When Molly told her husband, “What if we started a church or movement online? That’s where the young professionals live, after all,” she meant it as a joke. The couple had just moved to Denver, and when the Covid lockdown began, they looked at their idea with new eyes. Neither of them had even had an Instagram account, but they knew that God had put young professionals on their hearts, and the best way to connect with young people was online.
After a “huge life change” later in life when they came to know Christ, the couple
worked in disciple making ministry on a college campus for 12 years. Students “would leave college and they would go to the city,” Molly remembers, “and a lot of times we just didn’t know what was there for them . . . A lot of them weren’t just going to walk into churches and pursue that, but we saw there is still spiritual interest.” So, four years ago, they hired someone to start an Instagram account posting relevant information for young professionals, called The Brook.
From the account, young people could find “I’m New” form. So many people filled out the forms that Molly was video calling respondents all day, talking with “young professionals who are interested in learning about community connections, relationships, and eventually God.” As the response grew, the couple realized that the tools they learned from their disciple making background weren’t “quite enough.” “What the Lord was doing was bigger than we had previously [been] used to,” Molly explains, “in terms of not just multiplying individual disciples but simple churches, groups of people.”
When the nascent ministry was introduced to Zúme, it “opened [their] eyes.” Here were the tools they needed to keep up with the work God was doing, tools that could work both online and in person, an intertwined approach that would strengthen their impact like twine twisted together into a rope. After going through the Zúme training, The Brook’s 40 leaders turned around and repeated the same training for ten weeks. “That was like the turning point in our ministry, when we really started seeing multiplication happen more rapidly,” says Molly. “Over this last year, we have seen a huge increase and seen simple churches reproduced more rapidly because of the training that started about a year ago.”
Now, The Brook continues to connect respondents to form simple church groups,
bringing connection and the community of God to lonely young people in one of America’s most transient cities. “If there’s a niche or somewhere that you feel like God’s calling you,” Molly encourages, “go for it. Step out in faith. When I started The Brook, I didn’t even know anything about social media . . . but I think when God puts a vision on your heart, He will equip you.”
