Today a new stake was organized in Colorado. This becomes the first time a new stake has been created in Colorado since 2004 when the Castle Rock Colorado Stake was organized. The Parker Colorado Stake, which had 14 wards, was divided to create the Parker Colorado South Stake. Being a Colorado native who lived in the Parker Colorado Stake from its creation in 1996 to 2003, I have witnesses the growth of the Church in this area as the Parker Colorado Stake was created from the Willow Creek Colorado Stake in 1996 and the Castle Rock Colorado Stake was created from the Parker Colorado Stake in 2003. The number of LDS wards in Castle Rock increased from one in 1990 to eight in early 2011. There were 2,700 members in the original Parker Colorado Stake in 1996 and today there are 9,600 in the three stakes that are within the original boundaries of the Parker Colorado Stake. The rapid growth of the Church in Douglas County has come almost entirely from new move-ins from other areas. Many additional housing developments are planned or in the construction phase in Parker and Castle Rock but are on hold due to the housing crisis. Located just north of the Parker Colorado Stake, the Arapahoe Colorado Stake currently has 13 wards and will likely split into two stakes anytime as a new stake center was completed a couple years ago in the area.
There are now 31 stakes in Colorado.
4 comments:
I served in both Parker and Castle Rock while on my mission there in 93-94. When I first got there there was two wards in Castle Rock and I think two wards in Parker. It is awesome to see the growth there.
Oh and one mission in Colorado when I first got there to three missions now. The second came 6 months after I got there.
This site is GREAT Matt! You need to get it a twitter account and tweet all these new posts. I've been tweeting them out whenever I see them and I'm sure the LDS out there are all thrilled when they read such great news about the growth of the church - like a stone cut out of a mountain!
Matt:
I didn't know you used to live here in the Parker Stake! My wife and I have lived here for almost 6 years, having moved to Colorado from Washington DC. What's very interesting is the relatively high percentage of LDS within the general populace of the Parker community -- the number I hear most often quoted is about 10%, which is quite high for an area not along the Alberta-to-Juarez corridor.
You might also note that two wards in the stake were split just before the stake itself was split, and there are two wards in our (now shrunken) Parker Stake that are likely to split as well, which would take us from 7 back up to 9 wards (we had 14 wards before the split).
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