Outpost Stories
Erick and Kate Monfeldt: Found, Forgiven, and Freed
Kate Monfeldt has always loved Jesus. As a child, she was drawn to His love and captivated by His stories. But as a teenager, she slowly allowed herself to experiment with sin until it captured her in a way that she believed was unforgivable. While she still loved God and wanted to live for Him, she no longer felt loved by Him, and the shift in her thinking led to works-based striving and idol-making. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Erick was growing up with knowledge about God, but without an understanding of the Gospel or an actual knowing ofGod. Read their story to see how the Lord brought them together and transformed their lives through His Word and His people.
Read the full story
When Kate was in second grade, her family settled on a ranch in Cody, where they attended a small and close-knit church that was central to their daily rhythms. Kate loved Jesus from the beginning, and loved studying His word. At fourteen, she overcame her natural shyness to walk forward at a church service and publicly proclaim her faith.
Kate: I had felt the tug on my heart for weeks to go forward, but I was shy and afraid. I made the decision to live fully surrendered to Jesus, and I knew I had to act on it. But after that, during high school, I struggled. I wasn’t surrounded by other believers who wanted to honor God. I wanted to live for Christ, but I also wanted to do what my friends were doing. So, I began saying small yeses to things I knew were wrong. And then those small yeses led to bigger ones, and I found myself partying, and dating a boy who also partied and was not good for me. And then, I graduated high school four-months-pregnant.
Kate’s response to those unexpected circumstances was a mixture of shame and determination. Convinced that she herself was a “lost cause,” she nonetheless fixed her heart on the goal of being a good mom to her baby, and redeeming her mistakes through Christ-honoring motherhood.
K: Through all my wandering, my faith was intact. I was wrestling with sin, but I still loved God. I felt that my sin had brought so much shame, and I didn’t think I could be useful to God any longer. I thought I was cast off from being able to serve Him, and I poured everything into the one thing I thought I could do, which was to be a loving mom to my son - Kaycee.
Kate married Kaycee’s father, but after six months of physical and verbal abuse, she divorced him, needing to protect Kaycee.
K: I was stripped down to nothing. I moved out on my own, found a job, and was taking care of both of us, but I was also depressed. Just going through the motions. It was really difficult.
While riding the roller coaster of her short-lived marriage and divorce, Kate chose to protect her ex-husband by keeping the details to herself. The consequence of her quiet choice was that, in the eyes of her church family, she alone shouldered the blame for their broken marriage vows. Criticism and disapproval made church a challenging place a to be, but Kate kept attending, kept mothering Kaycee whole-heartedly, and kept doing all she could to be a “good, Chistian mom.”
Into this season of young and challenging motherhood came a quiet, kind, and steady friend – a young man named Erick Monfeldt.
Erick: I had grown up Lutheran in Minnesota. We were pretty involved with church when I was young, but became more sporadic when I was in high school, and, in college, I didn’t attend church at all. I moved out to Cody to work, and met Kate. I followed her to church. She’s the one who showed me Jesus.
Kate and Erick were married when Kaycee was two-years-old. At first, they continued attending the small church where Kate had grown up, but the continued awkwardness led them to seek out a new church home – first in Powell and then at a different Cody denomination. For Erick, shifting churches led to self-reflection – and eventually salvation.
E: I remember that the pastor at our church in Powell asked me about baptism. I had been baptized as an infant, and his questions grated me, rubbed me the wrong way. But they also made me think, and led me to seek truth about what baptism really meant. One day, I was sitting in the tractor at work, and I realized that I really didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus yet, and that I wanted one. God brought me into His family that day, right there on the ranch. I was 24 years old when God saved me.
At their new church in Cody, the Monfeldts found friends who shared a seriousness about their pursuit of Christ, who were genuinely kind, and who encouraged them as they continued raising their young boys (eventually, they added three more to their family: Grady, Owen, and Nolan). Their shared faith flourished. Erick was baptized on the same day as Grady.
K: I found a group of women who loved me and who helped me understand, for the first time, that my past sin was not unforgivable. Those ladies helped me to find freedom and grace, to recognize that God still loved me and that His grace was enough for me. I was not a lost cause, after all.
That soul-deep freedom enabled Kate to move back into serving. She loved teaching children, and was passionate about studying God’s Word. Kate became more and more involved in church ministry. Homeschooling their boys, parenting whole-heartedly, and investing in church-life were the main priorities of Kate’s heart and time. Erick was busy with work; life on the ranch demanded countless hours of labor, and Erick willingly made work his highest priority.
"Fear of man and fear of failure motivated me to work harder and longer, and that made it easy for our marriage to keep running on those separate tracks. God started to soften my heart as we shared our struggles in community."
- Erick Monfeldt
K: With Erick busy at work and me busy at church, our marriage settled into two separate but parallel lanes. A subtle drift began to distance us. There was no hostility, there was just a distance between us that eventually created low-level friction. We no longer knew each other deeply.
Around that time, Pastor Greg was returning from his time at Watermark and was preparing to launch Outpost Community Church with a small team. Enticed by the idea of an authentic and Scripture-focused community of believers, the Monfeldts eagerly jumped into the planting process. But the Lord had work to do in their lives and hearts first, tilling spiritual soil and uprooting long-held idols.
E: When Outpost was starting, I definitely felt like I didn’t belong in the room. I had been a believer for a long time, then, but hadn’t ever really read my Bible unless I was preparing a lesson. For the first time, I started to devote daily, because I was being held accountable to that practice of studying Scripture.
Both Erick and Kate had idols that needed toppling. The more Erick studied his Bible, the more he identified areas of his life that needed unraveling and reworking.
E: For so long, I had found my identity in work. I felt valued because of the work I accomplished, and I relied on work to fulfill me. But it never truly filled me. I constantly felt empty. Fear of man and fear of failure motivated me to work harder and longer, and that made it easy for our marriage to keep running on those separate tracks. God started to soften my heart as we shared our struggles in community. I am still tempted to fear man, to hide in my work, to seek validation through the wrong things. But God is working on me.
For Kate, the idol the Lord revealed was the idol of motherhood. From the very beginning, she had found her sense of worth in her success as a mom, and when her children struggled, it was a crippling blow. Prior to that season of church-planting, family life had taken a challenging turn. Kaycee, now a teen on the verge of adulthood, was bucking the rules and accountability his parents provided. And, just before his 18th birthday, he moved out of the family home, a decision that devastated Kate.
K: I had made raising the boys an idol. I wanted so much to be a good mom. That led to deep despair when my kids failed. And when Kaycee left, I felt like God had abandoned me. I felt like I had been faithful, and I had prayed diligently for my son, and God was letting me down. I was so angry. I stopped listening to worship music. I stopped reading my Bible. I wanted to run from God.
But God wasn’t willing to let Kate go. He kept pursuing her. He used the comforting words of a friend to point her back to the Lord.
K: I sought solace in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” I realized that God was never going to let me go. His hand was on me, and He was going to keep drawing me back. Since then, we have seen such redemption and goodness in Kaycee’s life. That season was used by God to purify my heart, as well as to refine Kaycee. I learned that I needed to surrender my kids – and my parenting – to God.
E: God also worked on me during that time to teach me how to love Kaycee well. Being a stepparent was hard, and I did not always meet the challenge well. We have seen such forgiveness, grace, and healing in our relationship.
Through the sweet openness of their community, the two lanes of the Monfeldts’ marriage have slowly merged back together. Softened hearts, redefined personal priorities, and a willingness to listen and share have been the fruits of the Lord’s work in their once-drifting union. Where Kate’s directness used to lead to Erick withdrawing, he is now able to receive honest criticism with a tender heart.
E: God has given me wisdom, and willingness, and a “want-to” in our marriage. I now want to share openly and communicate more clearly in our marriage. The changes we have seen in our individual lives and in our marriage have come through our community team, through our commitment to devoting daily, and through the ministry of ReGen.
Both Kate and Erick credit their time in ReGen and the sometimes-challenging encouragement of their community team with equipping them for growth and change. While the path to spiritual understanding hasn’t always been easy, the truth of the Gospel remains simple and life-changing.
"Because, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
Romans 10:9-10
Outpost Stories
Erick and Kate Monfeldt: Found, Forgiven, and Freed
Kate Monfeldt has always loved Jesus. As a child, she was drawn to His love and captivated by His stories. But as a teenager, she slowly allowed herself to experiment with sin until it captured her in a way that she believed was unforgivable. While she still loved God and wanted to live for Him, she no longer felt loved by Him, and the shift in her thinking led to works-based striving and idol-making. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Erick was growing up with knowledge about God, but without an understanding of the Gospel or an actual knowing ofGod. Read their story to see how the Lord brought them together and transformed their lives through His Word and His people.
Read the full story
When Kate was in second grade, her family settled on a ranch in Cody, where they attended a small and close-knit church that was central to their daily rhythms. Kate loved Jesus from the beginning, and loved studying His word. At fourteen, she overcame her natural shyness to walk forward at a church service and publicly proclaim her faith.
Kate: I had felt the tug on my heart for weeks to go forward, but I was shy and afraid. I made the decision to live fully surrendered to Jesus, and I knew I had to act on it. But after that, during high school, I struggled. I wasn’t surrounded by other believers who wanted to honor God. I wanted to live for Christ, but I also wanted to do what my friends were doing. So, I began saying small yeses to things I knew were wrong. And then those small yeses led to bigger ones, and I found myself partying, and dating a boy who also partied and was not good for me. And then, I graduated high school four-months-pregnant.
Kate’s response to those unexpected circumstances was a mixture of shame and determination. Convinced that she herself was a “lost cause,” she nonetheless fixed her heart on the goal of being a good mom to her baby, and redeeming her mistakes through Christ-honoring motherhood.
K: Through all my wandering, my faith was intact. I was wrestling with sin, but I still loved God. I felt that my sin had brought so much shame, and I didn’t think I could be useful to God any longer. I thought I was cast off from being able to serve Him, and I poured everything into the one thing I thought I could do, which was to be a loving mom to my son - Kaycee.
Kate married Kaycee’s father, but after six months of physical and verbal abuse, she divorced him, needing to protect Kaycee.
K: I was stripped down to nothing. I moved out on my own, found a job, and was taking care of both of us, but I was also depressed. Just going through the motions. It was really difficult.
While riding the roller coaster of her short-lived marriage and divorce, Kate chose to protect her ex-husband by keeping the details to herself. The consequence of her quiet choice was that, in the eyes of her church family, she alone shouldered the blame for their broken marriage vows. Criticism and disapproval made church a challenging place a to be, but Kate kept attending, kept mothering Kaycee whole-heartedly, and kept doing all she could to be a “good, Chistian mom.”
Into this season of young and challenging motherhood came a quiet, kind, and steady friend – a young man named Erick Monfeldt.
Erick: I had grown up Lutheran in Minnesota. We were pretty involved with church when I was young, but became more sporadic when I was in high school, and, in college, I didn’t attend church at all. I moved out to Cody to work, and met Kate. I followed her to church. She’s the one who showed me Jesus.
Kate and Erick were married when Kaycee was two-years-old. At first, they continued attending the small church where Kate had grown up, but the continued awkwardness led them to seek out a new church home – first in Powell and then at a different Cody denomination. For Erick, shifting churches led to self-reflection – and eventually salvation.
E: I remember that the pastor at our church in Powell asked me about baptism. I had been baptized as an infant, and his questions grated me, rubbed me the wrong way. But they also made me think, and led me to seek truth about what baptism really meant. One day, I was sitting in the tractor at work, and I realized that I really didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus yet, and that I wanted one. God brought me into His family that day, right there on the ranch. I was 24 years old when God saved me.
At their new church in Cody, the Monfeldts found friends who shared a seriousness about their pursuit of Christ, who were genuinely kind, and who encouraged them as they continued raising their young boys (eventually, they added three more to their family: Grady, Owen, and Nolan). Their shared faith flourished. Erick was baptized on the same day as Grady.
K: I found a group of women who loved me and who helped me understand, for the first time, that my past sin was not unforgivable. Those ladies helped me to find freedom and grace, to recognize that God still loved me and that His grace was enough for me. I was not a lost cause, after all.
That soul-deep freedom enabled Kate to move back into serving. She loved teaching children, and was passionate about studying God’s Word. Kate became more and more involved in church ministry. Homeschooling their boys, parenting whole-heartedly, and investing in church-life were the main priorities of Kate’s heart and time. Erick was busy with work; life on the ranch demanded countless hours of labor, and Erick willingly made work his highest priority.
"Fear of man and fear of failure motivated me to work harder and longer, and that made it easy for our marriage to keep running on those separate tracks. God started to soften my heart as we shared our struggles in community."
- Erick Monfeldt
K: With Erick busy at work and me busy at church, our marriage settled into two separate but parallel lanes. A subtle drift began to distance us. There was no hostility, there was just a distance between us that eventually created low-level friction. We no longer knew each other deeply.
Around that time, Pastor Greg was returning from his time at Watermark and was preparing to launch Outpost Community Church with a small team. Enticed by the idea of an authentic and Scripture-focused community of believers, the Monfeldts eagerly jumped into the planting process. But the Lord had work to do in their lives and hearts first, tilling spiritual soil and uprooting long-held idols.
E: When Outpost was starting, I definitely felt like I didn’t belong in the room. I had been a believer for a long time, then, but hadn’t ever really read my Bible unless I was preparing a lesson. For the first time, I started to devote daily, because I was being held accountable to that practice of studying Scripture.
Both Erick and Kate had idols that needed toppling. The more Erick studied his Bible, the more he identified areas of his life that needed unraveling and reworking.
E: For so long, I had found my identity in work. I felt valued because of the work I accomplished, and I relied on work to fulfill me. But it never truly filled me. I constantly felt empty. Fear of man and fear of failure motivated me to work harder and longer, and that made it easy for our marriage to keep running on those separate tracks. God started to soften my heart as we shared our struggles in community. I am still tempted to fear man, to hide in my work, to seek validation through the wrong things. But God is working on me.
For Kate, the idol the Lord revealed was the idol of motherhood. From the very beginning, she had found her sense of worth in her success as a mom, and when her children struggled, it was a crippling blow. Prior to that season of church-planting, family life had taken a challenging turn. Kaycee, now a teen on the verge of adulthood, was bucking the rules and accountability his parents provided. And, just before his 18th birthday, he moved out of the family home, a decision that devastated Kate.
K: I had made raising the boys an idol. I wanted so much to be a good mom. That led to deep despair when my kids failed. And when Kaycee left, I felt like God had abandoned me. I felt like I had been faithful, and I had prayed diligently for my son, and God was letting me down. I was so angry. I stopped listening to worship music. I stopped reading my Bible. I wanted to run from God.
But God wasn’t willing to let Kate go. He kept pursuing her. He used the comforting words of a friend to point her back to the Lord.
K: I sought solace in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” I realized that God was never going to let me go. His hand was on me, and He was going to keep drawing me back. Since then, we have seen such redemption and goodness in Kaycee’s life. That season was used by God to purify my heart, as well as to refine Kaycee. I learned that I needed to surrender my kids – and my parenting – to God.
E: God also worked on me during that time to teach me how to love Kaycee well. Being a stepparent was hard, and I did not always meet the challenge well. We have seen such forgiveness, grace, and healing in our relationship.
Through the sweet openness of their community, the two lanes of the Monfeldts’ marriage have slowly merged back together. Softened hearts, redefined personal priorities, and a willingness to listen and share have been the fruits of the Lord’s work in their once-drifting union. Where Kate’s directness used to lead to Erick withdrawing, he is now able to receive honest criticism with a tender heart.
E: God has given me wisdom, and willingness, and a “want-to” in our marriage. I now want to share openly and communicate more clearly in our marriage. The changes we have seen in our individual lives and in our marriage have come through our community team, through our commitment to devoting daily, and through the ministry of ReGen.
Both Kate and Erick credit their time in ReGen and the sometimes-challenging encouragement of their community team with equipping them for growth and change. While the path to spiritual understanding hasn’t always been easy, the truth of the Gospel remains simple and life-changing.
"Because, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
Romans 10:9-10
Outpost Stories
Erick and Kate Monfeldt: Found, Forgiven, and Freed
Kate Monfeldt has always loved Jesus. As a child, she was drawn to His love and captivated by His stories. But as a teenager, she slowly allowed herself to experiment with sin until it captured her in a way that she believed was unforgivable. While she still loved God and wanted to live for Him, she no longer felt loved by Him, and the shift in her thinking led to works-based striving and idol-making. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Erick was growing up with knowledge about God, but without an understanding of the Gospel or an actual knowing ofGod. Read their story to see how the Lord brought them together and transformed their lives through His Word and His people.
Read the full story
When Kate was in second grade, her family settled on a ranch in Cody, where they attended a small and close-knit church that was central to their daily rhythms. Kate loved Jesus from the beginning, and loved studying His word. At fourteen, she overcame her natural shyness to walk forward at a church service and publicly proclaim her faith.
Kate: I had felt the tug on my heart for weeks to go forward, but I was shy and afraid. I made the decision to live fully surrendered to Jesus, and I knew I had to act on it. But after that, during high school, I struggled. I wasn’t surrounded by other believers who wanted to honor God. I wanted to live for Christ, but I also wanted to do what my friends were doing. So, I began saying small yeses to things I knew were wrong. And then those small yeses led to bigger ones, and I found myself partying, and dating a boy who also partied and was not good for me. And then, I graduated high school four-months-pregnant.
Kate’s response to those unexpected circumstances was a mixture of shame and determination. Convinced that she herself was a “lost cause,” she nonetheless fixed her heart on the goal of being a good mom to her baby, and redeeming her mistakes through Christ-honoring motherhood.
K: Through all my wandering, my faith was intact. I was wrestling with sin, but I still loved God. I felt that my sin had brought so much shame, and I didn’t think I could be useful to God any longer. I thought I was cast off from being able to serve Him, and I poured everything into the one thing I thought I could do, which was to be a loving mom to my son - Kaycee.
Kate married Kaycee’s father, but after six months of physical and verbal abuse, she divorced him, needing to protect Kaycee.
K: I was stripped down to nothing. I moved out on my own, found a job, and was taking care of both of us, but I was also depressed. Just going through the motions. It was really difficult.
While riding the roller coaster of her short-lived marriage and divorce, Kate chose to protect her ex-husband by keeping the details to herself. The consequence of her quiet choice was that, in the eyes of her church family, she alone shouldered the blame for their broken marriage vows. Criticism and disapproval made church a challenging place a to be, but Kate kept attending, kept mothering Kaycee whole-heartedly, and kept doing all she could to be a “good, Chistian mom.”
Into this season of young and challenging motherhood came a quiet, kind, and steady friend – a young man named Erick Monfeldt.
Erick: I had grown up Lutheran in Minnesota. We were pretty involved with church when I was young, but became more sporadic when I was in high school, and, in college, I didn’t attend church at all. I moved out to Cody to work, and met Kate. I followed her to church. She’s the one who showed me Jesus.
Kate and Erick were married when Kaycee was two-years-old. At first, they continued attending the small church where Kate had grown up, but the continued awkwardness led them to seek out a new church home – first in Powell and then at a different Cody denomination. For Erick, shifting churches led to self-reflection – and eventually salvation.
E: I remember that the pastor at our church in Powell asked me about baptism. I had been baptized as an infant, and his questions grated me, rubbed me the wrong way. But they also made me think, and led me to seek truth about what baptism really meant. One day, I was sitting in the tractor at work, and I realized that I really didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus yet, and that I wanted one. God brought me into His family that day, right there on the ranch. I was 24 years old when God saved me.
At their new church in Cody, the Monfeldts found friends who shared a seriousness about their pursuit of Christ, who were genuinely kind, and who encouraged them as they continued raising their young boys (eventually, they added three more to their family: Grady, Owen, and Nolan). Their shared faith flourished. Erick was baptized on the same day as Grady.
K: I found a group of women who loved me and who helped me understand, for the first time, that my past sin was not unforgivable. Those ladies helped me to find freedom and grace, to recognize that God still loved me and that His grace was enough for me. I was not a lost cause, after all.
That soul-deep freedom enabled Kate to move back into serving. She loved teaching children, and was passionate about studying God’s Word. Kate became more and more involved in church ministry. Homeschooling their boys, parenting whole-heartedly, and investing in church-life were the main priorities of Kate’s heart and time. Erick was busy with work; life on the ranch demanded countless hours of labor, and Erick willingly made work his highest priority.
"Fear of man and fear of failure motivated me to work harder and longer, and that made it easy for our marriage to keep running on those separate tracks. God started to soften my heart as we shared our struggles in community."
- Erick Monfeldt
K: With Erick busy at work and me busy at church, our marriage settled into two separate but parallel lanes. A subtle drift began to distance us. There was no hostility, there was just a distance between us that eventually created low-level friction. We no longer knew each other deeply.
Around that time, Pastor Greg was returning from his time at Watermark and was preparing to launch Outpost Community Church with a small team. Enticed by the idea of an authentic and Scripture-focused community of believers, the Monfeldts eagerly jumped into the planting process. But the Lord had work to do in their lives and hearts first, tilling spiritual soil and uprooting long-held idols.
E: When Outpost was starting, I definitely felt like I didn’t belong in the room. I had been a believer for a long time, then, but hadn’t ever really read my Bible unless I was preparing a lesson. For the first time, I started to devote daily, because I was being held accountable to that practice of studying Scripture.
Both Erick and Kate had idols that needed toppling. The more Erick studied his Bible, the more he identified areas of his life that needed unraveling and reworking.
E: For so long, I had found my identity in work. I felt valued because of the work I accomplished, and I relied on work to fulfill me. But it never truly filled me. I constantly felt empty. Fear of man and fear of failure motivated me to work harder and longer, and that made it easy for our marriage to keep running on those separate tracks. God started to soften my heart as we shared our struggles in community. I am still tempted to fear man, to hide in my work, to seek validation through the wrong things. But God is working on me.
For Kate, the idol the Lord revealed was the idol of motherhood. From the very beginning, she had found her sense of worth in her success as a mom, and when her children struggled, it was a crippling blow. Prior to that season of church-planting, family life had taken a challenging turn. Kaycee, now a teen on the verge of adulthood, was bucking the rules and accountability his parents provided. And, just before his 18th birthday, he moved out of the family home, a decision that devastated Kate.
K: I had made raising the boys an idol. I wanted so much to be a good mom. That led to deep despair when my kids failed. And when Kaycee left, I felt like God had abandoned me. I felt like I had been faithful, and I had prayed diligently for my son, and God was letting me down. I was so angry. I stopped listening to worship music. I stopped reading my Bible. I wanted to run from God.
But God wasn’t willing to let Kate go. He kept pursuing her. He used the comforting words of a friend to point her back to the Lord.
K: I sought solace in John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” I realized that God was never going to let me go. His hand was on me, and He was going to keep drawing me back. Since then, we have seen such redemption and goodness in Kaycee’s life. That season was used by God to purify my heart, as well as to refine Kaycee. I learned that I needed to surrender my kids – and my parenting – to God.
E: God also worked on me during that time to teach me how to love Kaycee well. Being a stepparent was hard, and I did not always meet the challenge well. We have seen such forgiveness, grace, and healing in our relationship.
Through the sweet openness of their community, the two lanes of the Monfeldts’ marriage have slowly merged back together. Softened hearts, redefined personal priorities, and a willingness to listen and share have been the fruits of the Lord’s work in their once-drifting union. Where Kate’s directness used to lead to Erick withdrawing, he is now able to receive honest criticism with a tender heart.
E: God has given me wisdom, and willingness, and a “want-to” in our marriage. I now want to share openly and communicate more clearly in our marriage. The changes we have seen in our individual lives and in our marriage have come through our community team, through our commitment to devoting daily, and through the ministry of ReGen.
Both Kate and Erick credit their time in ReGen and the sometimes-challenging encouragement of their community team with equipping them for growth and change. While the path to spiritual understanding hasn’t always been easy, the truth of the Gospel remains simple and life-changing.
"Because, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
Romans 10:9-10