John Pope

Pastoral Resident at Redmption Church Gateway

John grew up in Cincinnati, OH, and Amy grew up in southwest AZ. John attended Wright State University where he majored in communications. Amy attended Eastern Arizona College where she majored in nursing. While John was attending seminary in North Carolina he had a summer job as a traveling camp speaker throughout the western United States. During his last summer of doing that he met Amy and within the next 2 years they were married. Upon graduating seminary John did a church planting residency with Treasuring Christ Church, and one year later he and Amy were sent out to plant their first church. Since 2011 they have been planting Refuge City Church in Dayton, OH. In 2017 they began to believe it was time to hand that work off to someone else and plant another church out west. John began networking to see if there would be a church willing to adopt them for a few years, allow them to do a residency with them, and then plant a church in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Through many contacts, God kept pointing them to Redemption Church. John reached out to pastor Luke Simmons and eventually they agreed Redemption would be a good fit for the Pope family.

John will be doing his new church planting residency with Redemption Gateway that will be overseen by pastor Luke Simmons. John and Amy both have a strong desire to see the Kingdom of God advance through intentional discipleship, evangelism, and soulful leadership. John and Amy are excited to see what Jesus will teach them from the Redemption leadership and saints. The hope is John can raise enough support to serve as at least a 3-year resident. This will allow him to maximize his time with Redemption Gateway to build a core group and learn about planting in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

John and Amy have four children (Abigail, John Jr., Damaris, and Naomi).