Mark Jones and Family
Mark, Pam, Carolyn and Amanda

I grew up in Hammond, Indiana, but I have lived in Lincoln, Nebraska for about six years. In 1994 I accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, and I began to sense God's call to ministry two years later. Before being called to ministry, I graduated from Purdue University with a BS in biology and from Indiana University School of Medicine with a PhD in anatomy. I served as an elder and college and career pastor at several churches before coming to Southview Baptist Church in Lincoln, where I currently serve as bivocational youth pastor. My passions are evangelism and teaching. I will be the lead pastor of Community Harvest Church.
My wife, Pam, came to trust Christ as her Lord and Savior about the same time I did. Like me, Pam has a BS in biology from Purdue University. She has worked in the health care profession, but has worked hardest as a stay-at-home mom and home school teacher during the past eight years. Pam has the gift of hospitality, which she uses to serve the youth at Southview.
Carolyn, our older daughter, is a senior at Lincoln Christian High School. She loves basketball and theater, and she is planning to study nursing after graduation. Amanda, our younger daughter, enjoys fifth grade at her home school. Amanda loves to sing and act.
God has increasingly drawn Pam and me towards church planting. We have a burden to see the lost in Lincoln and the state of Nebraska find the hope and joy that comes with following Jesus.

Jeremy Goodding and Family
Jeremy, Iris, Amena, Elliot and Lucas

I was raised the youngest of two in a solid Christian home. God demonstrated His guiding hand early in my life by drawing me to a saving faith at age six. My life was threatened several times by severe asthma between the age of two and eight. I spent most of my childhood in the country where I developed a great love for the animal world and art. As an older teenager, my faith was put to the test when I attended Wahoo (Neb.) High School. I found myself feeling alone, and the desire for true fellowship drew me to Lincoln in search of other believers.
Iris and I met through church youth group and we were married soon after graduation. The Lord blessed us with three children. Our daughter Amena, a fifth-grader, loves to raise rabbits and sell them through her business, Radiant Rabbits. Elliot, our older son, is in third grade. His passion is raising and selling geckos. Lucas is in first grade, and he is into rough housing with our dog, Rosie.
I served as a youth sponsor and an adult ministry deacon at another church before God led my family to Southview Baptist Church. For the past several years, I have had a desire for church planting. I believe this desire was carefully placed in me by the Lord in preparation for future work. God has used me as a friend, mentor and an organizational leader. I believe God gifted me with wisdom and administration, and I have surrendered these gifts to the Lord for the progress of the gospel and the equipping of the saints. I will use these gifts to administrate and direct Community Harvest's programs and to oversee our adult and family ministries.
Iris and I place a high value on the family and believe in a simple approach to the church. The future is something that excites our family very much, as God has placed in us a desire to plant churches, not only in Nebraska but also throughout the world.

Jason Arensdorf and Family
Jason, Jennifer, Faith and Noah

I was born in North Platte, a small town in western Nebraska. I consider my life a miracle, since I was born with a life-threatening heart defect. After several surgeries, doctors told my parents to go home and have another baby; this one is not going to live. But the Lord had different plans for my life.
I met my wife, Jennifer, after graduating from high school. She grew up in Broken Bow, Nebraska, a small town about seventy miles east of Tyron, where I grew up. We met through mutual friends and both ended up moving to Lincoln in 1997 to go to college. We married in December of that same year. We both gave our lives to Christ in February 1999. The Lord has blessed us with two children: Faith, who is seven, and Noah, who is four.
Some time in 2004 I began to have dreams of planting a church in western Nebraska, where I grew up, but I always pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind because I thought they were way too big and crazy to really happen. Recently, as Jennifer and I have started working with the core team members, I began to sense the Lord calling me to full-time ministry as a pastor and church planter. When I recently told Jennifer about the Lord's call, her response was, I knew all along that He was calling you; I just wondered where and when. Lately, I have been awakened during the night by the terrible thought of people in western Nebraska dying without Christ. I feel a deep burden to reach them through church planting.
It is amazing to look back now and see how the Lord has worked and done so much in my life the life of the little baby who wasn't supposed to make it. I am convinced that planting Community Harvest Church will provide the training ground that God will use to prepare me to plant and pastor more churches in the future.

Chris Nichols and Family
Chris, Sarah, and Jonah

I grew up and became a believer in Lincoln, Nebraska, and moved back home in 2007 after twelve years in Bolivar, Missouri, where I graduated from Southwest Baptist University (SBU) and served as lead singer and songwriter of a Christian band, Harvest Blue.

At SBU I earned a degree in communication and theatre, and I also came to realize that I wanted to serve the Lord through music. My Christian band traveled around the Midwest for several years, playing music at festivals, church events, and youth camps, but eventually we reached a point where it was time for us to go in a different direction. I felt led to return home to Lincoln, and once there, I got involved in the music program in my new church. The call to lead music myself, reaching out to people through both contemporary and traditional music, brought me to Community Harvest.

My wife, Sarah, is a preacher's kid and missionary's kid who is no stranger to work in a small church. She too has, throughout her life, wanted to serve the Lord through music, and she is both a singer and an instrumentalist (specializing in the oboe, flute, and recorder). Sarah, who holds a BA in English and sociology and an MA in communication, is passionate about books. She believes that stories, both written and oral, bring people together ---and bring people to Jesus.

Our son, Jonah, is a year and a half old, and he keeps us laughing and exhausted. We named Jonah for my favorite Bible character, who truly desired to serve God but was sometimes limited by his selfish human nature. Nevertheless, God loved him and would not let him run away. Our family believes that God understands our human nature and will draw his chosen ones to him, even when they don't know which way to turn.