Without a chair, much less a building, to call their own, Church 8025 got its start in the Denver area with a loan of 30 chairs from a nearby church plant, Journey Point – part of a collection of many stories of God’s provision.
“That’s how we started – with nothing,” says church planter Michael Talley, who moved with his wife, Dale, and several other families from Warner Robins to Denver. “But God blessed it, and we grew.”
Named after the number of the house where they first gathered, Church 8025 eventually moved to a local hotel’s ballroom – and that was when the scramble for more portable church equipment began.
“We’re calling other churches and asking them things like, ‘Hey, can we borrow some kids’ play panels?’” Michael recalls, “And a Send Network church plant, Storyline Church, gave us a couple of trailers with the portable cases on it because they didn’t need them anymore.”
Thanks to God’s provision and Storyline’s generosity, Church 8025 witnessed lives transformed in that next year as their church grew to over one hundred people. However, the portable church equipment was not the last time God provided for Church 8025’s needs through the generosity of other churches.
Several months after the Talley’s church plant began raising money for their own land, Michael received a call with the news that a church that was closing wanted to gift their building to a new church.
“The building was in the area where we were looking for land, literally a mile down the road,” Michael says. “As a church planter, you say yes, sight unseen.”
But chairs, trailers and a building are not the most important things Church 8025 has inherited over the years – they’ve also inherited a spirit of generosity. In the past three years, the church has given away about $140,000 to local ministry partners, the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. In a full-circle kind of way, they’ve now handed down the very trailers and cases they were once given to two other church planters.
“We’re not trying to build Church 8025. We’re trying to advance God’s kingdom with Him and for Him and we just can’t be inwardly focused if we’re going to do that,” says Michael. “And our people have adopted that too.”
For this Colorado church plant, generosity extends beyond giving money or items – the church has sent out a church planter and two key volunteers with them to plant in a nearby neighborhood.
“It’s hard when you’re a new church,” Michael admits, “but I believe they’re not my people. They’re God’s people, and I have to trust that God knows best.”
Church 8025’s culture of generosity spills into their homes, too, through which nearly 85% of their first-time guests come before attending a Sunday service. Thanks to this model, the church has grown to more than 200 people and has witnessed 28 people come to Christ and follow in believer’s baptism – people like Kailey and her husband Dave.
Courtney, a member of Church 8025, shared the gospel with Kailey, who came to Christ and then started witnessing to her husband Dave, who also became a Christian. Since Courtney had never been baptized, the three all followed in believer’s baptism on the same Sunday. After the baptism service, Dave’s two best friends, Nick and Ben, who also came to Christ through Church 8025, expressed their desire to be baptized as well.
“God is so good,” Michael says. “If we’ll just get out of the way and let Him build His church, God will bring people and lead people to Him.”
To discover how your church can step into generosity by supporting church planters across North America, or to determine more steps your church can take to join in God’s activity of expanding His kingdom in cities and nations all around the world, visit SentNetwork.com/Mobilize.
Published February 15, 2024