Aspiration, Qualification, Confirmation​

Every year, there is an opportunity for current elders who have served their 3-year term to roll off the elder board and an opportunity to confirm new elders to take their place. There are three parts to this process of discerning the Holy Spirit’s selection of those who will lead Ascent Church: Aspiration, Qualification and Confirmation. We follow a robust process where we consider those who may aspire to greater leadership at Ascent (aspiration) where we also consider one’s qualification to the office of elder based on 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. We began considering qualified men for this leadership role over this past year, and you are always welcome to “nominate” someone for consideration. Those that come through the qualification phase have walked through a 4-month leadership exploration & training process with existing elders, have expressed interest in taking next steps and have been asked to prayerfully consider the confirmation process, which then includes a number of additional months of continued exploration with the elder team. We are now entering into the final phase of our process: Confirmation.

Joel and Rachel Gheen are both graduates of Lewis-Palmer High School and once upon a time attended church youth group together in this very building back when it was Tri-Lakes Chapel.  They will have been married for 20 years this June.  After spending 2 years on the East Coast for Joel’s graduate school, they returned to Colorado and attended Alethia Christian Church in Colorado Springs where Joel was the lead teaching elder for 7 years.  When Alethia made the difficult decision to disband under healthy circumstances after other key leaders had to move out of state, Joel and Rachel began attending The Ascent Church closer to their Monument home in the summer of 2022 and quickly became members.

Mark Hopkins, who joined Fuller Theological Seminary in 2001, is senior associate professor of Leadership. He has taught at both Pepperdine University and Fuller. Besides academia, Hopkins has pastored churches in a small handful of states in the US for near 20 years and has been on church-planting teams in Russia in the mid-1990s, including directing a plant in St. Petersburg. Presently he serves as Pastor of Ministries at The Ascent Church in beautiful Monument, Colorado.
Finally, he says “I am very happily married for almost 50 years to Ann, my covenant partner and friend! We have two married children and seven fabulous grandchildren, ages 3-19!”