Stories

Vladimir* tried drugs for the first time as a 15-year-old while living in a small Eastern European town. Twenty years later, your support helped him return to plant a church.

Both Vlad’s father and grandfather were dedicated military colonels. Proud to have a son to follow in his footsteps, Vlad’s father sent him to study at a military academy as a young boy.

When Roosevelt Park Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., closed its doors three years ago, Allen Pontarelli and Henry Bouma knew the community needed another church. So, they planted Southwest Community Church (SCC) with the support of Resonate Global Mission.

But SCC did not start as a church. It started as a dinner.

A Neighborhood with Needs

Olivia* was 14 when her mother passed away after never fully recovering from a car accident. That was just the start of her grief—but God met her at Destination CRC, a Resonate church plant in St. Thomas, Ontario.

Grief and Doubt

We don’t have to discover God’s call on our own. Sometimes God speaks to us through many different people. Just ask Karlos Palacios.

Karlos is a church planter at Iglesia Comunidad de Fe Poinciana Christian Reformed Church, a Resonate Global Mission partner church plant in Poinciana, Florida.

Karlos said his calling to ministry started with service opportunities in his church, The New Horizon CRC (Paterson, New Jersey). As he joined the choir and read Bible verses during services, people soon recognized his leadership abilities.

Sometimes equipping the global church takes place before a community even considers that the Spirit is at work there. Such was the case in the village of Medina, Sierra Leone.

Like the Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia that Medina is named after, almost everyone living in this community adheres to Islam. But when the people looked for assistance in developing their community to reduce poverty, they turned to Christian Extension Services (CES).

Most church planters make it their goal to open their doors to new neighbors, but this takes on a whole new meaning when you get over a hundred of them at one time.

With a new townhouse community under construction right next door, members of Friendship Community CRC, in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, are excited about the opportunity to minister to their new neighbors, and they are partnering with Resonate Global Mission to do this.

Scott Vander Ploeg looks back on the time he spent serving in Nigeria as one of the most “stretching and rewarding” years of his life.

Scott and his wife, Andrea, served with Resonate Global Mission at Veenstra Seminary in Donga, Nigeria, in 2001-2002. This was an internship during Scott’s studies at Calvin Theological Seminary.

The majority of Christian Reformed church plants Resonate has worked with over the past decade are still serving their communities. In fact, 144 churches planted in the last 10 years are thriving. However, sometimes the call to plant a church turns out to be temporary and the church folds after a few years. In these situations, church planters have found that even when a church stops meeting, their efforts have not been in vain. 

How many times have you heard the Christmas story? Too many to count?

For some, the Christmas story will be new this year and God is still doing amazing things through this story.

Ben Katt, Resonate Global Mission’s regional mission leader for the Western United States, recently recorded two examples of this while visiting Anchorage, Alaska on his podcast, Replacing Church. Ben visited Parachutes, a drop-in center for high-risk teens that partners with Resonate.

When you ask God to do something ten years in the future, you might forget about that request. But God won’t. 

That’s what James Kim found to be true when he received an unexpected email from Resonate Global Mission (then Home Missions) asking if he had interest in planting a church.

Kim first considered the idea of becoming a church planter in 2006, when he was studying at Calvin Theological Seminary and began exploring what that path entails. Still, he wanted to gain some experience first.