History and Affiliations

History and Affiliations

Living Hope Church began in 2018 as a partnership between Hometown (then Evergreen) Church in Lakeville, MN and Stonebrook Church in Ames, IA. It continues as a self-governed autonomous church that exists in close fellowship with other local churches and as a member of Northlands a regional fellowship of churches. We join together for activities such as marriage and youth conferences, leaders’ retreats, and leadership training.

Charlie Meyer began his Christian life at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.  Six years later he married Roxanne, the girl of his dreams, and moved to Minneapolis on a church planting team.  For the next 10 years he worked as an electrical engineer while helping Evergreen church grow to be one of the nation’s first multi-site congregations.  In 1996 he was recognized as a pastor and a year later co-founded the third Evergreen location.  For the last 20 years he has led with a growing team of pastors at that location.   During all that time he desired to be a part of planting another church.  In the fall of 2016 he heard that a pastor from his old church in Ames, Iowa was thinking about planting a church in southern Minnesota.

Paul Johnson grew up as part of Evergreen church – his dad was a pastor there.  In 1998 he left home to go to school at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa and joined Stonebrook Church. Within three wonderful weeks in 2004, Paul graduated, went on staff with Reliant Ministries to reach students at ISU, and got married to Christie.  In 2007 he began pastoring at Stonebrook with a focus on leadership development and college students at ISU.  During his time there, Stonebrook has sent 4 teams to plant or support new churches.  He has long had a desire to be sent himself as part of a team.  Paul led a church planting investigation study in early 2016 that led to his fellow pastors releasing him to start looking for a place that fall for a future church plant.

Paul and Charlie met in late 2016 to talk about their common desire to plant a church.  God quickly united their hearts and they began to pray about and explore Rochester.  God’s leading steadily strengthened.  Soon both their churches endorsed the plan and an exciting partnership was born. From late 2017 and into 2018, a team of faith-filled people joined together.  They are ordinary men and women — some from Iowa, some from Minnesota — who understand God’s great desire to reach this world.   They sold their homes and moved their families.  They are trusting in the promises of God to bring Living Hope to Rochester.

We invite you to join with us and be a part of what God is doing through Living Hope Church in Rochester, Minnesota.

Reliant Ministries

Living Hope has staff members who are financially supported through Reliant Ministries – a missionary support organization that helps missionaries raise funds and succeed in ministry.