The Rock and Summitview
Community Church
The Rock is a part of Summitview Community Church.
In June 1984, a group of college students and young adults arrived in Fort Collins from a church in Ames, Iowa for a summer outreach to Colorado State University. After a successful summer, many on the team wanted to stay and form a permanent church. Others moved from Ames to be part of the new church, Summitview Community Church.
A number of families moved from the new Fort Collins church to Denver to plant Northside Community Church, which later became called Valley View Church.
In May 1989, John Meyer moved from Ames to be the first full-time resident pastor. Many other families moved out at this time to help the small church effort. In August 1992, Bill Young was recognized as the second Summitview pastor.
Bill and a core group of 10 other families moved to Loveland the summer of 1995 to establish a new Summitview congregation there. Steve Nelson was recognized as a third pastor.
Steve Bush was recognized as the fourth pastor in June 1996. Partly through his focus on campus, a significant college student ministry at CSU became part of the church.
One year later, Steve Nelson and a number of other families moved to Greeley to plant a church there. Summitview Community Church of Greeley began in September. Greg Richard was recognized as a fifth pastor with a focus of addressing family life issues at all three congregations. The new pastor and church were made possible by a remarkable special collection that was 75% larger than the amount asked for!
In the summer of 1999, Bill Young and a small group of people moved to Salt Lake City to begin a new church there. With Bill's departure from the Loveland church, Craig Swing was recognized as the sixth pastor. At the same time, several students and recent graduates from CSU moved to Boulder to begin a new student church on the campus of the University of Colorado.
In August 1999, Steve Bush and others at Summitview started The Rock in Fort Collins, a service focusing on college students and single adults. The church uses a non-traditional model pioneered by Mark Darling at The Rock in Minneapolis, MN. In April 2000, Rich Thatcher was recognized as the second pastor to work with The Rock.
After a short-term mission trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands in May 2001, Steve Bush put together a team to plant a church in Amsterdam. Most of the team arrived in Amsterdam in Fall 2002 to lay the groundwork for the church, which would later be called Zolder50.
In the summer of 2004, Rich Thatcher and a team spent the summer reaching out in downtown Denver. That fall, Rich and many moved back down and started Firehouse No. 1, a church in downtown Denver.
Tom Brown was recognized as the eighth pastor from Summitview, and in the spring of 2007, Steve Nelson, Tom Brown, and others moved to El Paso, Texas to start another church on the border of Texas and Mexico, bordering Juarez, Mexico.
We believe that God has commanded us to spread His message across the world. We are actively starting churches (like this one) and plan to start 60 churches in 20 years in both the states and internationally. Seven are already in existence. Many people in our churches have willingly made sacrifices like moving to help spread God's kingdom. We've also been involved with mission trips to Honduras, India, Ireland, Italy, and Mexico for both evangelistic and relief efforts. Because we are convinced this is the mission God has left the church with, we're always striving to find effective ways of doing it (Mark 15:16; Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).
The Rock and Summitview remain one church. We hope many more locations will be started in upcoming years!
Great Commission Association of Churches and Ministries
GCA has its roots in a movement that originated with a group of Christians at Southern Colorado University who set out to preach the Gospel and so fulfill the Great Commission:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19,20)
From Colorado, they reached out to other campuses across the country, so that there were 15 loosely affiliated student fellowships by 1973.
The goal of those few men, and of the men and women who eventually chose to minister with them, was "to reach the world" with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their generation and in doing so, glorify Him. The founders had been involved with the Plymouth Brethren assemblies and Campus Crusade for Christ. The Navigators and Operation Mobilization also influenced the ministry in its early years.
As the name of our association suggests, it is and has been our constant goal and desire to help fulfill the Great Commission. Consequently, the churches affiliated with GCA have always been characterized by a strong commitment to evangelism.
Today GCA has affiliated churches in U.S. communities, U.S. campuses, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
God has used this movement to see thousands of people come to know Christ, grow in their love for Him, and go on to faithfully serve Him. That will continue to be our focus as we continue to work to fulfill His commission to go and make disciples of all nations.