two anchors, Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, with a women's Bible study also meeting on Wednesday morning.
On Sundays, Sunday School for all ages begins at 9:30 AM, followed by the worship service at 10:45 AM. The worship services are filled with inspirational music, the public reading of Scripture, and the preaching of the Word. Nursery is provided during all normal church services.
Wednesdays bring a family-friendly schedule. A Women's Class meets from 9:00 to 10:45 AM. In the evening, a churchwide meal is served from 6:00 to 6:30 PM, when families eat together before splitting into age-appropriate classes. From 6:30 to 7:30 PM, a Women's Class, a Men's Class, the children's program for Kindergarten through 6th grade, and the youth ministry all meet at the same time. The children's hour includes singing, small-group breakouts, and Bible lessons, with a snack supper for the whole family beforehand at 6:00 PM.
Teaching the Next Generation: Preschool, Kids, and Youth
FBC Coweta runs a preschool and three weekend and midweek programs aimed at children and students.
The FBC Preschool operates throughout the school year under the leadership of Preschool Director Amber Chadwick. Families with interest can contact the preschool directly or call the church office for more information.
The FBC Kids Ministry is led by Lisa Tynes, the Children's Director. Lisa has called FBC Coweta home for nearly twenty years, serving in both youth and children's ministry. Her passion is to see children discover God's Word for themselves and begin growing in their own relationship with Jesus. Every Sunday morning at 9:30, kids attend Sunday School, and 1st through 4th graders go to Children's Church during the 10:45 worship service. On Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 7:30, Kindergarten through 6th graders sing together, break into smaller groups, and work through Bible lessons. Lisa's husband Matt leads the Men's Ministry at FBC Coweta, and they have three children: Hannah, a full-time missionary in Zambia; Trenton, a U.S. Navy Religious Program Specialist serving alongside the Marines; and Elizabeth ("Libby"), a business student at College of the Ozarks. Lisa's favorite verse is Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
The FBC Youth Ministry is led by Youth Pastor Jermaine Bean. The youth seek to grow in Christ by studying Scripture weekly, taking classes that equip students to actively live out and defend their faith, and gathering for fellowship and worship. Wednesday night youth worship runs from 6:30 to 7:30, after the 6:00 snack supper.
Wednesday Night Bible Study: Deep Dives into Scripture
Dr. Vern Charette leads a Wednesday Night Study that has worked through extended series on biblical books and doctrines. Past series have included a study of the Seven Churches of Revelation, covering Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea; a six-week study in Ephesians; a series on the attributes of God that examined the Glory, Holiness, and Love of God, and the doctrine of one will within the Trinity; a study on spiritual disciplines covering fasting, silence and solitude, journaling, stewardship, and perseverance; a teaching series titled A Faith for All Seasons walking through the doctrines of the Holy Spirit and salvation, including regeneration, justification, sanctification, redemption, and election; a class called How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth on illumination, the analogy of Scripture, genre, and authorial intent; and an end-times study exploring Daniel's seventy weeks, Daniel's kingdom vision, the Feast of Trumpets, Ezekiel's dry bones, the Tribulation, the Antichrist, the mark of the Beast, and the Millennium. Recent teaching has examined the incarnation, the virgin birth, the self-emptying of Christ in Philippians 2, the Spirit's role in Jesus' life, the temptations and growth of Christ, and the New Covenant. These classes are recorded and posted for ongoing study.
What FBC Coweta Believes: The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message
As part of the Southern Baptist Convention, First Baptist Coweta holds to the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. The church's statement of faith walks through all eighteen articles of that confession.
FBC Coweta affirms that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction, totally true and trustworthy, the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.
There is one and only one living and true God, infinite in holiness and all other perfections, who reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes but without division of nature, essence, or being. Christ is the eternal Son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, who honored the divine law by His personal obedience and made provision for the redemption of men from sin by His substitutionary death on the cross. He rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, is now exalted at the right hand of God as the one Mediator, fully God and fully man, and will return in power and glory to judge the world and consummate His redemptive mission. The Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, convicts of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, exalts Christ, regenerates the believer, baptizes every believer into the Body of Christ, cultivates Christian character, bestows the spiritual gifts by which believers serve God through His church, and seals the believer unto the day of final redemption.
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification, and there is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Election is the gracious purpose of God, consistent with the free agency of man, and all whom God has accepted in Christ will never fall away from the state of grace but shall persevere to the end.
A New Testament church is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel, observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is prerequisite to church membership and to the Lord's Supper, which is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.
FBC Coweta also affirms a complementarian view of marriage and family, holds that the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture, supports Christian education and the cooperation of churches in missionary, educational, and benevolent work, and embraces religious liberty, the separation of church and state, and the principle that "A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal."
Vern's Vernacular: Writing and Teaching Beyond the Pulpit
Dr. Vern Charette is also a writer whose articles appear under the heading "Vern's Vernacular." In "Jesus Revolution: God's Ability to Use Flawed People," Vern reflects on the movie based on Greg Laurie's testimony and argues that the orthodox gospel presentation within it outweighs secondary doctrinal concerns about Pentecostal elements or the flawed biography of early Jesus movement leader Lonnie Frisbee. In "The Pastor as an Evangelist," published in the Baptist Messenger, he urges fellow pastors to "assume they are in the room" and to present the gospel with an invitation at every service, class, wedding, and funeral, rather than treating such gatherings as celebrations of life without the message of Christ. "Christ and Culture" walks through Richard Niebuhr's typology, contrasting "Christ Against Culture" and "Christ of Culture" with the "Christ Transforming Culture" path that engages the world with the gospel without withdrawing from it or conforming to it. "Overtime: 1 Peter 3:18 - Did Jesus 'Suffer' or 'Die' for Sins?" is a careful textual study showing that the well over five thousand Greek New Testament manuscripts preserve the text with such remarkable uniformity that no doctrinal truth hinges on any of the small percentage of variants, and that whether Peter originally wrote "suffered" or "died" is consistent with the rest of the New Testament either way. In a separate "Never Before Shared Testimony," Vern writes about his Chippewa and Sioux family history and the search for identity that ended when, at eighteen, an African American preacher led him to Christ in a little store-front church.
Worship, Missions, and the Staff Team
Alongside Dr. Vern Charette, the staff team includes Blake Taylor as Associate Pastor of Worship and Missions. Blake and his wife Codi have been following Jesus in marriage for thirteen years and have a blended family of five children, ranging in age from two to eighteen. They describe themselves, and the church they serve, as a "family of Servant Missionaries" whose calling is life-on-life discipleship and mission: when Christ is formed in believers, they will reach those around them with the love of Christ. Jermaine Bean serves as Youth Pastor, Lisa Tynes as Kids Ministry Director, and Amber Chadwick supports the team and leads the preschool. All teach, preach, write, and serve with the conviction that disciples are made through Scripture and through ministry to one another and to the wider community.
Worship Online, Giving, and Visiting
The Sunday morning worship service at 10:45 AM is livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook for those unable to attend in person. Past sermons and the Wednesday Night Studies are available for listening and watching online.
Members and friends can give online through Tithe.ly, by mail to the church office, in person at the church, or during the Sunday worship service using the envelopes provided in the chair backs. The church teaches that giving is a way of showing that God is worth more than money, of fueling the work of the church in the congregation, the city, and the world, and ultimately a response to the gift of Jesus Christ.
First Baptist Church Coweta is located at 15296 State Highway 72 in Coweta, Oklahoma. Sunday School begins at 9:30 AM and the worship service at 10:45 AM. Nursery is provided during all normal church services. Visitors can reach the church office at (918) 486-2158 or by email at church@fbccoweta.org. Children's ministry questions can be directed to Lisa Tynes at kids@fbccoweta.org, and youth ministry inquiries to Jermaine Bean at youth@fbccoweta.org.