The story of central Iowa’s Engage Network

By Darrell Goemaat

“This whole thing started because I didn’t get my way,” says Pastor Pat Nemmers, lead pastor of Saylorville Church in Des Moines, Iowa. “And that’s why I love telling this story, because it puts me in my place.”

Pat explains that God used a humbling experience to launch the central Iowa Engage Network that now consists of six churches. Five of them are church plants that began 15 years ago at Saylorville.

Pat remembers walking into church one Monday feeling depressed after a dismal offering was received for a church building project that he was pushing. Saylorville had just raised a million dollars to expand and remodel the church auditorium it had outgrown.

“Lots of good things were happening,” Pat says. “We had just raised a bunch of money to expand our sanctuary, and I thought the most spiritual thing for a church of 500 to do is build a gymnasium. I mean, that’s what a godly church does, right?”