Editor’s note: October is Cooperative Program Emphasis Month in the Southern Baptist Convention.
LAS VEGAS (BP) – For Hope Church Las Vegas, planting churches throughout the city has always been a priority and a passion.
Even before he became president of the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) Send Network, Hope’s founding pastor Vance Pitman viewed church multiplication as a priority, he told Baptist Press in written comments.
“God sometimes builds His Kingdom in the most unlikely places, and He invited us to simply join in His activity in Las Vegas by being obedient to engage that city with the Gospel,” Pitman said. “As disciples were made, churches were born.”
Pitman joined Send Network in March 2022, but not before leaving a generational legacy of church planting in Las Vegas.
One particular branch stemming from Hope Church is in the process of sending out its fourth church in the city. WALK Church has benefited from the support of both Send Network and the Cooperative Program.
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Heiden Ratner is the senior pastor of WALK Church, which he planted in the very town where he grew up.
After becoming a Christian during his freshman year of college, Ratner felt an immediate calling to reach Vegas with the Gospel.
“When I became a believer, I felt like I caught a passion for evangelism, specifically in my hometown of Las Vegas,” Ratner said. “I wanted to be the change that I didn’t see and didn’t have growing up.”
Upon a recommendation, Ratner would start attending Hope Church during the summers when he was home from school.
Ratner had never been to church before and wasn’t even aware there were churches in
Vegas. But he soon discovered that Hope Church met on Sundays in the very same gym where he played high school basketball.
Pitman began mentoring Ratner, who would begin a two-year church-planting apprenticeship with Send Network in 2013.
“I felt like God was calling me to plant a church one day, and I wanted Hope to be the sending church,” Ratner said.
“Pastor Vance invited me into his life in discipling and mentoring me for several years, and the Send Network apprenticeship was an opportunity for me to learn what it means to be a pastor and grow my understanding of church planting and disciple-making.”
In the fall of 2015, WALK Church was launched. A few years later in the fall of 2020, Ratner would step into a new position as the NAMB Send City missionary for Las Vegas.
