Church Planting Profile
Hometown USA, Growing Tech Hub, and in Need of the Gospel
Verona is one of Wisconsin's fastest growing cities, home to the healthcare software giant Epic and just outside of the state capital Madison. Subdivisions are going up on every edge and Epic's campus infrastructure never stops growing, yet there's a rural-adjacent side too: farms right outside the city, the occasional tractor, a genuine small-town grocery store where they walk your bags out to the car.
Verona is both Hometown, USA and a growing tech hub all in one.
Field note — At a coffee shop
At Alice Good Specialty Coffee on a Wednesday morning, you will find young professionals taking video calls for work, farmers stopping in for a quick cup, empty nesters finishing off a bike ride, high schoolers on summer break, and even several different languages spoken. The coffee, only sourced from Colombia, and the environments are warm and welcoming, as the baristas smile as their friends stop by for a short visit.
Across the street you will find Miller and Sons supermarket, a century old grocer where your bags are still walked to your car. The cheese curds are right next to the sushi station, and the cashier comments happily on both on the way out.
The city of Verona is upwardly mobile and wealthy, but it still isn't enough. Financing the future is the number one life concern residents have, followed by personal health and a fear of the unknown.
Verona is a case study from the great dechurching. Even though it is less religious than even nearby Madison, its residents are not hard-core sceptics but indifferent cultural Catholics and Lutherans. Many went to see a niece's baptism but will not even go on holidays themselves. Church is at best an optional choice for living life. However, on this blank slate, many from Verona are looking for a friendly invitation and are welcome to a warm community when they visit a church.
There are only around ten churches in Verona for this growing city. Like the county itself, the church: population ratio is about 1:1,500. Most of the churches in Verona are old mainline churches (including ELCA, UMC, and UCC), Catholic, WELS, or one of the several independent Baptist and Bible Churches around the area. There are several churches on the West side of Madison that can reach into the area, but very few churches in Verona itself are gospel based.
Every congregation in Verona, plotted against the city limits
Catholic & mainline 5 Evangelical and/or confessional 5Population, with Census-based projections
Bars start at zero. Source: Census Bureau; Synergos Technologies.
Share of residents by race and ethnicity
The Asian and Pacific Islander share is growing; the Hispanic community is long-established. Source: Census Bureau; Mosaic® USA.
All ten district schools, by state report-card rating
No school in the district falls below "meets expectations."
Over the last five years, the city has grown by over 20%, and it is expected to keep growing by 16% over the next five years — from 16,685 people in 2025, up to 19,494 by 2030, and even 21,520 by 2035. It is largely affluent and highly educated. Although predominantly white, there is a growing Asian and Pacific Islander population as well as an existing Hispanic community. Like much of the United States, Verona has a growing number of retirees, but it also is experiencing a boom in singles and young families as well, which may be 15% of the population by 2035.
Verona is twenty minutes from downtown Madison, with access to the state capital (including the largest producer-only farmers' market in the country), University of Wisconsin athletics, four lakes, and more. Drive a little further and you are in Wisconsin's famous Driftless Region for hikes and recreation. The city is also 90 minutes from Milwaukee and just over 2 hours to Chicago. Housing is expensive, with the median home price around $570k, but these values look to continue to rise as the city expands further in the coming years. Cost of living is otherwise close to par with the rest of the country.
The Verona school district consistently performs very well in the state — of its ten schools, six exceed or significantly exceed state expectations, and none fall below meeting them.
The Wisconsin Presbytery is committed and mobilized for church planting through the "On Wisconsin" network, providing structure and vision to support church planters, apprentices, and students who feel called to Wisconsin.
Madison is home to three PCA churches. The church planter will need to work with all three churches to help build a thriving group gospel centered community in Dane County for years to come.
A good candidate to plant in Verona will be prepared to prayerfully invest in relationships over an extended time in a city that values hospitality but is increasingly unfamiliar with Christianity. He will need to work in community to invite neighbors while weathering the transience of the area. This congregation will not only need to be close with each other but to be able to both welcome newcomers in warmly and send departing members gracefully.
He will need to speak intelligently to a highly educated congregation with a pastoral care for young families. At the same time, he will need to challenge the idols of health, wealth, and prosperity in the congregation, showing that true security is only found in the Gospel of Jesus. He will also need to speak to those going through these life changes: moving, changing jobs, getting married, starting a family, and navigating aging for the first time. In each of these areas, he will want to point the community how the heart's desires for belonging and satisfaction are only met in the person of Jesus and the community he leads by his Spirit.
The Vision
That the church would flourish in Verona, Wisconsin.
Meeting people where they are in their journey — young professionals, young families, retirees, or children — whether they live in the city for a few years or a few decades. Showing that Christ has redeemed all of our lives for his glory, pointing the whole body of believers to the truth in love Jesus shows us in his life.
Take a Next Step
Verona is growing faster than almost any city in Wisconsin, and there is no Reformed church here to grow with it. We are praying for a planter — someone willing to learn this city, sit in its coffee shops, and build a church for the families and young professionals filling in its edges. If that stirs something in you, or if someone came to mind as you read this, we would love to hear from you.
We are a community finding life in the gospel of Jesus in order to love God and neighbor and bless our city.