Into The "Unknown"

As many of you may know by now, our family is about to go into the “unknown.” In late 2008, God began to work in my heart and gradually direct me into something completely different in my life. After sharing this with Rachel, we began to pray and through prayer, we knew that God was calling me to be a pastor . . .  but also was calling me into missions. This didn’t make much sense but we continued to pray.

After going through the initial steps of application and interview with the IMB, it seemed that God was closing the door for us to serve as international missionaries. About the same time, we were contacted by Brad Cowger of the Uncompahgre (bet you can’t say that 5 times fast!!!) Baptist Association of Colorado concerning planting a church in Montrose, CO.

Initially we were like, “What??? Plant a church?? Us?? No way!” But God continued to work and put a calling on our lives to do this. Through several weeks and months of research, we learned that Colorado is an extremely “un-churched” state. Some have estimated that close to 80-90% of the population is not involved in an evangelical church in any way.

To be clear . . . “church” doesn’t save anyone. But Jesus does and the Church is His bride here on earth. We believe that if someone loves Jesus, they will love His wife. In human experience, the Christian Church has been a community in which people have come to know the real Jesus and by knowing Him, they have come to find genuine peace, forgiveness, healthy relationships, purpose, and most significantly eternal life.

This is our calling: to BE the church in Montrose, CO. We’re personally trying to take Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23-25 seriously:

Then he (Jesus) said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

We look forward to starting a brand new church called CHURCH180 representing the life-giving “180” that Jesus can bring to anyone’s life. We plan to move to Montrose, CO in late May/early June this year.

In closing, we have three basic needs as we go into this. If you’re interested in helping meet the needs of this new calling and church, here they are:

1.     Strategic prayer. Without a doubt, this is the most important of all needs we have. We believe in the necessity of prayer and a total dependence on God. If you'd like a daily prayer list, we can email one to you.

2.     Funding for living expenses, church start up costs, ongoing monthly ministry expenses, etc. Checks can be made out to "CHURCH180" and sent to:

              Uncompahgre Baptist Association

                ATTN: CHURCH180

                6 Hillcrest Plaza Way

                Montrose, CO 81401

3.     Mission Teams to come and help us serve and reach out to the community of Montrose.

You can email me at bryan@fbcsaltillo.org if you have an interest or questions (new CHURCH180 website and @church180.net email address coming soon).

More to come in the days ahead. Pray for us! We need it!!