Story of God at Work in Corvallis
By Hannah Lewandowski
In a world where chaos is in the air and commitments don’t always last, faithful obedience can be hard to come by. There is something that sets apart our God and a people who believe in something steadfast that remains true and fortified despite every reason not to. Finding favor in the eyes of the Lord, Noah, a righteous and blameless man “walked faithfully with God”, standing out amongst the wickedness of the day (Genesis 6:9). Throughout the book of Genesis, Noah’s consistent obedience to the building of the infamous ark to the flood that wiped out creation forged a legacy of God’s grace. Eventually, it led to the restored creation and a lineage of faithful descendants. The difficult, messy, and costly obedience of Noah made way for the ultimate descendant, the one who would redeem all of creation, Jesus.
The legacy we build is important, it has an impact far beyond what we could imagine. When Keith and Paige Wieser stepped out in bold faith and obediently built an urgent collegiate multiplying network of churches by God’s grace, they couldn’t have anticipated the outcome, they merely dreamed and hoped for what God would do. The very church that was planted in the rolling wheat fields of Pullman, Washington led to a fourth-generation church reaching the lost in Corvallis, Oregon. From 2007 to 2025, God has been faithful and His people have been obedient; not perfect, not sinless, but obedient.
In the fall of 2019, after being in Monmouth for two years, Colin and his team had prepared Ben and Jess Wenzl alongside a team of leaders to be sent to plant a church in the Spring of 2020. Their eyes were set on Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. The funds were raised, homes were sought out, the campus was scouted, and the laborers were ready. But God had different plans.
As many of us are familiar with, the pandemic of 2020 became a devastating reality to those throughout the world, particularly people gathered in heavily populated spaces, like college campuses. This would later lead to churches, businesses, colleges, and other fragile establishments closing their doors for good.
While the future of the university was questioned, moving to Ashland was taken off the table and conversations about shifting eyes to Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon began. Redirecting their gaze to a city merely 20 miles down the road, the Wenzls were ready to be sent by the Luomas and the rest of those staying in Monmouth, until they found out they were expecting twins. Although this was a celebratory moment, it altered the feasibility of planting a new church and starting a new family. Once again the conversation changed. Despite the vision from the beginning aimed at sending a church from Monmouth in 3 years, Colin and Jessi Luoma went from being the planters of Western Oregon University seeking to stay and send out another team, to being the team that would be sent once more.
With half of the original team staying behind in Monmouth and the other half recommitting to church planting with the Luomas, a new launch date was put in place. Lamenting what could have been and waiting in hopeful expectation for what was to come, creating a temporary barrier in the shifting of their sights from Southern Oregon University to Oregon State University. Warming their team up for this new reality, God graciously allowed them to take a trip to see what would later become their home in March of 2021, ultimately finalizing their team by April of that same year. Officially making the move, the Luomas and their team traveled down I-5, arriving in Corvallis between May and September of 2021.
“From 2007 to 2025, God has been faithful and His people have been obedient; not perfect, not sinless, but obedient. ”
With eyes set on launching in January of 2022, Colin and his team quickly transitioned into life in a new city and pursued the campus, hoping to build momentum. From the first few outings on campus, it became clear that their strategy would have to be different than that at Western Oregon University, as there were a multitude of options pulling at the attention of each student, and even more so away from their need for Jesus. Going from a big fish in a little pond to a small tadpole in a large lake with a group of students who were fearful of getting physically and emotionally close to others coming out of the pandemic proved to be a fortified barrier for the team in Corvallis.
Due to the restrictions at the time, Colin and the rest of his team had to operate under the radar when on campus, posing yet another barrier to getting the word out about the church they were planting. If it wasn’t the mask mandate, distancing guidelines, or vaccination requirements distancing the team from engaging with students, it was their chock-full Google calendars. How does one even begin to articulate to a 19-year-old their need for a Savior amidst a season of isolation, fear, and internal chaos? Just like Noah, the Corvallis team had a multitude of reasons to give up when faced with the grandeur of the task ahead of them, and yet they pressed on, all the while the Lord was building something greater through faithful obedience.
Unsure of the impact they would make, the Corvallis team spent a lot of time in prayer over the interactions they had with the students they came across the first year on campus. During that year some of the guys on the church plant team randomly met a student, Hans, on campus. Upon meeting him, they learned Hans was in a frat and they asked to share about Resonate in one of their weekly all-member meetings. He obliged, the team shared at this meeting, it felt awkward, but they trusted God would do something great. Flash forward three and a half years, Hans has become incredibly involved in Resonate Corvallis reaching other fraternity men, and he and his wife are on the Corvallis staff team, dedicating their time to reaching the lost just as they were once met as college students.
Following that interaction with Hans, Colin, Josh Sweet, and a few other people on their team were conducting a “spiritual survey” on campus and they happened upon a guy in a dining hall, unsure of the future of this contact. He was interested in learning more about Jesus, eventually being discipled by Josh, and as he is growing in his faith, he keeps mentioning his heart for his brother and the desire he had for his brother to know Jesus too. Fearful of leaving his brother behind, he spends five weeks at a discipleship program in San Diego, Elevate, with Resonate, and returns to his brother noticing his relationship with Jesus and joining him at OSU this past school year. Eventually, he gets to share the gospel with his brother who would go on to accept Jesus as Lord, changing the legacy of their family forever. Although their parents weren’t believers and they weren’t believers themselves not too long ago, their grandparents are and when they found out their grandsons put their faith in Christ, they met Josh and his wife Traci with tears in their eyes, saying that they had been praying for this very moment for years. God cares about our family and has the power to change the narrative of our legacies.
Within the past few months, seven people have decided to follow Jesus, which is more than Resonate Corvallis has had in the first three years of their church plant. Colin shares that he’s “really been enjoying the diversity of their various missional communities”, as they are beginning to reach the lost in a way that is tailored specifically to the people in their spaces. After three years of faithfully pursuing the campus, the team in Corvallis is just now seeing the fruit of their labor. The ark of Noah wasn’t built in a few days and nor was the church at Oregon State University.
God used Noah’s obedience to make way for new life by building the ark as He established a new covenant with His people. God used the obedience of the Corvallis team to make way for new life in the students and community who were once dead in their trespasses and are now alive in Christ. Our Heavenly Father is faithful to His promises, and He is making all things new.
In the process of building, God used the growing pains of planting a new church following a global pandemic to humble the hearts of the team, level their expectations of what He could do, and later showed up mightily. Matt Woodley says that “through his obedience, Noah bore witness to and left a legacy of God’s grace”; by no means was it easy, but by all, it was worth it.
From Adam to Noah to Abraham to David and Judah came Jesus. From Pullman to Ellensburg and Monmouth came Corvallis. God is writing a story bigger than our imagination. The faithful obedience of those who came before you matters for He is at work in the day-to-day and the generations between. We are better together. We need each other. Like an anti-fragile forest of aspen trees, our roots are connected, creating stability, and hope, and guiding our gaze to the Sovereign King we serve.
