Are gospel movements really possible in the West? Or do they only happen in other places?
According to our Novo team in Western Colorado, the answer is yes! They have been at the center of a gospel movement gaining momentum over the last 17 years. This gospel movement, which started among the homeless and with consistent prayer over a list of 40 names, has grown to form multiple churches and touch multiple communities.
Listen in as members of the Novo team tell the story from its humble beginnings in a small hotel room—room 105.
If you prefer, you can read the story—told by Novo staff members Lee and Kevin—below:
Lee: We were taking a camping trip in Steamboat Lake and it started snowing on us in June. We packed up and headed down to Wolcott and over to Western Colorado. We’d never been over this way. We ended up spending two or three nights here in New Castle. And when we were in that hotel, we started to feel the Lord saying, “You need to leave Fort Collins and move to Newcastle.
Through prayer God began to highlight those who were homeless, so I went looking for them. I had to go one community over, to Glenwood Springs, and began to find the homeless. And as I got to know them over several weeks, they began to tell me, you need to go to room 105 at the Silver Spruce Motel in Glenwood Springs.
I finally went to 105 and I knocked on the door, and this little lady came to the door. I said, “I’ve been praying, and God told me to hang out with the homeless. I was hanging out with them in parks, under bridges, and they told me to come over here.”
And she said, “Well, I’m a retired social worker from Chicago. I moved out here about a year ago and I gave my life to Christ. I was reading in John where it says to, ‘Feed my sheep,’ and God told me to feed his sheep. But I told God, “I need somebody that knows the Bible that can help me.” And she said, “You’re that guy. You’re an answer to my prayers.”
I spent three years in room 105 of the Silver Spruce Motel, starting Discovery Bible Studies, starting to help the homeless begin to know what it means to have relationship with God. And over time we saw a church emerge amongst the homeless.
Another thing that God showed me during that time in prayer was that he was multiplying these small groups of people all over the earth. And I began to see in prayer a picture of God multiplying small groups of disciples all over. And I began to ask God, “Why are you doing it this way?” And God answered, as clearly as I could hear it, “I’m taking back the headship of my church.”
We began to prayer-walk the downtown area in our community. My wife and I formed a list of names and we just started praying over that list of names. That list grew to about 40 people that we were praying for every day, just asking the Lord to work in their lives. In a year’s time we saw 12 of those 40 people come to Christ. And that was through a Discovery Bible Study in our home.
A couple of those people were folks like Kevin and Gina Long. I never will forget Kevin standing up one time in one of our Discovery Bible Studies and he just began to share how the scripture had come alive in his life. And that’s what we want to be about.
Kevin: The overwhelming change was just a super powerful love. My desire to really get in there and help people and to tell them the truth about who God is and what he can do for us was just overpowering for me.
Lee: When we think about gospel movements in the West, a lot of times we’ve seen those gospel movements happen at a slower pace. Or a lot of times we think that it can’t happen here. These are things we see happening overseas, or we maybe read about, but we don’t think, “How could my neighborhood, or how could the coffee shop where I go every day, or how could the school that I work in or my kids go to —how could that be transformed by the Kingdom of God?”
Kevin and Gina would be a good example of that. They were a couple that came in through Discovery. We had prayed for them—they were on our list. They came. They began to follow Jesus. And then as Kevin and Gina did that, they eventually were able to have their own Discovery groups, and form their own churches, and start their own ministries. They’re replicating what they experienced.
Kevin: When I come in contact with people, it’s an opportunity to witness or to minister, to pray with them. Just because I’m on a job, doing something that might not be associated with Kingdom work, does not mean I cannot do the things of the Kingdom during that time. My perspective on the day is this: that God’s will be done, that his agenda plays out, and that the work I perform is secondary to that.
I don’t have all the answers. I just need to point you in the direction of Jesus. That’s it. Because he is a life changer. That’s what he does in people. He can do it in anybody. Seriously, if he can do it in me, he’s got no problem with anybody else.
ABOUT THIS STORY
Lee and Janna Price have lived as missionaries on the Western Slope of Colorado for over 17 years and have seen many people find new life in Christ. They have pioneered a number of local ministry initiatives which helps followers of Jesus become everyday ministry practitioners in whatever missional spaces God has placed them. Lee serves on the Novo Lead Team and loves to develop new disciples through DBS groups that become micro churches.
Kevin and Gina Long joined Lee and Janna’s house church in 2005, where they started following Jesus. They joined Novo in 2020, with a specific desire to help the hurting in their area of Western Colorado. They run a house church, make disciples, and serve those who want to recover from addictions or anything else holding them in bondage.