- Church planting & multiplication
Tens of thousands of people move to the San Tan Valley near Phoenix to flee hectic, costly and divisive places. But these masses aren’t merely leaving what they don’t like; they also desire a life with purposeful results.
“There are a lot of people, a lot of need, and they want to be a part of something,” Flatiron Church pastor Brian Pacheco said. “But they want to be a part of something they think is going somewhere.”
That eagerness exists in copper miners and cotton farmers who’ve called the area home for decades. Some of these people paid $100,000 for a home now worth five times that amount. Given the incoming migrations, these people often move far out in the valley to find a slower pace.
The yearning also exists in newcomers who work remotely in white-collar careers. They are new to town and lack community and roots. In addition, residents can be pragmatic people looking for what works in this life and the next, or unchurched or dechurched people who seek what’s real, not a facade of faith.
Flatiron Church launched at the end of July for all the valley’s residents, whatever their vocations, needs or desires, according to Pacheco. Flatiron is one of the few third spaces that brings long-time residents and transplants together through the gospel.
“They’re sitting right next to each other,” Pacheco said of the valley’s people at worship. “Culturally, you couldn’t be more different.”
What’s between them and Christ’s abundant life?
Across the valley, diversification incorporates different struggles for the groups of people now living there. Some families live with prescription drug abuse or mental illness; others experience hardcore drug addictions or alcohol.
The area also has a strong influence from the Church of Latter-day Saints. For example, home builders often incorporate Mormon theology by including extraordinarily large food pantries to supply the family during an apocalypse.
Many people have left that religious group and made their way to Flatiron Church. Pacheco said. He said ex-Mormons attend his church because LDS practices and expectations disturb faith or deter these people’s pursuit of Christ.
Pacheco trusted Christ early in life but experienced an emotional crisis that motivated him to know God better through the Bible. During that struggle, faith grew deep in his heart. Now, he has experience and character suitable to serving others who might give up on faith in life’s challenging moments.
“I couldn’t deny God was real, and I couldn’t deny that he had something for my life,” Pacheco said of discovering purpose in his pain as a teenager.
How is Flatiron Church uniquely designed to bear witness to Christ?
The core team spent a year getting to know Phoenix since Pacheco and others are from outside the Southwest. Pacheco did a one-year church residency with pastor Bill Bush at Rock Point, a Converge congregation. Through that, Pacheco learned the social and cultural cues and what makes people tick.
Now, with greater wisdom, the team who started Flatiron Church has prioritized and aligned church activities around Sunday services and gospel proclamation. They want as many people as possible to come to worship.
“What brings them to Sunday is a personal conversation,” Pacheco said.
The number of people who have started discipling someone has been even more encouraging. Pacheco said many people in Phoenix don’t read their Bibles, but they understand the basic teachings.
At the same time, he said people moving in and long-time residents have something in common: they’ve begun to follow Christ and now bring their formerly religious or unbelieving friends into Christ’s family for exposure to the gospel.
“We knew from day one that we wanted this to be a church that was primarily outward focused and had a posture towards the nonbeliever that would invite them,” Pacheco said.
Christ is bearing fruit through this church
Out of personal relationships, Christ has motivated 13 people to be baptized, including five people who had never met Jesus. One of those five brought someone who became a believer, and that new believer just brought another friend who recently came to church for the first time.
“We’re seeing already the multiplication that happens when you reach people,” he said. “The best thing about that is they have unbelieving friends, and then they go and reach” those they know.
Such outreach is one reason Pacheco and 21 other people from Illinois started Flatiron Church, named after a nearby mountain.
Secondly, many people in the area don’t know the Bible well, but they’re not against hearing God’s word or applying it. A common challenge, Pacheco said, is people aren’t sure how to apply it to their lives or benefit themselves.
So he applies his training to interpreting and communicating God’s word so that nonbelievers and believers know God better.
Yet another reason is seeing transplants disconnected from community and far from God find out that church is part of their purpose as they come to a new community.
Many more people are expected to move to the area, Pacheco said. The community had about 60,000 in 2021. That’s increased to more than 70,000, and predictions anticipate a population of 175,000 in seven years.
That means plenty of people on the move will be looking for what only Christ can give them: an imperishable inheritance of abundant life and the fellowship of the saints.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth by sticking to ‘let’s do Sundays well, let’s have an eye for the outsider and let’s preach the gospel fully,’” Pacheco said. “The win for us on a Sunday is that somebody would invite their nonbelieving friend to church, and that person would come. We’re seeing it. We’re seeing people bring nonbelieving friends every weekend.”
Converge's 10 districts have committed to deploying 312 church planters before 2026. Read more inspiring church planting stories and learn about the goal to send out 312 church planters in five years.
