The Scoop

Just wanted to give you a heads up regarding what is going on with The Bridge church plant.

In June I was contacted by Aaron Santini, a church planter planting “The Crossing” with CrossWay Chapel (a local church planting network associated with Mountain View Com. Church in Fort Collins), he wanted to meet like minded church planters and he had heard about me through Acts 29. After meeting a few times and discussing our vision, goals, and plans we began to discuss the idea of joining our efforts for the sake of the Kingdom. It is almost uncanny how similar Aaron and I are in theology, philosophy, and vision. So after a few months of praying and getting to know each other Aaron and I have decided to join The Bridge and The Crossing…in fairness to one another we have decided to change the name of the new church (which was really difficult for me because I absolutely love the name The Bridge =)

That is however a small sacrifice for what this joining of efforts is going to bring to the Kingdom. The new name will be “Missio Dei” which means mission of God in Latin. Both Aaron and I felt that this name encapsulates our theology and the vision of our church plant very well and will also create some great opportunities to share the gospel when people ask what in the world “Missio Dei” means. =)

The Crossing has been meeting in Aaron and Rita Santini’s home for about 6 months and they have about 40 adults and 20 children attending. Starting this Sunday evening we will begin meeting together at the Evangelical Covenant Church at 6pm. We will continue with our plan of holding a series of preview services (third Sundays of Oct, Nov, and Dec) and launching on Sunday January 17th at 10am at the TR Paul Academy of Arts and Knowledge. The joining of The Crossing and The Bridge will instantly give both groups critical mass and great momentum as we will now have approx. 60 adults and 30 children to launch the church with, not to mention the multiplication of servants, gifts and leadership abilities that both groups will bring each other.

Aaron and I are a lot alike but we are also very different in our gift sets. Aaron is passionate about small groups (we will call them Life Groups), discipleship, and pouring into men (the ground war). I am gifted as the big picture guy and overseeing things like administration, media (website, audio video stuff), marketing, and our mission will be my responsibilities (the air war).

Aaron and I will share the preaching duties and work together to formulate a preaching schedule ahead of time. We will teach through books or passages of Scripture so it will be very easy to keep continuity while also creating some variety in preaching style and perspective.

Aaron and I are both passionate about church planting and our vision is to plant churches up and down the 1-25 corridor and beyond. There are approx. 4.5 million people in the front range region and we believe that church planting is the most effective method in reaching these people with the gospel. In order to make this vision happen we must train young men to be pastors and leaders and therefore Missio Dei will have a Pastor’s School where men can be equipped to lead as elders both at Missio Dei and elsewhere as church planters.

Please keep Missio Dei and all that is involved here in prayer. We have some other big decisions to make in the near future and we are excited about all that God is doing and is going to do!