Tucked into the Pavilion Center Drive corridor in the Summerlin neighborhood of northwest Las Vegas, Desert Spring United Methodist Church has grown into one of the more active United Methodist congregations in the valley. Three Sunday morning services cater to contemplative, traditional, and contemporary tastes. A client-choice food pantry distributes groceries several times a week through the Desert Spring Community Resource Center, which the church itself launched in 2020. Children move from the nursery through fifth grade under the Kidspring banner, middle and high schoolers join the Youth Ministries, and three United Women in Faith circles meet across the month. The congregation's purpose statement sets the tone for everything that follows: "We welcome all people to discover and live a life of purpose through Jesus Christ, as together we make a meaningful difference in the lives of others."
Three Sunday Mornings Under One Roof
Desert Spring offers three distinct worship services every Sunday, all in the main sanctuary at 120 N. Pavilion Center Drive and all available both in person and through a livestream on the church's online platform, Facebook, and YouTube.
The 8:00 a.m. service is the quietest of the three. The congregation describes it as contemplative worship, with traditional Christian hymns and a choir, and the table is set with Holy Communion every single week. For those who prefer a livelier but still classically Methodist experience, the 9:30 a.m. service offers traditional Christian hymns and choir music with Holy Communion on the first Sunday of each month. The 11:00 a.m. service shifts into a contemporary register, led by a praise band, with Holy Communion celebrated monthly.
Bulletin worship orders are posted online the same morning, and a livestream archive means that anyone traveling or housebound can watch the services on demand. A mobile app - found in the app stores under "Desert Spring Church" - pushes worship reminders and announcements straight to a phone.
Kidspring: Infants Through Fifth Grade
Children are a centerpiece of Sunday morning at Desert Spring. Nursery, toddler, and preschool care runs during all three worship services, with no registration required and masks optional. Teachers frame their work around the idea of modeling the love of Jesus Christ through play and exceptional care, and the ministry is led by Maria Astete-Letelier, who grew up attending the Methodist church and has been part of Desert Spring for about eight years.
During the 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. services, an Elementary Sunday School meets for kindergarten through fifth grade. Teachers engage students in the same scripture and message the adults are hearing, then open the floor to questions: How does that scripture apply today? Is God saying something to me? How do I use this in my daily life? Faith Dolce serves as Director of Children's Ministry, with Jeanie Hedden coordinating Sunday School. The program partners with Potosi Pines Camp, a United Methodist camp, for summer and retreat experiences.
Youth Ministries: NASCAR Stands and Mission Trips
Middle and high schoolers meet for Youth Sunday School during the 9:30 a.m. service, and the rest of the week is filled with fellowship opportunities directed by Theresa Gettamaneni, a Las Vegas resident of more than ten years who has a background in working with young people.
Funding for the youth mission trips and summer camps comes largely from one memorable annual project: the NASCAR Youth Fundraiser. Each spring and fall, Desert Spring volunteers run three souvenir stands - one outside trailer and two inside stands - at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Volunteers aged sixteen and up sell merchandise at the race weekends, with carpooling provided and food supplied on site. The fall 2024 weekend alone raised $8,600 for the youth program.
Outside of NASCAR weekend, the youth group uses its own Facebook community to keep in touch, and registration for the program is available online.
Adults: Bible Studies, Circles, and Confidential Care
The adult ministry calendar is full and varied. The Pastor's Bible Study meets weekly on Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Rooms 15 and 16, led by the pastoral staff. The church also runs adult classes, a book club, and a music ministry that includes the choir heard at the 8:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. services.
United Women in Faith, the official women's organization of the United Methodist Church, organizes three active circles at Desert Spring, all open to any woman:
- Deborah Circle meets on the second Wednesday of each month at 9:30 a.m. at the church. It supports Peggy's Attic, the donation center for Child Haven, which serves children awaiting foster home placement.
- Ruth Circle meets on the second Sunday of each month at 12:15 p.m. in Room 2. It focuses on education, health, and economic empowerment for women and girls, and supports The Shade Tree, a local shelter for women.
- Serendipity Circle meets on the third Thursday of each month at 10:00 a.m. in members' homes. Its local mission focus is Family Promise, an organization helping homeless families in Las Vegas transition into permanent housing, and Spread the Word Nevada, which distributes books to children in at-risk schools.
The unit as a whole also backs Spread the Word Nevada, Street Teens, and the Desert Spring Community Resource Center. A separate Stephen Ministry program trains lay caregivers to provide confidential one-to-one Christian care to people in the congregation and community who are facing grief, divorce, hospitalization, job loss, terminal illness, or other hard seasons. The Care Team, coordinated by Pastor Eve, extends that support by visiting members who cannot come to worship in person and bringing communion when requested. A confidential prayer request form and an email prayer chain round out the pastoral care network.
The Good Choice Food Pantry and Community Resource Center
Desert Spring Community Resource Center (DSCRC) is the congregation's flagship outreach ministry. It started in 2020 as the Different Kind of Christmas project that year, in response to food insecurity that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today it operates a client-choice food pantry called the Good Choice Pantry, where visitors select their own groceries rather than receiving a pre-packed bag.
The pantry is open on the second and fourth Saturday of each month from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and on Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. New clients are welcome at every shift. Registration happens through the Three Square Oasis system, which requires a local address and a few household questions. DSCRC is a partner agency of Three Square Food Bank, the regional food bank, and is funded in part by the State of Nevada's Fund for a Healthy Nevada and the City of Las Vegas Community Development Block Grant.
On a typical week, roughly 380 families rely on DSCRC for food. Volunteers also drive the Grocery Rescue program Monday through Saturday, picking up hundreds of pounds of food from three local Albertsons stores in their personal vehicles. The pantry now offers shifts every day of the week, and even four hours a month makes a measurable difference.
A Different Kind of Christmas
Each Advent, Desert Spring sets aside its usual Christmas exchange in favor of a single large mission project. Congregation members are invited to give up receiving one gift and instead donate to the chosen cause, often in honor of friends and family. The entire Christmas Eve offering also goes to the partner.
The 2025 project was a $50,000 campaign to buy a cargo van for the Desert Spring Community Resource Center. The van would expand Grocery Rescue to additional stores and add more than a thousand pounds of food per day. Past partners include the Cambodia Street Children's Ministry, a United Methodist global mission that provides food, clothing, school supplies, uniforms, and Christian education to children in Phnom Penh (the 2018 goal of $50,000 was surpassed at $54,000), and the Sandy Valley Food Pantry, a partnership with the Keystone Enrichment Foundation to address food insecurity about an hour outside Las Vegas.
The tradition of giving a single gift back to one cause each Christmas has become a defining rhythm of the congregation.
Around the World from Summerlin
Beyond the annual Christmas offering, Desert Spring's mission footprint reaches across several continents. The Robert and Marion Bell Endowment honors a longtime church member and his wife by funding scholarships at Africa University, a Pan-African United Methodist institution near Mutare, Zimbabwe. The endowment raised $137,000, surpassing its $130,000 goal, and supports students in the College of Business, Peace, Leadership and Governance.
Closer to home, the Crowd Management program turns a Saturday night into a fundraiser. Desert Spring is a registered nonprofit with Best Crowd Management, which deploys volunteers as temporary security, ticket takers, ushers, and guest services staff at T-Mobile Arena, MGM Grand Garden Arena, and Michelob ULTRA Arena. Volunteers earn $16.88 per hour or more, with as few as ten events a year generating $5,000 to $10,000 for the church.
Roots, Values, and the Pathways
The church's "Our Story" page lays out a set of values that shape the congregation's culture: Inclusivity (all people are beloved children of God), Hope (our best days are before us), Trust (God equips us for a life of purpose), Outwardly Looking (we seek to be a blessing to others), and Joy (we celebrate God's gifts). The leadership calls the culture "Permission Giving" - choosing to trust God and one another so that people can act faithfully on what they sense God calling them to do. The Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5 - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - is held up as the measure of how the church carries out its ministry.
Spiritual formation is organized around three "Pathways." The Head pathway focuses on learning scripture and what it means to follow Jesus. The Heart pathway is about experiencing the presence of Christ. The Hands pathway puts faith into action through service to others and the wider community. A Discovery class, offered several times a year, is the recommended starting point for anyone considering the next step. The annual stewardship campaign, with the 2026 theme "Rooted Souls, Generous Lives," ties the financial life of the church to the same picture of being rooted in Christ. An intercessory prayer team gathers weekly in the Scott Tyra Memorial Chapel to lift up the prayer cards submitted by the congregation.
Pastors and Staff
Rev. Paul Cho serves as Senior Pastor. A lifelong United Methodist with roots in both South Korea and Arizona, he grew up watching his father pastor a Korean congregation in Tempe and completed his Master of Divinity at Claremont School of Theology. He has served in pastoral and chaplaincy roles across California and Arizona and helped launch the Tucson House of Prayer. He and his wife Julie, a professional musician, have three children.
Rev. Eve Williams is the Associate Pastor and an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. She earned her Master of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Before seminary she worked outside the church context, including time in the convention and trade show industry, and that experience shapes her approach to identifying big problems and breaking them down into smaller pieces. She is also the contact for the Care Team.
Faith Dolce directs Children's Ministry, with Theresa Gettamaneni leading Youth Ministries and Jeanie Hedden coordinating Sunday School. Maria Astete-Letelier heads up early childcare education. Chris Devereaux, a UNLV graduate in graphic design, serves as Director of Worship Technology, overseeing the livestream and in-person production. Linda Rizzuto is the Accounting Manager, and Voltaire Verzosa, a classically trained pianist and countertenor who also teaches at the College of Southern Nevada and Nevada School of the Arts, serves as pianist and countertenor for the music ministry.
Worship, Visiting, and Giving
Sunday morning worship at Desert Spring happens at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m. The building is on Pavilion Center Drive in Summerlin, near the 215 beltway. The office is open Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and closed on Fridays. Anyone interested in visiting can request prayer, register attendance, or sign up for email and text updates through the church's online forms. The Desert Spring Church app - found in app stores or by texting the word "app" to 702-766-6641 - keeps the calendar and livestream close at hand. Online giving, including text-to-give and recurring gifts, is available through the church's secure giving platform, with designated funds for the General Operating Budget, the Endowment Living Legacy Fund, the choir section leads, Stephen Ministry, and the Africa University scholarship endowment.
The church is part of the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church, supported by the wider United Methodist connection through agencies such as Global Ministries and UMCOR.