Chris is the former co-Pastor of New Life Christian Fellowship in Blacksburg, VA where he served for seven years reaching out to the university community at Virginia Tech and Radford. He and his wife Rachel moved to Richmond in the summer of '07 to join graduates from NLCF who would help seed the Richmond church plant. Chris is passionate about connecting churches and leaders together and reaching out to university areas.  He also serves as the Director & Organizational Architect for Ecclesia, a network of missional churches and serves as a catalyst for starting new communities of faith across Virginia.  In his spare time, he is attempting to finish his doctoral program at Fuller Seminary in Missional Church Leadership.  He is married to his high school sweetheart Rachel, who works as a Manager of Organizational Development.  Rachel's passion is helping women discover their calling and purpose as people made in God's image.

Formally, Nathan has been a pastor for seven years, the last three at Downtown Community Fellowship, a university church in Clemson, SC. His pastoral responsibilities at DCF focused mostly on guiding the vision and leadership of their house church communities. Nathan got his B.A. in communications and has an M.Div from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has an affinity for red wines, gourmet cheeses, literary fiction, film, Bob Dylan, jazz, Premier League soccer, the New York Mets, Africa, Islam, coffee-and-newspaper mornings and staring at the moon. He’s been married to Amie for almost 12 years, and they have three children: Camden (6), Kate (3), and Jackson (1). Nathan and Amie – with kids in tow – hope to move to Richmond sometime this summer.

Mike is the former lead worshipper for the college campus ministry, Campus Initiative at Grace Community Church in Columbia, Md where he served for the last two years. Mike was the lead in birthing this ministry with the vision to partner with the local community colleges, and the University of Md, College Park to the local church. There he has worked to link various campus ministries to the local churches through a dynamic monthly worship service and weekly Bible studies. Mike is passionate about the creative arts and seeking after a lifestyle of worship versus what he calls "the mere hype or trend of the day". He has a BA in Biblical Studies from Columbia Bible College in Vancouver, Canada and plans on continuing his education with a seminary degree. Mike is newly married to the love of his life, Cori.

Brian Hopper

Chris Backert

Nathan Elmore

Brian is a former Young Adults Pastor at Bay Area Community Church. In his life prior to vocational ministry, he was a chef who ran a restaurant/catering business, was a district sales manager for a wholesale foodservice company and the national sales manager for a software firm. In 1996, he started and led the young adults ministry at BACC in Annapolis as a volunteer until he left his career in 2000 to pursue full time ministry. For three years he served as a pastoral intern at BACC preparing for vocational ministry while attending and graduating from Bethel Seminary of the East. In '03 he was hired as the Young Adults Pastor leading Crossroads. In '06, with BACC's vision to plant churches in the Mid Atlantic region in mind, he responded to the call to plant a new church in Richmond, a city that has captured his heart. Brian has been married to Suzi for almost 18 years. They have two really hip and cool teenage daughters, Abby (17) and Ellyn (15).

Mike Stogbuchner

The Richmond Church plant is comprised of people predominantly from two churches, Bay Area Community Church and New Life Christian Fellowship. In the spring of 07, both churches challenged their congregations to help plant a new church in Richmond. Over 50 people responded to help seed this church. Some have moved to Richmond already while others are in the process of changing jobs, selling homes, and moving families to be part of this work. At the moment, we are a closed community while we learn more about the spiritual, relational and social needs of the city and begin to lay our foundation as a church. By the end of summer in 08, we will all have taken up residence in Richmond and come together as one body, united in Christ, to fulfill our mission and calling in the city of Richmond. To find out more about the nature and structure of our church, check out some of the blog entries.

The TEAM...