Church History
Under the guidance of Pastor Leofric W. Thomas, Sr., thirty-three persons met in the music suite of the Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida on April 13, 1999, to formulate the beginning of the Open Arms Christian Fellowship Church of Jacksonville, FL.
The first worship experience was held on Sunday, April 18, 1999, at the Paxon Middle School. On that day, 347 persons became part of what God was doing through Pastor Thomas and his wife Sandy called Open Arms Christian Fellowship. Open Arms worshipped in Paxon Middle School from April 1999 to September 2000. In October 2000, the church relocated to the William M. Raines High School to accommodate the growth and progress the ministry.
Increasing by numbers, the congregation grew to 650 disciples. Open Arms remained at the Raines High School until June of 2001, when the church purchased the former First Baptist Church of Garden City on Dunn Avenue. The congregational held its first worship encounter on July 15, 2001.
Since arriving on Dunn Avenue, Open Arms has grown to over 1,500 disciples. Several outreach ministries have been established as well as various community activities to facilitate God’s work for this ministry.
In December 2009, Open Arms expanded its campus and moved into a state of the art worship facility that seats 1,000 persons. It houses multiple offices, classrooms, and a music suite which has a studio for recording purposes.
Core Values
We believe in biblical preaching and teaching in order to equip our people with the timeless truths of the word of God. We believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, immutable, authoritative word of God. We strive, therefore, to preach and teach the Bible as God’s word and trustworthy rule for belief and behavior. We endeavor to preach and teach God’s word with simplicity, integrity, and authority so that seekers find Christ and believers mature in Him (II Timothy 3:16-4:2).
We believe that we are created to glorify God and an expression of this is our acknowledgment of His supreme value and worth in our personal lives and in the corporate, contemporary praise and worship of the church (Acts 2:47; Ephesians 5:18-20; Psalm 150).
We believe that church leaders are, above all, servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. We give ourselves to the highest good for our brothers and sisters in Christ and the community. We believe that men and women who display Christ like character and evidence of their submission to God in all things should lead the church. We also recognize that servant leaders are to watch over our souls and that Spirit-filled, godly pastors are an invaluable asset to the church (Matthew 2:25-28; Hebrews 13:17).
We are committed to supporting the development and nurture of the family. We see the family as the basic social unit of society and the foundational institution established by God through a man and a women for religious faith to be nurtured through parental example and teachings (Ephesians 5:21-33; Colossians 3:18-21).
We believe that God loves all people; therefore, we must demonstrate His love by welcoming every person that enters the doors of Open Arms Christian Fellowship. We seek to express His open invitation to come to Him by celebrating their presence, extending a warm and friendly welcome, and leaving a lasting spiritual impression upon our visitors.