Nearly one year ago, a small group of church members walked through the doors of an Adventist Community Services building in Bridgeton, Missouri, with a shared conviction and more than a few nerves. They weren’t pastors or theologians. They were laypeople who felt the pull to do more—and had said yes to something that would change them.
The Iowa-Missouri Conference’s IM Called School of Evangelism and Discipleship launched on June 23, 2025, and concluded last September. In the months since, the fruit of that first class has continued to grow: dozens of lives touched and a new congregation now meeting every Sabbath in Wentzville, Missouri.
The idea began with a phone call. Conference president Lee Rochholz reached out to Pastor Jeremy Clark, who also serves as the conference’s Bible worker director, with a question that set everything in motion.
“He basically asked me, ‘What if we could start a school of evangelism to help our laity go out in the field and win souls for God’s kingdom?'” Clark recalled. “The prayer is always for laborers. We thought, what can we do to encourage and grow that base?”
Clark and co-instructor Rob Alfalla, the conference evangelist, designed the school around two pillars: theological depth and practical field experience. Classroom sessions ran on Mondays and Wednesdays, while Tuesdays and Thursdays sent students door to door across St. Louis neighborhoods in partnership with a local church.
“Personal spirituality feeds everything else,” Alfalla said. “You could have every 28 fundamental belief memorized, but if you don’t have a relationship with Jesus, it doesn’t do anything.”
Lives shaped—from both sides of the door
Among the students whose stories stood out was Megan Cooper, whose path to Bible work was anything but conventional. After a decade of trafficking and exploitation, she was reached by a Christian agency called New Name, and later received a year of faithful weekly Bible studies from Elder Fred Schiller and his wife, Lynn, during Covid.
“It’s just a beautiful thing to see how God can bring things full circle,” Cooper said. “It really prompted me to want to be a Bible worker myself.”
By graduation, Cooper and her classmates had studied with people from different denominations, prayed for strangers at gas stations, and knocked on doors in neighborhoods that tested their courage.
“Walking up to the door sometimes is hard,” one student said. “But I feel like I’ve gained more courage to do things.” Another recalled a return visit to a family who met them at the door with a smile, already waiting. “They were so happy to see us. That was just amazing.”
A campaign in Wentzville—and a church taking root
The school’s first year concluded with a Prophecies of Hope evangelistic campaign led by Alfalla in Wentzville, a growing community in the northwestern St. Louis metro area. The campaign reached people both through public meetings and through personal Bible studies conducted by the school’s students—resulting in 12 baptismal requests in total. By the final night, 24 guests had accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior, and five were baptized, joined by 19 who committed to a new small group that would become the seed of a worshiping congregation.
As of May 2026, that group meets every Sabbath at a rented location in Wentzville, averaging 15 to 30 attendees. Each week includes a song, a prayer, and a small-group Bible study, while leadership searches for a more permanent home for the growing fellowship.
“We want to plant churches. We want to take God’s Word out,” Clark said. “We want to start a fire that cannot be put out. If not now, when?”
As IM Called approaches its one year anniversary, leadership is developing an “IM Called On The Road” model to bring training modules directly to congregations across the conference.
“The harvest is great,” Alfalla said, “but the laborers are few.”
Learn more, including information about future cohorts, at imsda.org/imcalled.
