Story of God at Work in Missoula

Tucked into a valley of the Rocky Mountains, Missoula, Montana, is a place known for its glorious natural landscape and people who remain there for the outdoor jungle gym that it is; a place wildly obsessed with creation but not entirely with its Creator. Known by many Christians and missionaries as a "church planter's graveyard", Missoula, and the University of Montana, desperately needed God to provide stability and a church that relentlessly pursued the lost. Fortunately for this city, a group of people adamant about sharing the gospel, fueled by the steadfastness and consistency of their Heavenly Father decided the reputation of the city would no longer dictate the eternity of its inhabitants.

After a trip to various Mountain West universities in the middle of a snowy winter, Keith Wieser and a group of young men interested in church planting returned to Pullman with a clear direction to pursue the cities and campuses found in Boise, ID, Missoula, MT, and Pocatello, ID. The next piece to this puzzle was who would lead these new churches, when would this team move, and who would they take with them?

Coming to the University of Idaho in 2014, Preston Rhodes arrived on campus with the desire to pursue an engineering career with NASA. Instead, he experienced immense heart change as Jesus began to sit more and more firmly on the throne of his life, entirely shifting the trajectory of his future midway through his sophomore year. Within the first two weeks of Preston's freshmen year, he met two men connected to Resonate. From there he became more invested in faith-centered community and spent his first summer vacation in college at a discipleship program in San Diego, known as Elevate. Returning to Moscow from this summer program, Preston came to campus on fire for the Lord. He deeply desired to live missionally and recalls calling his parents one night to tell them that he was no longer going to be an engineer after graduating, but a missionary instead. Following a summer project to East Asia, where the desperate need for the gospel to be spread was apparent, Preston recalls approaching Keith Wieser while tearing down pipe and drape after a Sunday Gathering in September of 2017. With certainty, Preston said "Hey Keith, I want you to know that I'm in, do with me whatever you want", to which Keith responded, "What do you know about Missoula?"; and from there plans took form, scout trips ensued, and conversations about a future core team began. Within two years of putting his "yes" on the table, Preston graduated college, married his wife Tracy, and was officially hired onto Resonate Staff. He was trained to plant a church, built out a core team, and made the nearly 300-mile move to Missoula, Montana.

A year before Preston moved to Missoula with his core team, a group of six was sent to lay the groundwork through continual scouting, gospel sharing, and relationship building. Between their arrival in the summer of 2018 and the arrival of the rest of the team in the summer of 2019, the team of six spent hours on campus, held impromptu swing dancing nights next to dorms, moved freshmen into their residence halls, threw frisbees around, climbed rocks with new friends, and welcomed recently-met connections into their home for dinner five nights a week. Jess Austin, one piece of the six-person team, remembers that during a scouting trip before moving in 2018, "God was opening relational doors like crazy", showing her and the rest of the team that God wanted to do something in Missoula and that He wanted to use Resonate. During this same trip, Jess experienced God moving in a multitude of ways that solidified her commitment to living sent. During one instance she happened to reconnect with a friend from elementary school she hadn't spoken to in years, only for that friend to give her and her team a tour of campus, as well as a sorority where she met a girl, Emma. She told Jess they specifically needed a "college church for students". Not only did Emma confirm the needs of the university the team had already started to see, but she eventually became one of many who felt like family and is a part of Resonate Missoula to this day. The need was clear and the team was committed to reaching the lost, believing if God was for them, who or what could stand against?

Flash forward to May of 2019, Preston and the rest of their core team of 20, joined Jess and the rest of the group of six in Missoula, moving into their homes and getting the lay of the land. They spent the summer gathering in living rooms for house church on Sundays, and the days in between on campus, growing closer to one another as a team and growing in hope and anticipation for the school year that was ahead of them. Following the University of Montana's move-in and Week of Welcome, after many hours spent extending invites, the Missoula team held their first Sunday Gathering on August 19th, 2019 in an event venue downtown called "The Public House". Their staff team recalls thinking to themselves "Oh, we're really doing this now!" as nearly 60 people trickled into the building for the service that was about to unfold. Within a few weeks, they were able to move their Sunday Gathering to a theater on campus in the student union building. This was an answered prayer, as this space was more accessible for students living on and off campus to encounter not just Resonate Church, but God Himself. The impact of moving from a space downtown to an on-campus location was felt pretty quickly, with nearly 12 students committed to living missionally towards their peers, five student villages, and nine death-to-life stories all within the first year on campus. The church planters' "graveyard" appeared to slowly be shifting into a ripe harvest field for those willing to labor.

“Effective ministry has proven to not be the big ticket events that occur annually, but rather doing the hard things, feeling the weight of sacrifice, and offering themselves to the lost in the mundane moments of everyday life.”

Not only was God working to shift the narrative of ministry potential in Missoula, but He also had plans to reach the University of Montana football team, previously known for allegations of misconduct. Within the last two years, the men in Resonate Missoula's leadership team have found unique favor among the players. Many of these athletes committed their limited free time to the gathering on Sundays, growing their faith in bible studies, and even getting baptized. Despite the depths of the pain found in the brokenness we all bear as humans in a sinful world, God has revealed to not only the football team but the campus and community that there has never been a moment they were forgotten. Deuteronomy 31:8 reminds us, "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged". God works mightily in areas we can't imagine redeemed, glorifying Himself in circumstances that seem impossibly hopeless or without direction. God still moved despite Resonate Missoula being planted just six months before the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed doors and instilled gathering restrictions. By declaring Jesus as Lord, 21 people came from death to life between the spring of 2020 to the lifting of COVID restrictions in 2022. Effective ministry has proven to not be the big ticket events that occur annually, but rather doing the hard things, feeling the weight of sacrifice, and offering themselves to the lost in the mundane moments of everyday life.

The culture of "follow me as I follow Christ" established a resounding sense of family, stability, and sacrifice within the church body of Resonate Missoula. This eventually led half of their staff team and many church members, including two women Jess Austin met as students, to plant a new church at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado, forsaking the comfort of their homes in Missoula. There's truly nothing like moving hundreds of miles to share the gospel and disciple college students only for those same students to leverage their own lives and move hundreds of miles yet again to do the same thing. This made it clear to Jess that "God was doing something bigger" than what she had envisioned when moving to Missoula quickly after graduating from college in 2018.

God used Resonate Missoula to show that He is the God of life, changing this town from a ministry graveyard to a fruitful church. God has used His faithful servants to bring redemption in the lives of athletes, to teach students to live missionally, and by sending out a church plant. God has made it abundantly clear that He not only has the power but also the desire to redeem any and all things. There has never been a moment when our Heavenly Father declared the city and campus in Missoula as "too far gone", let alone forgotten or thought less of a town, a sports team, or a people group because of what others labeled them as. Our God doesn't operate under the labels and limits placed upon us. The sins of our past, our love for the Father's creation apart from Him, our suffocating expectations, and unavoidable realities all bow at the feet of Jesus. There is nothing that our God can't do, for He is in the business of making all things new.