October 27, 2026
BIXBY, Okla. – Michael Gabbert started Evergreen Baptist Church in a Tulsa suburb in 1999 with fewer than 30 people. Today, the church typically sees nearly 2,000 Sunday worshippers and still gives 10 percent of its undesignated budget to missions through the Cooperative Program.
Gabbert, with 11 years of pastoral ministry behind him when he started Evergreen, earned a Ph.D. in church history from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1991. He says the key to longevity in ministry is growing a church the New Testament way.
“It’s really a remarkable work of God,” Gabbert told Baptist Press. “We began to meet for prayer and to study the biblical model for the church. Following a scripturally faithful plan, we rented a hotel ballroom and held our first service with our core group and other well-wishers on Dec. 5, 1999.
“There’s not a church planting textbook in the world that advises to start a church in the Christmas season,” the pastor continued. “That was another evidence of God at work in this church plant. Evergreen exploded over the course of the first year.”
Today Evergreen reaches out with almost too many ministries to count, both in-reach and out-reach. As members become discipled, they suggest ministries God has led them to, and the church backs them. Biblical literacy and spiritual growth are key, the pastor said.
“Discipleship is the core of what we do,” Gabbert said. “If you follow the biblical model, do church the way God outlined it, the church is healthy, and healthy things grow naturally.
At Evergreen Bixby, six lead pastors and a total of 16 vocational pastors administer the church. The congregation is trained and released to do the ministry of the church.
“People blossom when they can see God at work,” said Gabbert, now in his 27th year at Evergreen. “As they are trained and released to do ministry, they see themselves as partners with God. Suddenly church doesn’t drain their batteries. It charges them. They feel like they’re making a difference.”
The church’s generous support of missions through the Cooperative Program – the way Southern Baptists work together to spread worldwide the good news of God’s unconditional, personal love – is another way the Evergreen family makes a difference.
“When we were running 200, we could claim ownership of global missions. No way we could have done that apart from the Cooperative Program,” the pastor continued. “Those thousands of missionaries we have as Southern Baptists belong to a church of 100 – or 10! – as much as they do to the church I lead. That’s brilliant!”
The church also goes on mission across North America and around the world. Throughout each year, national flags are displayed as members return from international mission trips. By December each year, there are 30 or more hanging in the worship center. Every January, the flags are removed and a new year of mission effort begins.
Baptisms – 342 between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2025, plus at least 44 as of Oct. 1 this year – link evangelism and discipleship at Evergreen Bixby.
“We understand discipleship to be an umbrella term for everything we do,” Gabbert said. “We envision a scale from minus 8 to plus 8, with zero being the conversion point, and plus 8 being a fully mature follower of Jesus Christ. Before zero, if someone moves from a minus 8 to a minus 7, they’re one step closer to Jesus. We’re moving them in the right spiritual direction by sharing life with them. We disciple people to Jesus and then to spiritual maturity.
“Typically, our church members share Jesus with people in their own sphere of influence,” the pastor continued. “All this happens because we have a disciple-making mentality.”
Among the church’s many ministries this fall and early winter: Ham radio classes, homesteading skills, sign language for beginners, Foster/kinship/adoption prep, Xplore missions, REACH community for young adults, Mini Manventure for elementary boys, and more than 300 children in AWANA clubs, among many other opportunities.
A year after Evergreen began, the church bought 40 acres of land that was paid off in three years, then bought 10 adjacent acres and developed a master plan that is still unfolding.
The first phase involved building a worship center, which will now eventually become a fellowship hall. Phase 2 expanded the children’s area. Then came adult education, family, preschool, and Evergreen Academy buildings.
“The next phase will be a new worship center, which we desperately need,” Gabbert said. “We have a vision for the property: a regional church for the Tulsa metropolitan area, with beautiful yet efficient facilities including a worship center seating thousands, a school for K-12 conservative Christian education, a ministry and counseling center, a retirement village, a prayer retreat, classrooms for Bible study and equipping saints, and family recreational amenities.”
Evergreen “grows bigger and faster at the same time,” the pastor said. “We have significant challenges. We don’t have enough baby beds, parking or seating; yet what God has told me is, ‘You stay faithful in caring for the people I send you, and I’ll keep sending you more.’
The New Testament way of church growth, he said, is to “Be diligent in shepherding the flock, and God makes the flock bigger. We’re committed to the process of figuring out challenges, because it is such a grand privilege to be a shepherd.”
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This article appeared in Baptist Press.
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