The Neighborhood City Collective is growing around Denver, with five related neighborhood churches currently and a sixth coming soon to the Tech Center neighborhood.
Click on a Neighborhood Church to see their details...
Our History
In 2016 the Neighborhood City Collective was birthed out of a church called the Mile High Vineyard as a way to plant a network of neighborhood churches all across Denver, as well as to build a sustainable model that can be used in other similar large cities across America. The church is based in the metro Denver city of Arvada, Colorado and was founded in 2002 as a church plant from Columbus Ohio. The team of 11 led by Jay Pathak left Ohio with $3,000. Through passion, tenacity and the grace of God, Mile High now has attendance of over 1,000 in 4 locations.
Jay Pathak, lead pastor of MHV, has committed the last 20 years of his life to see people far from Christ come near. This passion was birthed out of his own encounter with Christ in his teenage years that radically changed his entire life.
Much of Jay's early ministry training came while on staff at a large church in Columbus, Ohio. During these formative years he spent substantial time, including his college education, studying philosophy in an attempt to better understand how people understand religion and other foundational aspects of any culture. After sensing the Lord's call to move to Denver to plant a church he and his wife built a team and moved their entire lives for this new adventure.
Over the last 15 years in the life of the church over 1,000 people have been baptized. This demonstrates the incredible favor of the Lord when compared to the overall church planting "success" rate during the same period of time. Since 2002, in all the church planting networks that we are aware of, we could only identify 18 churches that have attendance over 200 people, and this is out of many hundreds that have attempted to plant in the Denver area during that time period. For a multitude of reasons Denver has been hard ground for church planters, but God has given us incredible favor. In observing these multitude of church plants try and fail, often with great financial backing and name recognition, a vision of how we might be able to help planters succeed at a much higher rate began to be birthed in our hearts and minds.
Our Vision
Our vision is to see effective, fruitful, vibrant neighborhood churches planted all across America, especially within large cities. We believe a network of churches planted throughout a city have the potential to transform neighborhoods at a very local level, which then has the potential to have an exponential impact on the entire city.
This vision starts with 15 church plants in the greater Denver metro area. As we continue to grow and develop the model we will then be able to help planters in other cities start their own neighborhood movements. These neighborhood churches assist people in coming to faith in Jesus Christ, growing in their faith, and serving their neighbors and community in a way that has the power to transform entire cities. The Neighborhood Church Drive Times graphic is an example of how neighborhood churches can cover a city like Denver and make a large impact by their combined efforts.
Our Strategy
Statistically many church plants struggle and ultimately fail in a city like Denver and similarly in other major cities in America. It's not uncommon for these church plants to be based on very successful models but while these models have worked in other areas, this is frequently not enough. We have found a few key reasons for these failures; lack of on-time coaching, a lack of understanding the culture of that particular city, and a lack of financial resources. The NCC model is designed to ensure the planting team understands the local culture and that the plant is properly supported and coached for success. Furthermore, NCC has established metrics for each church plant to help guide adjustments as they are needed.
NCC Church Plant Metrics
Year Zero:
*Meeting in homes
*50 or more meeting weekly in small groups
*Attending other nearby church
*Reaching out to community, non-profits and neighbors
*Gathering unchurched
Year One:
*20 Baptisms per year (representing 20% of weekly attendance)
*4 to 5 small groups
*75 to 120 people gathering weekly
*Teams demonstrated that support week to week
*50 volunteers every other week
Year Two:
*Fully self-sufficient other than utilizing common NCC systems and processes
*20% of weekly attendance being baptized annually
*Connected to community
*Connected to non-profits in area
*Gather unchurched
*Disciplining people in that context
Year Zero vets the assumption that we understand the culture and have the correct team in place. Year One proves that it can scale and Year Two shows that there is a solid foundation upon which sustainability can be reached.
Jay Pathak
Catalytic Visionary, Coach, Evangelist
* Planted a church in Denver with 12 people that has grown to 1,000 meeting in four locations
* Has coached 100's of church planters from around the country over the past decade
* Author of the book "The Art of Neighboring"
Becca Knudsen
Financial Controller
* Oversight of a multi-million dollar budget
* Sets goals, standards, and timelines for churches and their teams
Jerry Lanier
Communications Expert, Brand Manager
* Has been working in brand development and communications for over a decade.
* Launched a thriving brand development company out of Salt Lake City.
* Oversees branding and communication for churches.
Corey Garris
Coach, Strategist, Multi-Site Consultant, Logistics Expertise
* A coach on the national Vineyard team consulting with dozens of churches as they move to a multi-site model
* Has personally coached and assisted in the launch of approximately 20 campuses and church plants from around the country
Anabeth Morgan
National Vineyard Worship Leader, Song Writer, Trainer
* Written songs that are played in churches world wide
* Sought after musician who has led worship around the world
* Trains and raises up new worship leaders for church plants in Denver
So How Can I Participate?
Currently there are two key ways that we are asking people to participate with us as we continue to grow and plant churches.
Help Plant Churches By Giving To NCC
The NCC model being utilized leverages a central support network that has been formed by Mile High Vineyard and allows for a cost effective church plant while still achieving a high degree of success. The central support cost is $8k per year per church plant thereby greatly reducing the cost that would otherwise be needed for book keeping, a website, graphic support and the many other services provided by the catalytic team and logistics team, allowing the majority of the funding to go directly to covering the pastor's salary, building and equipment, and community outreach.
As can be seen, there is no delay in moving forward with the vision and proper funding will allow this vision to be realized rapidly. Utilizing standard assumptions on attendance, giving and costs from the previous Church plants, NCC is budgeting $274k per church plant for these 11 churches and we are raising $3m from partners that desire to participate in our vision.
We would be honored for you to join us in this way.
Discerning If You Should Plant With NCC
NCC is always looking for church planters that want to discern with us whether or not our network might be right for you to plant with. In order to help potential church planters through this process, we encourage you to think through these 7 steps as you consider becoming part of our church network.
If you would like more information about the Neighborhood City Collective, our structure, or what we are up to in the city we would like to invite you to download our leadership structure diagram or contact us to set up a time to talk!