Rocky Mountain Church | About Us
WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE CAME FROM
In March of 1994, Jess and Deb Mahon of Scottsbluff, Nebraska met with 30 residents of Estes Park to probe the depth of interest in beginning an Evangelical Free Church in the community. The interest was high and a Bible study was organized, which was to be led by Marlin Jones, a semi-retired pastor from Grace Evangelical Free Church in Longmont.
But God had other plans.
Pastor Marlin’s health forced him to give up leadership after only three weeks. Jess stepped in, commuting from and to Nebraska every Wednesday to ensure the Bible study would continue. Believing their calling was to be in Estes Park, the Mahon family moved to Estes at the end of May, and the work of planting Rocky was moved into high gear.
In July of that year, we held the first Rocky Mountain Church worship service in the high school auditorium with thirty-two people in attendance. Deb played the school’s beat-up electric piano, Jess led the singing and did the preaching, and the whole experience was dynamic. We were committed to our ministry and God honored our efforts.
From the high school, we moved into a more permanent, yet still temporary, location at the Park Village Playhouse. At first, our nursery was housed in a corner of our worship center closed in with chicken wire (really!) and our Prime Time children’s ministry met out in the hall.
As soon as we could save up the money, we remodeled the space to create a real nursery and classrooms, giving us a proper place for our children to learn about God’s Word.
In 1997, our Leadership Team of nine people traveled to a church conference held at Saddleback Community Church in California. The conference gave us the needed direction for the next level of growth at Rocky. Upon our return we began meeting every Sunday evening for three months in order to transfer the information we received at Saddleback to the ministry at Rocky. During those meetings we designed our purpose statement, core values, philosophy of ministry, and worship style that Rocky would embrace.
The next year, we made two major additions. We rented office space to give us room for our daily operations, and added to our staff by hiring Chris Moody as our pastor of worship and administration. His leadership was, and still is, truly a Godsend.
A year later we embarked on a three-year "Building For Life" stewardship campaign, with the goal of purchasing a 7.25-acre piece of property located directly west of Mary’s Lake Lodge for Rocky’s permanent home. Our goal was realized in August 2000, with the folks of Rocky pledging $275,000 in our "Building For Life" campaign. Rocky continued to grow so we added staff to keep up with our needs. An office assistant and receptionist, a position once held by our Director of Operations Kim Parks, now held by Marlys Decker. Children's Director Lisa Aukee, and Youth Pastor Scott Miller.
Rocky is also fueled by a host of lay people who give their time, talent and treasure to this God-ordained work. Without these folks, this ministry would not be able to make the kind of kingdom impact that God is presently blessing.
In June 2002, we embarked on another capital campaign to put a campus on our acquired land. This dream became a reality on October 1, 2005 when we moved into our new campus just east of Mary’s Lake. We are overwhelmed with the goodness of God in allowing us to have such a beautiful location in which to communicate the message of Christ. We are indeed grateful for the gifts from God’s people who have sacrificially given in order to make our new campus a reality.
The story of Rocky continues. Daily we are seeing the handwriting of God as He puts in new entries of our story, which, in reality, is His story. It is a story of His faithfulness and we will never forget that Rocky is His church – not ours.
Thank you for your interest in Rocky. May His story continue!
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SERVICE TIMES
Summer (May - August)Saturday, 7:00pm
Sunday, 8:30am and 10:30
Winter (September - April)
Saturday, 7:00pm - Sunday 9:30am