Christian Church will celebrate 30 years of ministry in the Estes Valley

The Christian Church of Estes Park will mark its 30^th anniversary Sunday with a worship service at 10 a.m. that will include a video retrospective.

Aaron Dorman, lead pastor of the congregation, said the 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning services will be combined Sunday morning so the entire congregation—some 200 people—can gather together for the celebration.

According to Dorman, the Christian Church, which has three full time pastors and several non-staff elders, looks for ways to serve both its members and the larger community. Within the next 10 years, the church plans to have its benevolent giving outpace its operational budget, Dorman said.

The church supports Crossroads Ministry and they have an active youth ministry. In addition to groups for middle and high school students and an annual Vacation Bible School program, the Praise Place serves younger children, and a mission service trip is being planned for March during Spring Break.

Additionally, to engage teens in a fun but mentored activity, Dorman, who coaches football, has developed a niche ministry where kids and adults get together to play Airsoft, a team-based action pursuit sport.

“I started it years ago with paintball. I am a football coach, and one day after practice, I saw there were more kids at the skate park than there were on my football team,” said Dorman, who coaches for the Estes Park Bobcats.

“I knew nothing about these kids, but they did not have any adults around. No one was there to mentor them. So, I showed up and started to get to know some of them, and it just broke my heart. So many of them just had some really rough situations in their lives. That is one of the reasons I like coaching because youth need to have the support of their community,” Dorman said.

He talked with the church elders about ways to reach out and engage the kids. One of the ideas was to host some paintball opportunities, “Our church has 10 acres, and we are right on the National Forest and boy, that took off,” said Dorman.

Kids began to come out twice a week for practice and to prepare for competitions. And just as the ministry was taking off, the technology changed with the introduction of Airsoft which uses soft plastic pellets rather than paint filled balls.

Dorman said the activity has been a fun way for teens, mostly males, and their dads to have a physical and competitive activity which provides opportunities for both camaraderie and mentoring.

“In our current culture, especially in Estes, most parents have to work a lot and often multiple jobs. We looked at the needs that a lot of these youth have, there is a lot of issues that teens today have to deal with that I certainly did not have to when I was growing up,” said Dorman.

The non-denominational church began in November 1994. It met for a while at the Inn of Estes then moved for a few years to the Masonic Lodge on S. St. Vrain Avenue. Some of the first ministers to serve the church were Brad Bowker and Scott Weber. In October 1999, when Frank Lane was ready to sell his square-dancing venue, the Dance Ranch, a 4,900 square foot venue on U.S. Highway 36 a few miles south of town, the Christian Church bought the building and moved in.

The church community also purchased several acres adjacent to the building for parking and with an eye on future expansion. Three years later, a two-story addition was added which included a kitchen, classrooms, offices, and a multiuse lower level.

Dorman was raised in Estes Park and attended Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church where he received his First Communion and was Confirmed. After graduating from Estes Park High in 1995, he attended college in Sterling, Kan. He married and returned to Estes Park, joined the Christian Church, and after completing his degree in 2003, he became an associate pastor and then stepped into the role as lead pastor in 2013 after Weber retired.